Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #4Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk #4 of 6
Marvel Comics
Lindelof, Yu & McCaig

This issue primarily deals with She-Hulk. Actually, you could say it expands the characters of Jen Walters and Betty Ross and the results are She-Hulk. Normally you might find a comic where the two title characters are largely absent to be boring, especially in a short series, but this is not the case here. This comic tells a very creative origin story of She-Hulk and shows the same scenes we saw in issue one where Wolverine is recruited to kill Hulk told from the female perspective. The comic fits right in with this series very well.

Imagine four horizontal lines in four unique rows. One represents Hulk, one Wolverine, one Betty Ross and the last one Jen Walters. These lines moving from left to right act as the timeline of events. At some points some or all of the lines cross. Now take each line and chop in into six or so pieces numbered from left to right starting with one. This comic series has been telling this story from any one of the four lines perspectives but picking parts three and four to start before jumping back to part one and two. If you hate the storytelling style of dancing around the timeline then this is not your type of comic. I, personally, find this style to be fascinating as it forces you to see the same scenes from different perspectives and makes you recall events that make you say, “So that’s how that happened!”

In this story, Hulk and Wolverine are barely in the issue. Instead, we are treated to Betty and Jen fighting over the fate of both Bruce and the serum that made the Hulk. This is an interesting twist but it does introduce some questions about the kind of power Betty yields over SHIELD, Tony Stark and the formula. I found it odd that she was heavily involved in the decision making process. Then again I haven’t followed the Ultimate universe so for all I know she is the President of the Unites States.

The comic has some good comedy in it and a ton of sarcasm. The whole scene where Jen tries to convince Betty for the formula is loaded with snarky comments. The sequence with Captain America and Stark playing ping pong ball also has some elements of tongue in cheek humor right down to Iron Man scoffing at the idea of having Hulk register with the government as a way to control when he turns into the Hulk. Civil War?

The art has lots of goodies in this issue. First of all, either by direction or by choice we see tons of cleavage. In some cases it’s just plain funny but in others it’s got that old school feeling that comics either have gratuitous body parts protruding out or fighting on every other page. Either way you cut it, this issue has some eye grabbing artwork to it on an awful lot of pages and panels.

If you can forgive the massive delays and like some twist to your origin story then this comic has something for you. There isn’t any fight between these pages but you do get a real nice yank of the rug out from under at the end of this thing. I enjoyed this issue as much as any in this series.

4 out of 5 geek goggles