Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Fall of the Hulks Gamma #1
Marvel Comics
Loeb & Romita Jr
This one-shot, titled Gamma, sets up the final battle among the conspiracies that have eaten up the Hulk titles for over a year now. The comic makes sense of all of the seeming nonsense that has gone on since the red Hulk first debuted. It's actually a pretty good comic. The nagging question coming out of this story is whether or not this sets up a reason to follow the Fall of the Hulks storyline in the coming months and this might reveal a 'yes'.
The comic is simply an investigation into a murder and a funeral. That's really the entire comic book. The part of this that is not interesting at all is the people standing around discussing the murder details feels to have come directly out of Hulk #1. However, since that comic is almost two years old I suppose its fine to repeat much of what transpired in that story but just change around which characters are involved. The intriguing part of the comic is the person that is actually killed off. This is a spoiler warning.
When the red Hulk series began the death was a minor leftover villain of the Hulk. This time around it's Thunderbolt Ross. Sure he's been killed off before but this actually came as a surprise because he seems to have been so intimately involved in the plot and the creation of the red Hulk. Well, he's dead and it's a lingering mystery for most of the characters as to who killed him. The assumption is that it's the red Hulk that turned on him. But it's not that simple.
The funeral is well done but it really serves a purpose for moving the proper pieces into place. There are more than a couple of surprises that get revealed in this issue making it seem strange that Ross gets killed off only to drag back some of these other characters.
The portion of this comic that makes it worth its price of admission is how it lines up the alliances. There are so many characters…..Banner, red Hulk, red She-Hulk, Lyra She-Hulk, Dr Samson, Hulk-ed out Samson, MODOK, etc, etc. This comic actually straightens out which characters are working with the others. It may not make a whole lot of sense as to why they pick the sides they end up on but at least it pulls off drawing the battle lines.
Where the two-page recap gives most of the information that you need, the back contains many encyclopedia entries that really fill in the blanks as to which characters have betrayed the others. With the exception of the red She-Hulk, all of the entries have a ton of information that seems relevant.
The artwork is vintage Romita Jr. He's got a lot of pages for the funeral, which could have been really boring but he adds in his usual level of drama and expression. Those pages that he has some fighting he knocks out of the park as usual. The art is awesome on many, many levels.
Obviously the Hulk is a bit of a niche property. This Fall of the Hulks event isn't shaping up to be a cant miss mini event but does seem to be bringing a good story with a high level of execution, I would think, for the Hulk enthusiasts. This was a good comic regardless of whether you believe Ross is really dead or not or if you believe in the alliances. Things shaped up nicely in this comic book to deliver a good story.
4 out of 5 geek goggles
