Fred Van Lente's fan-fiction attempt on Hulk... Well. I have mixed feelings about it. First of all, if that would be a movie (and OGNs are obviously easy to imagine like that) it would be a terrible failure...

But let's start with the good, shall we? It really isn't that bad, some parts were boring, but not that much, mostly it had a fine pacing. Some Hulk/Banner conversations were great and the canonical father moments were adapted okay as well. The hulking gorillas is a nice reference. But that's... that's pretty much it.

Other than that it feels more like an Ultimate Marvel 2.0. It's not THAT edgy, but the approach is mostly the same: everything is modern, more realistic, dark, Betty is a military woman, Talbot's substitute is a drug addict, Rick Jones and his teen brigade work for the russian drug dealer (that's Yuri Topolov, by the way), Bruce loves Betty, but fucks some scientist woman, Betty seems to have a crush on Bruce, but she fucks that "Talbot" guy as well and etc, etc, etc... I dunno, I think it's just got too old to be good in 2012.

The other "Ultimate" thing, that also comes to MCU is that passion to use known names for the characters we don't even see here. I'm about Ted Sallis, which is the Man-Thing, by the way, but here he's a scientist, which is canon, but his mention just triggered that Monica woman and made nothing else... It feels so pointless, it could be any other name, but we get a comic reference, because WOW, EASTER EGGS, MY GOD, GIVE ME MORE, I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM. And this isn't even a direct Hulk reference, which would be better.

The villains are bad as well. You think this is a more realistic look on the Hulk? Fuck, no. We have a freaking AIM here (THEM in this version. My friend said it's because AIM is I AM, so they are THEM here, LOL) and they use some WHAT THE FUCK alien things or so, it just looks so freaking surreal and not cool at all. Gargoyle was a bad character as well, I believe he was here just because he was the first Hulk enemy in the Earth-616, but Fred could make him better, than this... Yeah, he also dies, because why not. Add to this the final big boss literally out of nowhere. It really is the same as in the 2003 movie, he's a disfigured creature, that wanted to suck all the gamma from the Hulk. But he's not a father of Bruce, more like a rival. Yeah, Fred, good idea, I never saw this before.

All characters here are just bleak and not really interesting. The Banner/Hulk wasn't bad, but side cast is more like that. Replace Rick with a chair or completely remove him from the story and it won't get worse. By the way, I laughed at how he did recognize Banner in Hulk's face, especially when he saw Bruce before maybe for one minute straight or so...

And not only the story isn't ideal. The art isn't good as well. I mean, I saw worse, it's okay, but OKAY, nothing more. It's very dirty in the action scenes, the colors are acid-like and make everything even worse.

I don't know, maybe someone could find it interesting, but for me as a Hulk fan it feels meh. Mediocre book. more