Wednesday, November 6, 2019

The Wrath Of The World Breaker!


Having seen the events which led up to the 2007-08 series, World War Hulk, we know that Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Stephen Strange, and Blackagar Boltagon (that still sounds silly) are going to be made to answer for their actions toward the Hulk and, by extension, Bruce Banner--and though we'll discover that those actions don't amount to the level of transgressions that the Hulk intends to hold them accountable for, our four "heroes," in addition to a number of others as well as a sizable part of New York City, will suffer considerably by the time his rage and this series have run their course.

Which makes this more "NYC War Hulk" than what the title implies, since confining your attack to one city doesn't engulf an entire planet in a war. Still, when the Hulk emerges from an alien ship dangling his first victim, every costumed figure worth his salt knows that the Hulk's threat to extend his attack to the rest of the world must be taken seriously.  (Or so the Hulk would have them believe, should his demands not be met.)




The Hulk's announcement also serves to offer readers who passed on the "Planet Hulk" storyline (such as myself) a capsulized glance at the tragic events of that story while boiling down the Hulk's grievance against his four targets in a nutshell--which seems an effective way to handle a five-issue, 200+ page series in a single PPC post (hey, I'm not at war with the Hulk!) while offering a look at the work comprising this ambitious project.

As you might guess, the story's first order of business is to feebly tie the hands of the one person who could end this conflict with a single incantation.




It's a necessary scene, though it sidesteps the fact that Strange's immediate intervention is the one possibility that the Hulk and his "Warbound" haven't prepared for.* How embarrassing it would be for the Hulk to make his grandstand announcement, only to find himself and his little strike team suddenly appearing in one hostile dimension after another, in five-minute intervals, while the Illuminati put their heads together to come up with a more permanent solution.

*Or have they? Nothing stood out for me in that regard, but perhaps the more eagle-eyed among you picked up on it.

But that won't do in the real world, where a certain comics company is expecting to reap a mountain of $$$ from this project--and so as New Yorkers begin evacuating, we get right to it, as Iron Man engages the Hulk in his formidable Hulkbuster suit--a struggle which, after a fierce and well-planned battle, doesn't end well for the golden Avenger.



Two down, two to go. But when the Hulk moves to take down his next target, Reed Richards, he and his posse also capture the entire Fantastic Four--along with a few Avengers souvenirs.




That of course leaves Strange, who manages to talk the Hulk down after a punishing attack by the military leaves him open to Strange's influence. But prior to reaching Earth, the Hulk was prepared well by his brothers-in-arms in terms of harnessing his anger rather than letting it get the better of him and thus giving his enemies a predictable foe--and so, while Strange feels he has made headway in reaching Bruce Banner in a sincere effort to help him, he has in fact been lured into lowering his guard by a canny adversary who now deals with the greatest threat to his plans.





Strange would later resort to the risk of merging his essence with Zom, an immensely evil and powerful mystic foe who continues the battle in Strange's form and tears through the Warbound before taking on the Hulk in a brutal and, by all appearances, one-sided battle. Yet with Strange still struggling to assert himself over Zom's will, he becomes distracted when innocents are threatened by his own actions--giving the Hulk an opening to strike him down.

To cover one more base, the Hulk decides to approach Charles Xavier in order to put the question to him of whether he would have joined the other members of the Illuminati in voting to exile the Hulk, had he been present to do so.



Not unexpectedly, the Hulk has to wade through all of the X-Men before presuming to take charge of Xavier; but what changes the Hulk's mind about doing so are the words of a student who pleads with the Hulk to let their teacher be, making the argument that Xavier is already suffering from the losses sustained on M-Day as well as the actions of mutant-haters. As for why the Hulk never sought out the Sub-Mariner (also a member of the Illuminati) for the same reason he looked up Xavier, Namor had abstained from the group's vote, flatly and forcefully rejecting their decision to send the Hulk into space (information which the Hulk could have presumably learned from interrogating Stark).

With his captives now secured with "slave" discs which ensure their compliance, the Hulk gathers them in a stadium, where he forces the four to take center stage in an "arena" and fight for their lives in full view of public witnesses. Throughout, Richards and the others proclaim their innocence as far as being responsible for the shuttle's explosion which destroyed countless lives on the Hulk's world--to no avail.




And when the four somehow prevail against the horrid monster unleashed against them, they are then forced to battle each other, to the death. But even the discs that enslave them are taxed to the limit in compelling such a directive.





