Comic Review: World War Hulk

Published: May 7th, 2008
Written by: Greg Pak
Art by: John Romita Jr.

Marvel Comics, 197 Pages

Review:

Planet Hulk is one of my favorite story arcs of the ’00s. I never read the followup, World War Hulk until now though. I think the reason behind that is because Planet Hulk was so perfect, I didn’t want to diminish its impact on me by jumping right into the next big chapter in the Hulk’s life.

That being said, I’m glad that I did finally read this as it was a lot of fun. Sure, it doesn’t live up to what Planet Hulk was but those were big shoes to fill and this is still a worthwhile followup that shows the Hulk finally make it home with a serious chip on his shoulder.

At its core, this is a revenge tale. But there are a lot of layers and a dark secret that comes out at the end that really shakes the foundation of what this era’s Hulk stands for.

You see, the Hulk is not only mad that his friends (Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Black Bolt) sent him away against his will, marooning him on a terribly violent planet, but now he wants revenge because his wife and unborn child were killed by what he believes was the fault of these same former friends. So the Hulk returns to Earth with his allies from Planet Hulk ready for a showdown with his old teammates in the heart of New York City.

This story is full of epic destruction and incredible action. It’s also nice seeing John Romita Jr. do the art for this, as I’ve been an avid fan of his work since I first discovered him in the pages of Daredevil in the late ’80s.

World War Hulk is full of a ton of Marvel superheroes, all trying to stop the Hulk’s war against Earth’s mightiest. While it isn’t on Planet Hulk‘s level, it’s still a worthy sequel and changes the Marvel landscape going forward.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: the story that precedes this one, the near perfect Planet Hulk.

Comic Review: Planet Hulk

Published: April 2nd, 2008
Written by: Greg Pak
Art by: Gary Frank, Aaron Lopresti, Takeshi Miyazawa, Carlo Pagulayan

Marvel Comics, 401 Pages

Review:

I read The Incredible Hulk comics as a kid. But I wasn’t really a Hulk fan until Planet Hulk came into my hands in 2008. By the time I got to the end of it, I realized that I had just experienced one of the absolute best comic book stories of that decade.

A lot of the story would go on to be used in the film Thor: Ragnarok because a live action adaptation of the story wasn’t possible with all the issues regarding which studio owns the controlling rights over the character. But I loved what they did use in that Thor film between Hulk being a gladiator and the inclusion of Korg, as well as some other minor details.

It had been awhile since I read this story though and I thought that I needed to see how it has held up.

Well, this is still absolutely incredible. It is, most definitely, my favorite Hulk story of all-time. But I also probably enjoy it for the fact that it has some sword and sorcery elements to it and really just feels like Hulk the Barbarian.

Greg Pak did a stupendous job writing this though. For something so lengthy and beefy, the whole thing is engaging, there aren’t any dull moments and each issue builds off of the ones before them. This is what comic book writing should be. This has perfect pacing, every panel matters and it hits you right in the feels just when it needs to.

Planet Hulk had multiple artists work on it, which is common when a story arc is this long. But what’s great about it was that the style was consistent and you don’t immediately notice that it’s different. It all just fits together very cohesively. Sometimes different artists have styles that can conflict and be almost jarring when reading a collection. This does not suffer from that at all.

After jumping back into this 11 years later, I really want to read the followup World War Hulk now, which I missed back in 2008.

Rating: 10/10
Pairs well with: World War Hulk and the Peter David run on The Incredible Hulk.