Customer Reviews

Hulk, Vol. 2: Red & Green

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

For those wondering about the title, reading this collection of "Hulk" comics, illustrated by artists Frank Cho and Art Adams and written by Jeph Loeb, is a study in contrasts. Much like eating a delicious strawberry mousse and getting kicked in the balls by David Beckham at the same time. In one corner, you have two of the industry's most enjoyable artists, in the other a man whose acknowledged talent has flown the coop (he's written perhaps one thing in the last six years that wasn't awful, that being "Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America"). Spoilers follow, not that there's really a lot of plot to discuss.

This collection consists, in the main, of two stories that ran side-by-side in "Hulk" for three issues. The first, illustrated by Art Adams, sees Green Hulk (back to being a moron again with no explanation, after Greg Pak's "Planet Hulk" and "World War Hulk" invested so much in building him up as a character; Pak has since supplied one, but Loeb doesn't care) wander through Las Vegas in search of Red Hulk, only to get sidetracked by a bunch of Wendigos. He teams up with DC Trinity-analogues Sentry (Superman), Ms. Marvel (Wonder Woman) and Moon Knight (Batman), gets infected to turn into 'Wendihulk', and then Brother Voodoo appears out of nowhere to resolve the plot, in one of the most blatant deus ex machinas in recent memory. A whole lot of nuthin', in other words, though competently drawn by Adams.

Elsewhere, She-Hulk, who got beaten up badly by Red Hulk in the preceding story (built upon in one of the shorts in "King-Sized Hulk"), teams up with Thundra and Valkyrie (which of the two Valkyries you ask? Loeb doesn't care to say) to take him down. That they even think they have a chance (and they actually do) flows from Loeb assigning Red Hulk no consistent power levels. In the first arc, he effortlessly beat up Thor (which was complete nonsense, incidentally; Thor's hammer doesn't work like that), here he has trouble with three b-level hitters. Then a bunch more female heroes show up. Loeb has a tendency to write for his artists, and, since it's Cho drawing, that means lots of attractive female heroes. Cho is a bit of a contradiction himself; his women are muscly (sometimes overly so, as with Hellcat here) and strong-looking, but he also indulges in a lot of T 'n A shots; I'm a fan, with reservations).

Jeph Loeb, in his work for DC Comics in the mid and late 90s, produced a number of well-regarded stories, mainly involving Batman. While one can criticize them as being derivative of other stories, they were overall strong pieces; in the 2000s, though, his level of quality has dropped catastrophically. "Hulk" is not as obnoxious as the "Ultimatum" event currently destroying whatever was left of the Ultimate Universe, but it's just bad writing, glossed over with good art.

But S., you say, aren't you being overly analytical? Isn't this just good, dumb fun? Why no, it's just stupid. If you are looking for fun comics, I strongly advise you to look up the works of Fred Van Lente (such as "Incredible Hercules", co-written with Greg Pak) and Jeff Parker ("Exiles", "Agents of Atlas", any of the finer Marvel Adventures titles) and give this a pass. Not remotely worth anyone's time.

After reading Vol. 1, I was expecting more information on the Red Hulk. However, what I got was a mix of little information and a ridiculous battle between the Red Hulk and a bunch of female characters.

So after reading Planet Hulk, World War Hulk, and Skaar: Son of Hulk, I've been on a Hulk kick and I had to pick this up. I read about the origins of the Red Hulk and even about the Blue Hulk. The stories were good, so I wanted to see where the character would go from there. However I was also kinda hoping we'd still see the green Hulk thrown in there for good measure too.

This book just had the green Hulk in there kinda as an after thought. I was a little confused about the Hulk's powers. I mean in WWH (World War Hulk), he was impervious to anything short of a nuclear weapon and adamantium. Yet his flesh can be pierced by the fangs of a Wendigo? Unless they are Adamantium or Vibranium, they're not going to pierce his skin.

It was pretty cool to see all the chicks in the Marvel universe teaming up to kick the Red Hulk's big crimson butt. We also got to see that he is no push over and that he's worthy of the title of "Hulk." We also see some of his motives and that he's doing some recruiting, for what we don't know yet.

This wasn't terrible, but there was nothing epic in this book. If you're a fan of the Hulk pick it up.

Jeph Loeb has got to be one of the worst writers in the industry. Riding on his fame from one good book or two, he sours anything he puts his name to.
It's a real shame with top notch talent like Art Adams and Frank Cho to be brought down to his level by their mere association.

The main problem with this is its badly written the story is a bunch of splash pages that are held together by the question "Who is Red Hulk?" other than that Loeb throws the Hulk into one action scene after another with guest stars popping up out of nowhere.

The second problem is continuity. Its all well and good writing a story apart from regular marvel canon but Loeb uses so many guest stars in the case of Moon Knight and Valkyrie they seem to have lost years of character development.

I believe this story has been stretched out beyond its intended length the longer it stays away from the end the more frustrating and ill conceived the situations become.

I stuck with this title for a while in the hopes it would get better but after Over a year and half of bad dialogue Zero character development and the writers inability to write without cramming guest stars into nearly every issue I gave up.

The stories in this volume are bad and they're only going to get worse until Loeb relearns how to write and stops padding out a weak story about a superheroes evil twin.

This book presents the story of the red hulk, but it has nothing interesting, because the Vol. 1 is really good with great art and interesting dialogs, but this one it's a dissapoint from the begginig to the end, the reason is that nothing happens, I hope better things in the volume 3.

I can't ask for more. Like the first Red Hulk book, it was a fun, fast-paced read with great art. I'm a huge fan of the Long Halloween and other Loeb-Sale Batbooks and I'm an even bigger fan of Loeb after this series. The guy just writes fun stuff. He`s not one of those writers that feel a need to prove themselves, to show off their `skills' with pages and pages of dialogue and talking heads; the writers who seem ashamed that they work in comics and try legitimize a medium they might feel is childish by making the material dark, slow paced, and cerebral. Loeb keeps the books what they should be, cool and fun. The first half of the book was a Wendigo story, drawn by Art Adams. The second half, the Red Hulk is pared up against the ladies of Marvel, beautifully drawn by Frank Cho. I'm loving this series and I hope there are many more collections to come.

This comic is just one for the ages,first read vol.1 that just was great story, art and one of the best writes in history i'm a big fan of Brian Michael Bendis but what Jeph Loeb writes for hulk and for heroes i will gladly put money down anytime. Jeph Loeb is a Great writer!!!!

The artwork on this is superb. There are three different stories in this book. Done by different artists.