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Comic Book Review – Immortal Hulk Book Four

Immortal Hulk Book Four (2022)
Reprints Immortal Hulk #31-40
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Joe Bennett, Javier Rodriguez, Nick Pitarra, Butch Guice, and Mike Hawthorne

In this penultimate omnibus of Immortal Hulk, writer Al Ewing continues exploring and deconstructing the Green Goliath. The tone of this book has consistently been that of body horror, a subgenre that fits the Hulk to a tee. It’s such a good match that I struggle to see Hulk working in another manner. As good as Donny Cates’ current run on the character is at the moment, it had such a massive shadow looming over it from Immortal. From the beginning, it has been clear that Ewing wants to use the Hulk to explore questions about identity and death and how the two intertwine. Gamma has become a mix of science and spirituality, a force that created Bruce Banner and may have been created out of him via some metaphysical means.

Comic Book Review – Daredevil by Chip Zdarsky Volume 1

Daredevil by Chip Zdarsky Volume 1 (2020)
Reprints Daredevil #1-10
Written by Chip Zdarsky
Art by Marco Checcetto, Lalit Kumar Sharma, and Jorge Fornes

I can’t say Daredevil has ever been a character I was drawn to reading. I’ve mostly been a DC Comics fan since I was a kid but have certainly read a healthy amount of Marvel Comics in that time too. However, Daredevil just felt like someone I never really clicked with and would instead read X-Men or Spider-Man. Nevertheless, this run by acclaimed writer Chip Zdarsky has garnered much praise, which intrigued me. So, I sat down and read through the run’s first ‘deluxe’ volume.

Comic Book Review – Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection Volume 2: Great Responsibility

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection Volume 2 (2017)
Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #18-38, Annual #2
Written by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
Art by Steve Ditko

This collection encompasses the final half of artist Steve Ditko’s work on the Spider-Man title, a run that holds a legendary status among comic book fans. And rightfully so, Ditko’s artwork reaches some grand new heights here. I found some of his work in the first seventeen issues to not be all that impressive, but here Ditko has some sequences that are among the best art I have ever seen in the medium. As for stories, this is a more mixed bag. By this point, almost every iconic Spider-Man villain had been introduced, a truly remarkable feat for just a couple years. That means these issues either feature the return of already beloved rogues or the introduction of those villains who would be forgotten almost as soon as they debuted. I doubt we will find many passionate fans of Molten Man or The Looter out there among the fandom. What we do get is the introduction of some vitally important supporting players in Peter Parker’s life.

Comic Book Review – The Eternals: Cosmic Origins

The Eternals: Cosmic Origins (2021)
Reprints material from Eternals v1 #1-4, Avengers Spotlight #35, Avengers #361, and What If? #25-38
Written by Jack Kirby, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Danny Fingeroth, and Bob Harras
Art by Jack Kirby, Ron Wilson, Rich Buckler, Jim Valentino, and Steve Epting

This is probably not the best place for a newbie to start with The Eternals. The collection is an odd mishmash of pieces that often end with a directive to go to another collection where the story continues. Here you get a sampling of the ways Jack Kirby’s Eternals have been presented from their debut in the 1970s to the mid-90s when Marvel had sort of gone off the rails. The Neil Gaiman/John Romita Jr. Eternals mini-series was not included here, which would probably be the best place for one unfamiliar with this branch of the Marvel family to go to first. All that said, The Eternals is an interesting property in the Marvel Universe as it is one of the most purely Kirby things ever dreamed up and has a parallel in DC Comics during Kirby’s exile there.

Comic Book Review – Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection V1: Great Power

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection Volume 1: Great Power
Reprints Amazing Fantasy #15, Amazing Spider-Man #1-17, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Steve Ditko & Jack Kirby

In hindsight, it’s often hard to see the chronological order that something iconic in our culture came about. If you were born decades after, you usually just see it as all mashed together. Take Spider-Man, for instance. He debuted in the pages of Amazing Fantasy in 1962. This was over a year (June 1961) that the Marvel Comics brand was created out of the former Timely/Atlas Comics. Fantastic Four #1 was published in November of ‘61, which many see as the start of what we know as Marvel Superheroes. Amazing Spider-Man #1 came out in March 1963 and was bi-monthly for its first three issues. What really makes this wild for me is realizing I was born 19 years after Spider-Man’s debut, a number that feels a lot smaller at 40 than it would have when I was eight years old. That’s the equivalent of something in 2021 that debuted in 2002. So from this perspective, it doesn’t feel so long ago.

