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dozmuttz's review
3.0
As the Hulkathon goes on, this Vol. felt like a bit slowed down from the previous stories, at least the first half. There's the continued theme of Hulk on the run and fighting his challenger of the week. There are some great actions scenes, and he goes up against some cool foes, however it does get a bit tedious as it's not much different from what felt fresh in earlier issues. We do see a bit of a change towards the end of the series where, instead of people simply hunting the Hulk to stop him and end him, they are trying to help him. A big example of this is Thunderbolt Ross, who normally want's the Hulk to die, turns a new leaf and actually wants to help heal Banner. He even lets him marry his daughter! He's more patient and understanding of the Hulk, but of course things never go right, and it ends in rampage. Regardless, It's great character development in Ross and a nice change in story. There are a lot of bizarre things that happen to Banner and the Hulk and one of the biggest and most unique to me was the physical separating of Banner and the Hulk. An idea and plot that will be done later on in the Hulk's timeline and I'm sure done even better, but I like that the concept was brought on this early.
Roy Thomas takes over main writing duties and at first you can tell he was kinda following the Hulk writing formula which made the series kinda drag, but as he went on you can see his own ideas come to page and the series is better for it. The Hulk is still the Hulk but it kinda goes back to its SCI-FI roots. Thomas does like to show a lot of unnecessary monologue and dialogue in the beginning but as it goes on the pacing adjusts, however it's not as nice as the Stan Lee pacing...for me at least.
Herb Trimpe continues to be the main artist and I'm still in love with it! There are some issues where Trimpe seems to slack a bit, but it could be the inkers he was working with. For the most part it's still top tier work.
Overall, this collection feels like it's trying to do something new but doesn't know how to do it. At least until the 2nd half of the book. The beginning feels like it's stalling and when we finally do get something new it just feels like it took too long. I'm hoping the pace can pick back up in the next couple Vols cause if we can get back to that along with the new concepts brought in, the title can be flawless again.
Roy Thomas takes over main writing duties and at first you can tell he was kinda following the Hulk writing formula which made the series kinda drag, but as he went on you can see his own ideas come to page and the series is better for it. The Hulk is still the Hulk but it kinda goes back to its SCI-FI roots. Thomas does like to show a lot of unnecessary monologue and dialogue in the beginning but as it goes on the pacing adjusts, however it's not as nice as the Stan Lee pacing...for me at least.
Herb Trimpe continues to be the main artist and I'm still in love with it! There are some issues where Trimpe seems to slack a bit, but it could be the inkers he was working with. For the most part it's still top tier work.
Overall, this collection feels like it's trying to do something new but doesn't know how to do it. At least until the 2nd half of the book. The beginning feels like it's stalling and when we finally do get something new it just feels like it took too long. I'm hoping the pace can pick back up in the next couple Vols cause if we can get back to that along with the new concepts brought in, the title can be flawless again.
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