Incredible Hulk issues 413-416.In this four-parter by PAD the Hulk goes head to head against the whole Troyjan empire! The Troyjans are an ape like alien race that you don't see much of these days. The Troyjan prince Trauma comes to earth to claim Atalanta (one of Bruce's mates) for his bride. This starts a rip roaring 4 issue trek through space with some notable cameos along the way, the Silver Surfer is a particularly welcome addition.
Besides the generally great storyline the main interest comes in the recurrence of Dr Banners old bugbear, rage. At this point in the series Bruce Banner is in control but with the Hulk's body, this story starts to show the cracks in this particular arrangement. The story begins with Bruce on the good Dr Samson's couch receiving a dose of head shrinking. Samson points out that even though the Hulk is for all intents and purposes gone, Bruce still resorts to violence to solve all his problems. Once Atalanta is spirited off by Trauma the good Dr Banner becomes very, very, mad. His rage eventually leads him to kill Trauma, this could have been handled rather flippantly, I mean Trauma is the bad guy after all. However it's handled rather better than that, upon Trauma's death his father, Armageddon, is overcome with grief and simply lets our heroes go. Bruce also sees exactly where his rage led him and tries to offer condolences to Armageddon, but to no avail, in a somber and very fitting final scene.
I think it's definitely fair to say that there's a fair amount of Planet Hulk in this series, PAD came up with all the good ideas first.
No comments:
Post a Comment