Fall of the Hulks/World War Hulks (2010)
The life of a former comic book aficionado is a strange
one. I followed the Incredible Hulk
comic book for a few years as a youngster, absorbed in the tale of a genius
whose altruism causes his transformation into a being of pure, brutish,
strength and rage. One of the joys of
comic fandom is that, whenever you jump into a new comic, there are back
issues, and former stories, available to discover. For instance, I relished learning that the
Hulk was initially grey, the change to green made for purely illustrative
purposes, later retconned into the Hulk’s “evolution.” Several other people had become “hulks,”
altered by the same Gamma energy that Bruce Banner initially experienced, by
the time I came to the comic. Various
gamma powered enemies and frenemies appeared in the comic books, each slightly
different in some way from the original Hulk.
When I stopped reading the monthly comic, I lost track of the story.
Much later, my
ears perked up at tales of a story called Planet Hulk, published in 2006. Reading that story caught me up somewhat to
what had occurred in the Hulk’s world since my fandom days. After an extra-destructive rampage, ending
with the Hulk destroying much of Las Vegas, the smartest heroes in the world (naming
themselves the Illuminati) conspired to trick Bruce/Hulk into boarding a
rocket. The rocket launched and sent the
Hulk to a planet across the galaxy.
Planet Hulk tells the story of the Hulk, unable to turn back into Bruce
Banner, rising from a slave and gladiator to a rebel leader of a worldwide
revolution on this planet. He rules, marries,
and sires offspring. The shuttle that
brought the Hulk becomes a monument. An internal
issue causes it to explode unexpectedly, killing the hulk’s bride. The Hulk
blames all of this on the Illuminati members who initially banished him, and
wages war on Earth and its heroes. That
story is called World War Hulk and has the Hulk and his cronies beat the crap
out of everyone in the Marvel universe.
Eventually, the Hulk is beaten via a gamma-power draining weapon, allowing
for Bruce’s imprisonment.
This brings us to
this story, that of the Fall of the Hulks/World War Hulks. Using the power drained from the Hulk,
various gamma-enhanced super-beings are created, tools for their respective
creators. It is a complex and fun story,
which sees the Intelligencia, the cabal of hyper-smart arch-criminals responsible
for draining the Hulk’s gamma power, plot and achieve the capture of the
smartest minds on Earth. Initially
conceived as a team to help plunder the Library of Alexandria from the Eternals
that cared for it, the Intelligencia now sought to utilize the brain power of
these geniuses to help compute their evil schemes. As usual, I will refrain from giving away
much of the plot structure.
Their plans and
schemes are complex, as suited to such smart villains, and only someone with
the brains of Bruce Banner can stop them.
The Hulk has always been a great blend of insane power and destruction
at the hands of the Hulk, and brilliant science and humanity coming from Bruce. It is what drew me to the comic as a youth,
and what keeps me checking in every few years to see the amazing stories the
good people at Marvel craft. I recently
read the more current Hulk comic of Immortal Hulk, which is amazing. I look forward to more!
