1 out of 5

I don’t envy writers who have to take on Hulk.  The Bruce Banner vs. Hulk angle having been mined for years, attempts to find a new angle are incredibly limited… and it’s hard to write a Mindless Beast effectively when he’s not a background character like Man-Thing or Swamp Thing; Hulk is front and center in the Marvel U, so logically dealing with his rampages and the resultant damage…  Well, I don’t envy those who take the job, regardless of whether or not they’ve been lifelong Hulk fans and this is their dream.

Mark Waid is a seasoned writer, and he generally knows what vibe to give a book to make sure its longtime followers are getting what they want, while still allowing newbies to jump on for the ride.  His flexibility (and his able to ‘aim’ that tonal precision) has just gotten better and better over the years, so I’ll go ahead and suppose that his schlocky “Hulk works for SHIELD” pitch for his ‘Indestructible’ run worked for the fans.  But man, it reads dumb.

I am to blame for jumping in cold, but so is Marvel: left with an odd number of Waid’s DD issues to collect into trades (and since he lovably didn’t write easily boxed up storylines), one of the volumes of the DD TPB’s includes Hulk 9 and 10, since they happen to include Daredevil.  Fearing I was missing some odd note that could enhance Mark’s awesome run on DD, I picked up the issues.  And they have no connection beyond the character’s appearance, and they don’t make much fucking sense.  Hulk works for SHIELD, and his “leverage” is telling his secrets to his lawyer, Matt Murdock, so SHIELD can’t take advantage of him.  Does Banner remember what happens when he’s Hulk?  No.  Waid tries to toss in a “if Murdock doesn’t hear from me he’ll go straight to the…” press, or whatever, clarification, but c’mon.  This is SHIELD.  I haven’t heard from Banner! Matt says, and then SHIELD turns up with Bruce, who doesn’t remember his Hulk actions, who can report that everything seems to be fine.  Womp womp.  I don’t know if this DD connection was ever mentioned again outside of these issues.  Anyhow, while SHIELD executes some stupidity in New York, Hulk and DD team up to track down a loose end from that stupidity, which Maria Hill says is a waste of time, even though the Byzantine weapon cache they’re trying to destroy / take was mentioned – by Hill – to contain guns where (paraphrasing) “even one could wipe out all of NY.”  But nevermind chasing down the missing gun, Banner and DD, because that gives the two of you a convenient way to team-up for a couple issues.

I forget where else I’d seen Matteo Scalera’s art – maybe Punisher? – but it is not suited to big scale action.  Everything’s SO over-the-top screamy yelly closeup-on-anguished-faces… it’s just a bland looking book.

So whatever.  Pretending this is a perfect Hulk book, then I guess I’ve just confirmed I don’t like Hulk books.  Minus that consideration, it’s poor writing and mismatched art.