Hulk #1 [Mar 2008]

New series! New direction! Mystery! Action! Guest stars galore! Wow… With all of that this issue could only be missing one thing.

The freakin’ Hulk.

Yeah. All the hype and we don’t even see the Green Red Goliath. Instead, we get CSI: Marvel starring Doc Samson, She-Hulk, General Ross, Commander Hill, and Iron Man trying to determine who killed the Abomination and how. This gets interrupted (for no discernible reason at all) to start a pointless slugfest with the new Winter Guard.

You read that right — the Winter Guard. Mind you, this was a fight started by Doc Samson and ended by General Ross. Do editors even read the books they put their names to any more? Who reads that and says, “Wow, that makes perfect sense?”

This leads into the final scene where the Big Mystery is set up. Too bad I’m not sure if I care enough to continue buying this crap to find out what the real story is.

While McGuinness’s art looks great, it’s hardly enough to cover up the stink of Jeph Loeb who’s been phoning it in for well over a year now. Actually, one could compare this to the “Evolution” story from Wolverine — pretty art, but an atrocious story.

Since this has been out for a few weeks now, you’ve either bought it already or decided you weren’t getting it. If you went with the latter, lucky you.