World War Hulk #1

Or – “Hulk No Care About Political Infrastructure!”

Though every comic company uses the hype machine, Marvel is often considered to be the pinnacle of pre-release hyperbole, dating back to the heady days of Stan Lee. The House of Ideas has been telling the Fearless Front Facers for months that World War Hulk is going to be huge, and that nothing will ever be the same again. Even granted their overuse of that particular turn of phrase, after reading this issue, I’m starting to believe it.
Previously, on World War Hulk: Robert Bruce Banner created the Gamma Bomb, but was bathed in radiation when he tried to save teenager Rick Jones, who had entered the testing site on a dare, from being blown to smithereens. He walked the earth and had adventures, met Batman, stole the Rocketeer’s girlfriend, was revealed to have had a terrible childhood, and developed a love of beans. When the Illuminazis Illuminati, a group consisting of Marvel’s driving forces (the leaders of the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Avengers, Inhumans, and a guy who looks like Spock with winged ankles) decided that he was a threat, their alliance shattered. Unfortunately, some of their number succeeded into rocketing him into space, in the hopes that he would find another world upon which to live. This NIMBY reasoning failed, however, when the spacecraft they built suffered damage upon landing, and later exploded, destroying the planet that Hulk had made his own. Now, he’s back, and he’s madder than he’s EVER been… and there’s a proverb about what he’s like when he’s angry that you may have heard. As he approaches Earth, The Hulk remembers how he got here in a brilliant, concise sequence that tells you everything you need to know, and also clearly delineates who his targets are…

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As his ship enters Earth’s star system, it passes through some sort of asteroid belt. This is actually good for the Hulk, as he has held in his rage for some time now, courtesy of the training and assistance of his warbound allies. But as he is no longer holding back, he actually stands ON THE HULL of the craft and dealing with the asteroids with his BARE HANDS. Hulk no need oxygen! Hulk grow gills and breathe like a fish!!

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That is simply breathtaking. John Romita done brung his A-Game, and every panel is a joy to read. Back on Earth, a tracking station picks up a blip as the ship enters lunar space, but then it disappears. “Are you getting this?” asks one techno. “Yeah, I’m picking that up. We call it THE MOON,” replies he co-worker, returning to his story and sandwich. Heh. I love that line, for some reason. The blip is gone because the ship has landed, and the Hulk’s massive boots thunder onto the lunar surface. He is confronted by King Black Bolt and Queen Medusa of the Inhumans, and Medusa tells him in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t want this fight. “Black Bolt’s master blow can shatter your bones. And his merest whisper will blow your broken body into the sun.” Charming imagery there, Maddy. Confronted with the first of his intended victims, the Hulk doesn’t hear anything but the boiling of his blood. “You shot me into space. Killed my world.” She orders him to stop, but he raises his fist, and Black Bolt whispers a barely audible “Enough.”

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“…I want to hear you SCREAM!” bellows the Green Scar as he leaps back at the king of the Inhumans, his face a mask of rage. The Earth stations may have missed the ship, but the explosions and debris this fight kicks up on the moon are clearly visible, and the nations of Earth try to prepare for anything. Tony Stark is called into action as the Gruppenfuhrer of SHIELD, but by this time it’s too late. The Hulk’s ship appears in the sky over New York City, panicking the citizenry ala Independence Day and broadcasting a hologram to Times Square (and, apparently, the entire planet.) “Puny humans,” echoes the voice of the Hulk. “I’ve come to smash. And you should know who’s to blame. You call them heroes. I call them MONSTERS. Listen to what they told me before they tried to kill me…”

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“But I survived,” continues the Hulk, “with my Warbound. Korg. Miek. Ellor. Brood. Hiroim.” I like very much the way they tell us exactly what has happened in the last year of Hulk without slowing everything to a crawl. The recap is a seamless part of the story, and the telling of it is used to great dramatic effect (though I have to admit to not reading Planet Hulk, so it may be different if you already know the players and have a scorecard…)

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“…I’ll do this to your WHOLE STINKING PLANET.” The hologram holds up the battered and defeated form of Black Bolt, and my jaw hits the floor. If he can defeat one who holds the Power Kirby, what chance does an autocrat in a tinkertoy suit have? Tony knows he needs to find out what’s going on now, and Iron Man takes to the skies. “Norad. This is Iron Man. I’m taking over satellites Baker David five, six, and nine… I’m tapping into the satellites’ mainframes, rewriting the code, rerouting and antivirusing on the fly.” He uses his Deux Ex Machina Extremis power and links into the satellites. Unfortunately for him, in so doing, he makes himself vulnerable to the Hulk and his cybernetic ally (whose name escapes me.) They hit him with another electromagnetic pulse, like the one that disabled the satellites in the first place, and Tony is knocked for a loop. But as much as that shakes him up, he’s even more stunned by the appearance of an old friend…

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I like this… It’s good to see Anthony finally acting like the hero I remember, even if it’s only for a second. But you have to think he’s absolutely desperate to offer blanket amnesty like that, especially after all the recriminations and the horror that came out of the heroes refusing to register in the first place. Tony heads back to Earth and joins Reed Richards in finding Bob Reynolds (The Sentry) to convince him to power up and stand by their side. Bob is nearly paralyzed by this decision, remembering that the Hulk is a dear friend and even worse, the last time he saw The Hulk, he got every bone in the big guy’s body broken. But a little cajoling from Reed (“The Hulk needs you.”) and he turns into his golden alter-ego. As they start to leave, Sentry interrupts them… “Tony… A word please?” Whatever he says isn’t for us to know yet, as we cut to the evacuation of the city, with New and Mighty Avengers standing side by side. When a few tough guys won’t go, claiming that the Illuminati want to steal their homes, (because Tony Stark always wanted a Long Island crackerbox to go with his two castles, seventeen chalets, and Manhattan high-rise) and Spider-Man tries to talk to them. When that fails, a loud smashing noise is heard, and the sidewalk buckles. “It’s the Hulk!” cry the panicked citizens…

