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But other times it’s just fun when people in colorful costumes punch each other and talk smack with lots of double page spreads.
However, to say just about any comic book story is just about the punching is a disservice to that story, as there’s generally—not always—something going on at a deeper level even when the surface is a popcorn movie. In my mind though, there’s certainly nothing wrong when the first level of fun is what sticks with you and you perhaps lose the sublevel context unless you’re re-reading; a well-executed fun comic is every bit as impressive as any other sort of achievement from where I sit.
Greg Pak and John Romita Jr.’s World War Hulk is the type of story I remember fondly as a fun comic with lots of punching. Pak had just told a year-long epic weaving science fiction with commentary on The Hulk’s inner identity and sense of self and managed to climax all that character work in a blockbuster that both showcased Romita’s proficiency for drawing the big fights as well as the emotional payoff for the build.
Within the larger event was the three-issue World War Hulk: X-Men limited series by Christos Gage and Andre Di Vito. Now just as the main event worked in pathos with the action, so too did this side story, with moral dilemmas playing a major role and the quiet moments of characterization standing out, but at the end of the day, I know my friend Christos Gage, and I believe he set out to tell the coolest “action figures come to life” romp he could with The Hulk fighting the X-Men—and he succeeded.
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The gist of World War Hulk: X-Men is that Professor X wasn’t at the Illuminati meeting where they made the whole “send Hulk into space” call, but Hulk wants to find out how he would have voted had he been there, and he’ll beat the crap out of every X-Man to get his answer straight from the source and then decide his response.
The first issue has Hulk crashing the X-Mansion where Professor X and Beast are hanging out with the New X-Men while the adults are all off on a mission. One of many cool/smart moves Gage does with this series is structures the whole thing like a boxing/wrestling card with the undercard stuff gradually building excitement to the main event. In this case, the opening bout is the inexperienced and outclassed New X-Men going up against the strongest force in the Marvel Universe and getting their plucky butts kicked, but not before dishing out some decent shots like X-23 kicking Hulk in the eye with one of her toe blades. It also gives Xavier a chance to agonize over yet another mistake coming back to haunt him—this came right on the heels of the double reveal that he created Danger and concealed the existence of Vulcan and the rest of the second class of X-Men—and his most innocent students suffering as a result.
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This would be a good time to mention how perfect Andrea Di Vito’s art is for this story. His figures are smooth and exaggerated in the right way for super hero comics, even more so super hero comics with lots of fighting with fists flying, claws popping and energy blasts of every shape, size and color being tossed around. As he showed in Annihilation, Di Vito knows how to choreograph the visual aspect of a massive battle beautifully and also how to bring a large cast to life, two musts for this series. Di Vito’s art perfectly walks that line of intensity and fun with some brutality mixed in for effect, and it’s exactly what Gage’s script calls for here.
So with the second issue we get into the big ticket battles in earnest, as Hulk has some actual competition, and said competition continues to expand as the smashing continues and more X-Men—including Nightcrawler, Warpath, Darwin and Hepzibah—along with X-Factor get conscripted into service. You’ve got to love—or at least I do—how Gage doesn’t just go for the easy route of fan service taking all the toys out of the toy box and then putting all the work on Di Vito to just make an eternally neat premise come to life; he actually thinks out the fights and comes up with some genuinely clever twists. I dig how he solves the issue of Darwin, the mutant who evolves to face any threat, by having his power determine the best way to protect him is teleport him to Connecticut, thus taking him out of the fight.
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Another deserving character who gets a nice spotlight here is Colossus, the X-Men’s resident strong man and the Marvel Universe power broker who generally gets left out of the discussion when folks debate their Hulk vs Thor vs Thing battles. Peter Rasputin has a nice showing that focuses on how even though he’s no match for The Hulk—or probably any of those guys—from a pure power perspective, his heart and how much he cares about his friends keeps him in the game; it doesn’t stop him from getting brutally dispatched and having his metal arms broken backwards, but it keeps him in the game for a bit.
On that score, World War Hulk: X-Men is in a lot of ways about Christos Gage giving every X-Man across the board of power and popularity their turn to shine even if it’s in the smallest way, and it’s neat to see that kind of instant credibility a character can receive by lasting even a couple panels with The Hulk—and indeed Gage makes sure to impress upon us that is a big deal.
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Nobody gets to shine like The Juggernaut though.
If you know Christos Gage or have ever read an interview with him, you know that he has his particular passion characters, among them Union Jack, Devil Dinosaur, Red Ronin and in particular The Juggernaut. He’s a pro, but he’s also a fanboy, and he’s a dude who loves seeing Juggernaut being big, bad, and crushing everything in his unstoppable path. By the time World War Hulk rolled around, Juggernaut had spent a couple of years at diminished power levels and on the side of angels; when he got his turn at bat, Gage decided to take a swing at bringing back the character he loved but without having to disrespect any work that had come before in the process.
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Without completely spoiling the ending—even with all I’ve already given away, you should still absolutely check this out for the stuff I haven’t plus the great art—the ultimate resolution comes from a fairly unlikely source and in a way that leaves the story without any real winners, a parallel to the larger story of World War Hulk.
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They also created a story I remembered as fun and then came to see as darn clever upon reflection, so well done all around.
3 comments:
Wow, I remember picking this mini-series up and wondering why nobody else seemed to care. I think WWH as an event was underrated in it's entirety. This was back when Marvel briefly cared about The Sentry, which was great because I love him.
Great post!
Very helpful info, thank you for your article.
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