What surprises everyone is that the Hulk never sought their deaths here, but to simply expose them for the liars and murderers he believes they are. And following that exposure, the final step:  to destroy New York City, perhaps as a reminder to everyone on Earth of what these four have wrought with their schemes and shamelessness. It's a decree as old as the human race: they've sown the wind, and now must reap the whirlwind.

And perhaps they would have, having no apparent means of stopping the Hulk. But Stark's ace in the hole has finally decided to enter the battle--though despite the hopes raised in the arrival of the Sentry, whose power is many, many levels above and beyond anything the Hulk has faced, New York might still be left in ruins by the time it's all over, whoever prevails.






Yet it's actually Banner who would prevail against the Sentry's attack (without being incinerated in the process--that's quite a trick for a normal human)--a conclusion that, granted, is hard to swallow. (I've gone over it several times and I'm still dumbfounded by how that scene is virtually force-fed to the reader.) But only afterward does the Hulk learn that it was one of the most trusted of his team, Miek, who was complicit in an assassination attempt put in place by the faction on their world opposing the Hulk's rule--an attempt which involved planting an aged warp core aboard the shuttle, and detonating it while the Hulk was nearby.

Blaming himself for what happened almost as much as he blames Miek, the Hulk goes mad with anguish and guilt, lashing out in all directions and fully embracing his description as "world breaker"--and while the carnage mounts, and with encouragement from the Hulk himself, Stark remote-activates a satellite which finally incapacitates the Hulk and allows Banner to be captured and secured.



And so it falls to you (and rightfully so) to give World War Hulk and its resolution a "yea" or "nay."  Looking at it as a whole, you'll likely benefit from the experience of reading the entire series from beginning to end, if you have the opportunity. While it's almost tedious to flip through page after page of the Hulk (for all intents and purposes an invincible, invulnerable walking mountain) continually brutalizing the opposition as if it didn't exist, there are some interesting character moments to be found throughout (I found the tie-in with General Ross nicely handled, for example). For all the story's fanfare, however, I found myself more interested in Banner's fate once the whole thing was over, a man who presumably would never again be allowed to see the light of day; and did Richards and the others have to cope with any repercussions from their exposure in all of this?  Those loose ends will hopefully be explored in the PPC at a future date.

7 comments:

Big Murr said...

Well, my assorted comments (or tirades?) make it no surprise that I vote "nay".

Superman takes all manner of scorn and dismissal for being too all-powerful. With this tale, Hulk must needs get slammed with the same scorn. As you suggest, the tale quickly becomes a tedious slog of Hulk stomping flat many of my favourite heroes (deservedly or not).

It's really kinda dopey to accept that Dr. Strange doesn't know of a dimensional plane/world where there is literally a barren landscape. Nothing to harm but rocks and dirt. How could he not have worked up just such a specific destination spell for a rampaging Hulk (or any raging physical force) years ago? The same way the Silver Surfer once exiled Durok the Demolisher on a dead future Earth. Somewhere the individual can smash and crash to their heart's desire while cooler heads get a breather to plan.

Tiboldt said...

So we know that the Hulk is impressive physically, but what about Strange's (and everyone else's) magic? What about a combined psychic assault from the likes of Xavier, Grey, Frost, Braddock, Summers and anyone else in the vicinity? What about Lila Cheney teleporting him to the other side of the galaxy? How does he get away with having Reed Richards fight to the death in an arena when Reed has a son who once took out a Celestial? This is ignoring the wealth of villains that they could bring in to help out.

They should have just got Team Hulk to appear on Earth and shout, "We're protected by plot armour," and bypass the curb-stomp battles. Maybe have a separate mini-series called 'Hulk beats up the Marvel Universe' for the people who want to see that sort of thing.

And Hulk/Banner is still responsible for numerous deaths over the years. Do the writers find a solution to the problem or just go back to ignoring it.

Tiboldt said...

That's a "nay" by the way.

Comicsfan said...

Well, Tiboldt, I suppose it could be said that a solution was found to the problem regarding the Hulk being held responsible for those deaths, in the form of the presidential pardon Banner received for "...any and all acts in the past which he performed [while not in] full control... [of his] other self." (text in brackets inferred) Of course, there's nothing preventing him being charged with offenses committed since then--and there are no doubt plenty of people who would insist in the wake of this attack that the book should be thrown at him.

