Ultimate Human

My love of the Hulk really started with the excellent 90's cartoon series and slightly more hazily the Lou Ferrigno/Bill Bixby days and this story conjures up warm memories of both those series. This story collects all 4 issues of Ultimate Human and starts with a haunted Bruce coming in desperation to Tony Stark for a possible cure to his quite literal inner monster, and it even has that glorious finite feeling that each episode of the above TV series have, with the Hulk bouncing away at the end to who knows where.... I also love Hulk stories that play up the dichotomy of Banner and Hulk and that's why I love the Ultimate incarnation of Hulk, with the weasely Bruce Banner in direct opposition to the truly monstrous Hulk.

This story is of course not all about the Hulk and Warren Ellis writes a bloody good Tony Stark, smooth, suave, funny, and again wonderfully different from the quite pathetic Banner. The third star in this story is Ellis' brilliant re-interpretation of the Leader. In this version the leader is one of Britain's finest, an MI6 agent who believes so strongly that Britain should have its own super soldier program and so desperate for quick results to prove this premise to his superiors that he tests the serum on himself. The British government is swaying more towards a European super soldier program, which would no doubt be exceedingly close to the mark. Upon application of the serum he still has the massive head you'd expect but his body is unable to support it and so he's wheelchair bound. Desperate to now get his hands on a working sample of super soldier serum he decides to get himself some Hulk blood. I really can't overstate how great the leader and his back story is. Anyway I won't drop any spoilers but needless to say all hell ensues as expected, and it definitely doesn't disappoint.

A massive two flippers up.

Viking #1

I have a masters in Medieval History from the university of Antarctica, and have a particular passion for the Viking Age..... so it's fair to say that I was eagerly awaiting this series.

The cover certainly beats most issues on the shelves this week, and I'm very pleased to say that the artwork inside is, if you can excuse the pun, top drawer. It's wider than standard modern age comics and each two page spread is a glorious feast for the eyes (it's also refreshingly free of adverts).

As for the content... it left me wanting more, but not necessarily in a good way. There's not much here, the briefest introduction of what I assume will be the main characters. The two protagonists on the front cover are Egil and Finn and they would appear to trying to set themselves up and the new bad-boys in town, but this issue is very light on story.

I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and pick up the second issue, but it'll have a lot of work to do to make me interested enough in these characters to keep reading.

Hulk hands.

Hulk hands.... a necessity for the penguin about town.

383

I love this cover, so much so I have it framed in my room, so it seemed like as good a start as any to The Sakaarian. The issue itself is fairly mediocre, a classic transitional story that shouldn't really be read on its own, out of context. It's a shame really since the fight with the Abomination is set up quite nicely, Emil is stalking his actress former wife and the Hulk is sent in to deal with his old foe. The actual confrontation of Hulk and Abomination is a bit of a let down (The issue after this one however more than makes up for it!).

In other events Betty goes blond in preparation for the nineties, while trying to come to terms with the new look Bruce Banner (At this point we have Bruce in control but with the Hulk's body). Some of the best moments in the PAD/Keown run happen in the side-stories about Betty and Marlo, leading up to Marlo's genuinely shocking death in issue 398, they give the run a grounding in real-life that is so often lost in superhero comics.

It's an issue I'd love to re-write as a self-contained, one-shot, 30's style detective story. That's always the idea I get when I look at this cover.