"Hulk smash puny paperwork!!!!"
Next in my House of M read is this book which collects Incredible Hulk 83 - 87. It was written by Peter David who has got to be the writer most closely associated with the Hulk after Stan Lee. The main story (the first four chapters) was illustrated by Jorge Lucas who is an Argentinean artist whose work I have not come across before but who has had short runs on a variety of Marvel books.
As the story opens, Bruce Banner has been living with an aboriginal tribe finding a means to control the Hulk. Australia us also the country with the most severe mutant administration and hundreds of humans have fled to the outback with the help of AIM. When the authorities invade an aboriginal sacred space to try and round up the humans, the Hulk is unleashed and takes the fight back to Sydney and takes over the country's administration. But all is not well as Banner uncovers an AIM sponsored project into which human refugees are disappearing.
The story was just OK - given David's reputation I am guessing that this was probably not one of his best. It didn't have the depth of the Banner book that I read recently or the over the top abandon of World War Hulk. I wanted more of the relationship between Banner, the Hulk and the beliefs of the Australian Aborigines which was touched on in this story but subsumed by the standard superhuman fare. The tension between Banner and the Hulk was quite well explored in the expectations of the human administration who wanted the occasional appearance of the Hulk to appease the populace and Banner who wanted to keep him under check. The art by Lucas was fine without being spectacular.
First published on RevolutionSF on Sunday Jan 15, 2012
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