Comic Review: Hulk: Visionaries – Peter David, Vol. 1

Published: November 12th, 2015
Written by: Peter David
Art by: Todd McFarlane, John Ridgeway

Marvel Comics, 215 Pages

Review:

I was never a big fan of Hulk as a character. At least not until I was older and read Planet Hulk. That epic story gave me a love and respect for the character that I hadn’t had before and in a lot of ways, it made me want to go back and check out some of the character’s more critically acclaimed runs.

Well, the one run that is always talked about with a lot of admiration is Peter David’s, which saw the talented writer work on The Incredible Hulk for 100 issues, a pretty incredible feat.

Now I have read some of David’s stories over the years and he was the Hulk writer when I started really collecting comics. So I have some of his issues in my collection. But I didn’t want to just thumb through those, I wanted to start at the beginning of David’s run, which also kicked off with the debut of Grey Hulk and the visual allure of a young Todd McFarlane’s art before he would go on to illustrate his own epic run on The Amazing Spider-Man.

I’m glad I read this. While it didn’t blow my socks off, it was a good, solid, energetic story that set the stage for a lot of avenues for Peter David to explore.

I like the Grey Hulk and he was the Hulk that was at the forefront when I first started spending my allowance on comic books at my local Starvin’ Marvin convenience store. I thought he was cooler, more interesting and now that I’ve read this, I was right.

Now I can’t say that I’m in love with this series or David’s run but I do want to delve into the second volume and see where it takes me. I’m not sure where McFarlane jumps off but I hope he stuck around at least for another collected volume or two because I really like his look for the Hulk, Leader and Doc Samson.

I can’t give the whole Peter David run a real assessment off of just this but it starts out strong and did inspire me to keep going down this rabbit hole.

As for now, I see something that could potentially be on the cusp of greatness.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: the rest of Peter David’s Hulk run.

Comic Review: X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants

Published: 1988
Written by: Chris Claremont, Peter David, Louise Simonson, Steve Englehart, Mark Gruenwald, Ann Nocenti
Art by: Marc Silvestri, Todd McFarlane, Bret Blevins, June Brigman, Kerry Gammill, Jon Bogdanove, Kieron Dwyer, Keith Pollard, John Romita Jr., Walt Simonson

Marvel Comics, 803 Pages

Review:

This was a story so big that it was collected into two massive volumes. But I figured I’d read both and give the whole thing a single review, as one body of work.

But that may have not been the best approach, as this crossover doesn’t really crossover in a way that makes one big story. This is more like an anthology of events that were going on in all the different X-books at the same time. And weirdly, this isn’t collected in chronological order but as separate stories without much overlap or characters meeting.

This big event also has some short stories focused on Hulk, Captain America, Daredevil, Black Widow and the Fantastic Four. In those tales, it shows what they’re up to during the events of what is happening in some of the X-books.

The Fall of the Mutants takes place between Mutant Massacre and Inferno. It is also the last of the ’80s X-Men crossovers that I hadn’t read in its entirety.

Out of all the tales here, I thought the X-Factor one was probably the best as it concludes the Apocalypse and Angel storyline, as it introduces Archangel for the first time. Also, the X-Factor arc showcases Cameron Hodge turning on the team, revealing his true agenda to set up what would eventually be the superb crossover event X-Tinction Agenda.

The New Mutants part was the weirdest but it also featured Hodge’s heel turn and kind of sets things in motion for X-Tinction Agenda and Inferno. This is also where the New Mutants dump Magneto as their teacher and return to the ways of Charles Xavier.

Ultimately, this was kind of a mess when read as one body of work. But it does do a proper job of bridging the gap from Mutant Massacre and the next two big events to follow.

Rating: 5.5/10
Pairs well with: other major X-Men crossover events from the ’80s and ’90s.