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Not that surprisingly, everyone starts cooperating after that display. For my part, I was confused by the appearance of Jennifer here. She apparently gets her powers back from the “permanent loss” in She-Hulk #14, but I don’t know when it happened, or if it has even been shown on panel yet. Iron Man arrives in his sooper-duper ‘Optimus-Prime-had-sex-with-a-battleship’ Hulkbuster armor, and Spider-Man comments that he thought we waiting for Superman the Sentry. “He’ll be here when the time is right,” replies the Iron Dictator. There’s real venom (no black suit pun intended) between them but suddenly, a spider-sense buzz nearly knocks Pete over. The dreaded battle cruiser appears in the sky over Manhattan, and Hulk… JUMPS OUT. From like, 10,000 feet! Hardcore, indeed. Iron Man takes off, ordering the strongest to stay ready and in reserve in case they’re needed. Immovable object? May I introduce you to Irresistible Force?

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I think *I* felt that one… As he engages the Hulk, Iron Man also sends out a transmission on all frequencies. “This is Tony Stark, Iron Man, Director of SHIELD. And yes, I fired the Hulk into space. So if you need to blame someone for his return, blame me.” This sounds remarkably like the last words of a man who believes he’s going to die. I’m strangely moved as the broadcast continues. “But everything I’ve done… everything I do today… everything I’ve EVER done… I do to protect the world. Someone once told me that with great power, comes great responsibility. That’s usually thought of as a lesson for children, a simple injunction to do the right thing. When I put on this armor, I took on more power than any human was intended to have… and maybe more responsibility than my heart can bear. But today…”

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“No matter what it takes.” This is definitely meant to be his epitaph. I suppose it’s better than “Here lies the Iron Dictator. The first syllable of that last word says it all.” I have to admit, I felt for Tony here, maybe as strongly as I have since he beat the bottle and defeated Obadiah Stane all those years ago. It’s a flash of the hero I remember from my youth, and I totally marked out for it. The Hulk goes down in a heap, and lies still for a moment. Around the world, video cameras record the incident, and in a certain Vegas casino, someone intones “Well, I guess that’s it, then.” A man that I’m dead certain is Rick Jones looks at the monitor with a grave face, and responds “Don’t bet on it.” Air Force jets rush in, firing their missiles, but in the heart of the explosion, The Hulk rises… “CAIERA!” he screams, remembering his lost bride, and their unborn child, remembering the horror of her last seconds of life, the death of an entire planet, and exactly WHO was responsible.

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It’s INCREDIBLY impressive to me that I feel as strongly for Hulk’s position as I do for Iron Man, especially over the loss of Hulk’s family. The artist formerly known as Bruce Banner leaps, hitting Iron Man at tremendous speed, and carrying both of them through the air like a bullet. They slam into (and more than halfway through) Stark Tower, and Hulk repeatedly hammers Iron Man with blows that could shatter a moon, not letting up for a moment. The force of their battle, the sheer power being exerted, does the unthinkable…

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I’m not sure how I feel about this sequence. I can’t help but remember (and the guys who wrote this work and probably live in New York, so they damn well intended it) waking up on a Tuesday morning and seeing the same thing over and over on every single channel. This moment really crystallizes the sheer extent of the damage being wrought, and it certainly hits it’s mark. I’m just not sure if that mark is below the belt or not… Six years isn’t THAT long, is it? Either way, as the heroes the police and fire department rush in, they’re obviously thinking the battle is over. They… are… WRONG.

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I know he’s not, but part of me is absolutely sure that Iron Man should be dead. Or, if not dead, rendered into a puddle of jelly, like Thor was after killing Jormungand. This… is extremely bad. We’re talking, “Egon, define bad?” kind of dangerous, here. This is obviously not the same Hulk we’ve come to know and love, and he’s playing for stakes well beyond anything the Marvel universe has seen before, Civil War included. In his mind, Iron Man has wantonly and intentionally killed an ENTIRE PLANET. To the Hulk, this is justice… capital punishment for a mass-murderer on a scale unheard of.

Marvel is really pulling out all the stops with this one, and Romita has cracked open a cinematic vision that’ll really ‘knock your dick in the dirt,’ to steal a line from Joe Lansdale. You won’t find a missed beat in the whole issue, artistically speaking… Greg Pak is telling an awesome widescreen story, but his writing doesn’t skimp on the character moments, with Spider-Man’s near cameo still interesting, as well as nice turns by Sentry and Iron Man. Even if it’s all downhill from here, this issue is quite an achievement, causing me to mark out for BOTH sides of the same fight, and showing us how terrifying it can be when the man who gets stronger when he gets angry gets angrier than anyone has ever gotten before. This is the “shot heard round the world,” the moment that will probably define most of our memory of this crossover, and it’s damn good, folks. World War Hulk #1 is well worth all 5 out of 5 stars, and enough to wipe away nearly any preconceived notions or reservations I may have had…