Comic Book Review – Immortal Hulk Book Three

Immortal Hulk Book Three (2021)
Reprints Immortal Hulk #21-30
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Ryan Bodenheim, Joe Bennett, German Garcia, Tom Reilly, and Matías Bergara

Al Ewing’s Immortal Hulk run has been an excellent survey of every supporting character, villain, and central plot point of the Hulk. With Book Three, Ewing wraps up the General Fortean plotline while laying the threads for the eventual return of Hulk’s arch-nemesis, The Leader. As with everything that has come before, Ewing puts characters first to evolve the plots and conflicts naturally out of those revelations and details. We get glimpses into Fortean’s past, we get more character bits with Gamma Flight, especially the Absorbing Man & Titania. The book is just as much an ensemble piece as it spotlights Bruce Banner and his struggle with the Hulk.

Comic Book Review – Immortal Hulk Book Two

Immortal Hulk Book Two (2018)
Reprints Immortal Hulk #11-20
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Joe Bennett and Eric Nguyen

Rereading Immortal Hulk has been sparking my interest in going back and revisit Peter David’s Hulk run. That is a daunting task because of its enormity, but Al Ewing does such an excellent job of building on David’s numerous contributions to the Hulk mythos in a way that doesn’t feel derivative. This is done by introducing new aspects to Bruce Banner & The Hulk that complicates their relationship. I also think Jackie McGee is a grounding force, always there reminding the reader and Banner about the human costs of being this green behemoth. In Book Two, Ewing literally takes us to Hell, where Banner confronts those closest to him left as collateral damage.

Comic Book Review – X-Factor: Genesis and Apocalypse

X-Factor: Genesis and Apocalypse (2017)
Reprints Avengers #263, Fantastic Four #286, X-Factor #1-9, X-Factor Annual #1, Iron Man Annual #8, Amazing Spider-Man #282, material from Classic X-Men #8, 43
Written by Roger Stern, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Bob Harras, Louise Simonson, Tom DeFalco, Chris Claremont, and Jackson Guice
Art by John Buscema, John Byrne, Jackson Guice, Keith Pollard, Paul Neary, Bob Layton, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Terry Shoemaker, John Bolton, and Mike Collins

It was 1986, and for five years, Jean Grey had been dead. In a shocking development within the pages of Uncanny X-Men, she became possessed by the Phoenix Force, driven mad, and gave up her life to stop the cosmic entity from wreaking any more havoc. The original X-Men: Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, and Angel grew apart and left the team they started with. Then something miraculous happened, a cocoon was found in Jamaica Bay in New York City by the Avengers. With the help of the Fantastic Four, they discovered Jeany Grey inside, apparently without any memory of the tragedy that occurred. Her return would spur on events that would resonate throughout the Marvel Universe for decades to come.

Comic Book Review – Immortal Hulk Book One

Immortal Hulk Book One (2019)
Reprints Immortal Hulk #1-10 & material from Avengers #684
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, Le Beau Underwood, & Rafael Fonteriz

When I was a five-year-old living in Central Illinois, I can vividly remember watching NBC Saturday mornings, and my favorite shows were Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends and The Hulk. I would play-act, by myself usually being these heroes, and the transformation from Bruce Banner to Hulk was always one of my favorites. The shoes splitting open as his feet grew, shoulders expanding to split my shirt. Hulk, like dinosaurs, is one of those empowering figures for little kids; they represent an ability to unleash anger & strength in a world where your size and lack of knowledge make you vulnerable. However, as I got older, I didn’t find Hulk to be that compelling of a character. There were moments during Peter David’s epic run that piqued my interest, but after he left the book, it felt like there wasn’t much to say about Hulk other than retread that territory. Then Al Ewing came along.

Comic Book Review – X-Men by Jonathan Hickman Volume 2

X-Men by Jonathan Hickman Volume 2 (2020)
Reprints X-Men #7-11
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Francis Lenil Yu

Jonathan Hickman’s new status quo on the X-Men books has been such a refreshing surprising over the last year from Marvel. It seems more and more often, comic books get stuck in nostalgic cycles of retelling the same basic stories over and over. Hickman has totally reinvented the X-Men, ending the entire conflict between the team and their villains to tell a much more compelling story about a new race of people trying to carve out their own place on this planet. There really isn’t an X-Men team anymore with this title and many of the others featuring regularly rotating casts.