Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Hulk Family Green Genes #1
Marvel Comics
Van Lente, Clark, Adams, Areola, Pak, Raapack, Sotomayor, Tobin, Jew, Baumann, O’Clark, Vey & Loughridge

Hulk gets four stories in this issue without appearing as the star of any of them. This issue gives a look at the other lives that have Bruce Banner blood running through their veins. It provides a jump-on type point for She-Hulk and Skaar and it gives an elseworld type story for one daughter and a wrap up story from World War Hulk for another. It’s an okay issue. I can’t say I’d recommend this to your regular old Hulk fans and at the cover price of five bucks you should know exactly what you are getting before your purchase.

The first story, a sixteen pager, has an early adventure of She-Hulk in Las Vegas at her college reunion. She bumps into Joe Fixit. At this point in the Hulk timeline Hulk was grey and working as a bouncer named Joe Fixit in Las Vegas. Apparently around this time She-Hulk thought Bruce was still dead. I’m not up on my She-Hulk continuity, but it appears she has no idea the grey Hulk is the real one. She confronts Fixit in hopes of determining if it is Bruce. Some mutants with bad things on their minds show up and Fixit goes to work. Fixit’s indifference and brutality help to convince She-Hulk that Fixit is not Bruce Banner. It’s a fairly decent story. It made me want to see more retro-Fixit.

The second story, a nine pager, is about Skaar, Son of Hulk. Skaar cant’ seem to talk. As such, he needs to write on walls or have someone talk for him. The story is basically a display of his savage moments and his tender moments. You never really know what you’ll get and when. It’s a lot like Hulk in that way, except this story is very much in the Conan way of telling stories. I found it odd that Skaar’s handlers refer to him as a “man”. They aren’t men on that planet, Skaar’s parents weren’t men (they didn’t know Hulk had another personality) so why would they think Skaar to be a man? Weird.

The third story, eight pages, deals with Hulk’s daughter with Thundra from a one shot earlier this year. It doesn’t appear she has a name, but she is the leader of the women fighting against the men in her time. It’s a dystopian, dysfunctional future where the men and women are at war, so reproduction is a mystery. The Hulk daughter finds a base and discovers the test tubes where the men reproduce. She’s faced with a dilemma. Like Skaar, she has her savage moments and her kinder moments. Hers are more predictable. This story was okay, but it’s not in the regular Marvel universe so caring about it was kind of tough.

Finally, we have an eight pager story about Scorpion set immediately after World War Hulk. Scorpion had a minor part in World War Hulk and now we come to find out that she may be the daughter of the Hulk as well. She tracks Banner as they transport him to the army base in the desert and she is forced to come to terms with not knowing if he is her dad or not. It’s a decent story that has no clear cut ending.

The comic is okay. It has its moments, but it isn’t worth the five dollar cover charge in my book for forty one pages of original story, even with the reprint of She-Hulk #1 tucked in back from 1979. All you have here is two small out of continuity stories and two that took place in previous arcs as if they were cut scenes from long ago. I like the idea of having Hulk family members running around out there, but I would have preferred more bang for my buck here. Hulk peripheral character enthusiasts only on this one.

2.5 out of 5 geek goggles