By the way, if I remember correctly, isn't there a Deadpool series along the lines of "Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe," or words to that effect? How easy it was to pass on that.

Warren JB said...

I'll have to add a nay, too. To be honest, the Hulk used to be my favourite Marvel character, but Greg Pak created a run that practically killed my interest in him, after an increasing dissatisfaction.
I could go on at length about the reasons, but in a nutshell: it was easier to feel some sympathy for the rampaging monster when he was the 'savage' Hulk, all clouded judgement and not in his right mind. For him to be a smart Hulk (with normal human intelligence at least) and still carp on about the 'puny humans' persecuting him when he well knows why people distrust him... makes him less the underdog and more the world's strongest teenager; the most obnoxious reason for the emergency broadcast channel.

World War Hulk feels like the apotheosis of all that. Maybe I'm missing some point somewhere, but it feels like the biggest handwave for a tantrum that causes untold carnage. The saving grace is that after all the chaos and frustrating stubbornness, the Hulk realised how wrong and stupid he had been.

And also, what came directly after that enraged a whole lot of comic readers. I can understand why. For me, I was just about ready for someone to knock a bit of sense into the Hulk.

Greg said...

I kinda disagree folks... In a superhero world where every single Marvel character can stand toe-to-toe with Galactus if the storyline calls for it, it kinda nice to see one hero be the gold standard of pure physical strength. We've got guys with "the power of a thousand exploding suns" or some such bunk, and cosmic heroes with abilities that are almost abstract... not to mention Gods with power beyond measure... isn't it about time we had one guy who everyone could agree was the top dog as far as brute strength goes?

In the old golden days... characters would use the Hulk as a reference when it came to power. In Fantastic Four comics, the Thing would compare his foe's onslaught to the Hulk's, like... "This guy almost hits as hard as the Hulk!!!" There were many such instances of this sort of cross-referencing, and it served to make the Marvel world seem more contiguous... more believable. Seeing an enraged Hulk, after losing the only woman who had ever been his bride (save his early romance with Jarella) AND his unborn child along with a world of his devoted followers, go apeshit and roll over the general Marvel stable was an absolute pleasure for me! Someone has to be the strongest... and after years of watching every single character in the Marvel comic book universe have their powers vacillate wildly to the point where there simply wasn't any character that stood out enough to be perceived as a big-time threat... it was great to finally see the Hulk be relevant again as the powerhouse of Marvel Comics like he used to be!!!

Sure, villains still have their big guns... Thanos recently, Ultron, Dormammu, Galactus (although he's been bested by Squirrel-Girl recently... like Thanos was as well) and the rest of the "world class threats"... but these days, the heroes are so damned powerful that ANY team or certain combo set of players can best them easily given the right writing team. So, for me it was sweet to see a classic character like the Hulk become an ACTUAL THREAT again!

Sure... the way it ended was lame... and there should have been a hero death to punctuate and substantiate the event... but we got what we got. And it kinda set the atmosphere for the now terrific Immortal Hulk storyline to exist... so I am quite pleased it came out the way it did.

Was it perfect? Far from it.
But getting to watch the Hulk hand a fistful of hubris into the teeth of some of Marvel's biggest blowhards... man, it was glorious. In the end, he had to swallow his share as well... a fitting journey.

Thanks for taking the time to read this yap-fest... I'm just happy there is such a venue for me to at least have such a say. I humbly apologize for this indulgence;-)

Comicsfan said...

Greg, while I agree that handling the Hulk as an enraged, take-no-prisoners (even though he did), revenge-driven, obsessed brute might have been appropriate under the circumstances, I can't say that I was pleased to see him bulldoze through any and all opposition as though their respective defeats were a given. In the past, Stan Lee and others were very adept in giving their readership what they wanted in these cases, yet at the same time avoid making a clear-cut call as to which character was the more powerful without some mitigating factor being in play; but in this instance, the Hulk trounces everyone, every time, anywhere, issue after issue. I think a Celestial could have dropped an entire planet on him, and the Hulk would have somehow walked away from it with the same I-mean-business expression he displayed whenever he was victorious against anyone else who challenged him during this "war"--though frankly, seeing Bruce Banner (Bruce Banner, mind you) duke it out with the Sentry, while surviving the inferno swirling around them, was bad enough, IMO.

All of that said, there's absolutely no need for an apology on your part, my friend--sharing our impressions of a story is the pleasure and privilege of comics readers everywhere, and most welcome here at the PPC. ;)