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Rating: - Strawberry mousse and a kick to the balls
For those wondering about the title, reading this collection of "Hulk" comics, illustrated by artists Frank Cho and Art Adams and written by Jeph Loeb, is a study in contrasts. Much like eating a delicious strawberry mousse and getting kicked in the balls by David Beckham at the same time. In one corner, you have two of the industry's most enjoyable artists, in the other a man whose acknowledged talent has flown the coop (he's written perhaps one thing in the last six years that wasn't awful, that being "Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America"). Spoilers follow, not that there's really a lot of plot to discuss.

This collection consists, in the main, of two stories that ran side-by-side in "Hulk" for three issues. The first, illustrated by Art Adams, sees Green Hulk (back to being a moron again with no explanation, after Greg Pak's "Planet Hulk" and "World War Hulk" invested so much in building him up as a character; Pak has since supplied one, but Loeb doesn't care) wander through Las Vegas in search of Red Hulk, only to get sidetracked by a bunch of Wendigos. He teams up with DC Trinity-analogues Sentry (Superman), Ms. Marvel (Wonder Woman) and Moon Knight (Batman), gets infected to turn into 'Wendihulk', and then Brother Voodoo appears out of nowhere to resolve the plot, in one of the most blatant deus ex machinas in recent memory. A whole lot of nuthin', in other words, though competently drawn by Adams.

Elsewhere, She-Hulk, who got beaten up badly by Red Hulk in the preceding story (built upon in one of the shorts in "King-Sized Hulk"), teams up with Thundra and Valkyrie (which of the two Valkyries you ask? Loeb doesn't care to say) to take him down. That they even think they have a chance (and they actually do) flows from Loeb assigning Red Hulk no consistent power levels. In the first arc, he effortlessly beat up Thor (which was complete nonsense, incidentally; Thor's hammer doesn't work like that), here he has trouble with three b-level hitters. Then a bunch more female heroes show up. Loeb has a tendency to write for his artists, and, since it's Cho drawing, that means lots of attractive female heroes. Cho is a bit of a contradiction himself; his women are muscly (sometimes overly so, as with Hellcat here) and strong-looking, but he also indulges in a lot of T 'n A shots; I'm a fan, with reservations).

Jeph Loeb, in his work for DC Comics in the mid and late 90s, produced a number of well-regarded stories, mainly involving Batman. While one can criticize them as being derivative of other stories, they were overall strong pieces; in the 2000s, though, his level of quality has dropped catastrophically. "Hulk" is not as obnoxious as the "Ultimatum" event currently destroying whatever was left of the Ultimate Universe, but it's just bad writing, glossed over with good art.

But S., you say, aren't you being overly analytical? Isn't this just good, dumb fun? Why no, it's just stupid. If you are looking for fun comics, I strongly advise you to look up the works of Fred Van Lente (such as "Incredible Hercules", co-written with Greg Pak) and Jeff Parker ("Exiles", "Agents of Atlas", any of the finer Marvel Adventures titles) and give this a pass. Not remotely worth anyone's time.

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