Due to my stint in the E/R Saturday I wound up reading two volumes of IMMORTAL HULK: Hulk is Hulk and Keeper of the Door, followed by The Weakest One There Is later in the week (all digital). All by Al Ewing with Joe Bennett as the main artist.
In the first volume, Xemnu — one of Marvel’s pre-FF monsters, known as the Hulk — warps humanity’s memory so he’s their ideal: star of a popular Saturday morning TV show, leader of the X-Men, leader of the Avengers, while the green guy is just a nameless monster. As we learn at the end, and in the second of the three, this is a scheme by Hulk’s archfoe, the Leader, to get inside Bruce’s head and disable him. By the end of the two volumes the ruthless “Devil Hulk” is dead or disabled, Baby Hulk (the Bronze Age childlike version) has been traumatized into helplessness and the Leader has taken over the Place Below in alliance with the monstrous gamma entity. In the third volume, the Thing beats up on the weakened Hulk, the U-Foes attack and the Leader’s scheme moves closer to fruition. The next volume or two will wrap up this excellent run.
While at the E/R I also read my friend Samantha Bryant’s AGENTS OF CHANGE: A Menopausal Superheroes Collection. This is a group of shorts and novellas released individually, now combined into one book (I held off buying because I figured the collection was inevitable), taking place around the first three novels. Can Patricia the Lizard Woman handle her best friend turning out a mad scientist? How did Cindy Liu (said mad scientist) wind up back with her dad? Can Fuentes’ friends accept that the Latina grandmother they know is now a handsome younger man? Fun, as usual.
#SFWApro. Cover by Bennett, all rights to image remain with current holder.
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