HULK #1Written by Jeph Loeb
Art by Ed McGuinness
I'm going to start positive before I lay any criticisms on this piss poor attempt at a comic book. The art was excellent. I'm not usually a fan of McGuinness' style. I don't consider it bad artwork or horribly crafted, it just doesn't click with me usually. However, unlike how I felt about his earlier work, I really like his art here. His style really suits the characters and he does a great job with the action scenes. The only complaint I have about his art is the lack of background work. While the characters all look great, many backgrounds are completely barren or consist of a plain, washed out sky or generic background image. It's a small complaint though and I assume it was due to time constraints.
As for the actual story, this is 100% a Jeph Loeb story. Remember how inane and pedantic Ultimates 3 was? This issue isn't quite as bad as that, but it's close. If you recall, the previews for this issue showed a blanked out last panel during Samson and She-Hulk's CSI scene recounting the red Hulk's fight with the Abomination. That blanked out scene was a picture of the Hulk holding a gun. Not some giant energy gun or heavy artillary. No, he was using a six-shooter revolver and the next page has him shooting the Abomination. Who cares if he's super strong and easily defeated him. He had to bus' a cap in his ass because that's hip and edgy and cool according to the Book of Loeb.
On top of the foolishness that was the red Hulk, Loeb has Doc Samson, who has been having a resurgence of late with his excellent appearances in Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts and the Knauf's Iron Man. In this book though, he's a brain dead thug. A Russian super team showed up to claim the Abomination's body. They had some words, but showed no signs of fighting the US heroes. They just wanted to claim the Russian Abomination's corpse since this incident happened on Russian soil. One minute they are all talking and the next page, with no provocation that I could see, Samson just starts wailing on one of the Russians, inciting a pointless fight to distract us from the completely ridiculous and contrived lack of story this book had. Hercules has more brains than this Doc Samson.
Finally, Loeb decides to let us all in on who the red Hulk is - none other than Rick Jones. While it's not completely revealed, we see him wake up with the tattered pants that Banner usually has and a destroyed oil pipe line of Hulk proportions in the valley below him. Unless Loeb tries to be 'smart' (please God, don't let him try), it's almost guaranteed to be Rick Jones.
Oh ya, remember WWH's ending? The one with Bruce Banner in a coma / stasis tube? SHIELD got tired of that and woke him up and put him in an Ultimates-style glass box where, if he Hulk'd out, he obviously couldn't just bust out or anything.
Verdict - LOEEEEBBBBB! Does Loeb just spin a wheel and use whatever retarded idea shows up? This reads like bad fanfiction. Do not buy this book. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
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