Indestructible Hulk: Agent of SHIELD (comic)

Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Lenil Yu
Collects: Indestructible Hulk #1-5

In a reversal of my last review, this was a book I was actually prepared to like. Mark Waid's a rock solid writer who's penned a few runs many consider to be among the all time greats. Even on a bad day he usually manages something that's a decent read. Should be a safe bet.

Unfortunately, I felt that Indestructible Hulks first volume whiffed. There are a few reasons why, not all of them the fault of the creative team. Regardless, they add up to something of a letdown.

We start off harmlessly enough. Shield is looking for the Hulk in the wake of Avengers vs X-Men. We don't get a lot of specifics, but they aren't really necessary; the Hulk is an engine of destruction on a good day, so it's not hard to see why Shield might be after him. Banner finds Maria Hill - probably the most utilitarian character in Marvel by now - and runs a proposition by her; they give him all the resources he wants to invent and he'll let them use the Hulk as they see fit.

Fair enough for the first issue, but by the second we've run into some problems.

The Shield thing I don't mind. The Hulk is a very basic concept at its heart - the Jekyll and Hyde dynamic multiplied tenfold - and has often required some spice to keep it interesting. By the time of Marvel Now, Hulk has been an inter-dimensional traveler, hero to a microscopic kingdom or two, been shot into space, ruled a planet, had a couple ridiculous fever dreams, got his own rainbow corps of Hulks and battled with MPD, his many personalities including a super smart fusion of Banner and Hulk, a straight up evil Devil Hulk and a grey version that enjoys making like an old fashioned mobster. As far as basic concepts go, throwing in with Shield in an effort to try and channel the destruction in a positive way is probably the sanest direction Marvel's gone with in a while.

No, the thing that gave me the most trouble is the one this creative team isn't necessarily responsible for. For a few years now - starting, I believe, with Greg Paks second run on Hulk - Marvel's pushed hard on a "Bruce Banner's kind of a genius" track. Still, Waid and Yu take is the furthest it's gone to date. Bruce Banner is now in the upper tier of Marvel geniuses; not quite a Reed Richards but above the likes of a Tony Stark.

You may think I'm kidding about that last part, but I'm not. Issue number two has Iron Man as a guest star. It's also the issue where they lost me.

See, issue two is entirely devoted to telling us Bruce Banner is smarter than Tony Stark. Not entirely unreasonable that they'd put him over Iron Man - this is Hulks book, so he's going to get the rub - but it reaches a point where Bruce Banner looks like one of the most awful human beings walking. The first issue had a sense of smug self importance about the character - some of his dialogue with Maria Hill rubbed me the wrong way - but it wasn't bad enough to make me stop reading and wonder what the hell was going on with him. Not so with issue two.

Let's do a quick rundown of everything that happened. First, Iron Man shows up, understandably concerned that Shield just recruited the friggin Hulk, a guy known for toppling buildings if he so much as sneezes. He greets Bruce, understandably skeptical, and everyone decides to get in a little condescension before breakfast. Banner then dangles a carrot in front of Tony o he'll volunteer as wingman for a trip out to the Arctic to safely test a new, safer method of fracking. Tony fiddles with it in an attempt to make the process go faster. Banner flips his lid and it's at this point that we find out that this was his plan all along. He deliberately lured Iron Man out to the Artic so he could transform into the Hulk and beat the daylights out of him. The stated reason is because Banner felt Stark always looked down on him. This is apparently enough to justify turning into a demi-god of rage and blitzing a dude in a metal suit. A futuristic, high tech one, but a metal suit nonetheless.

Whatever the case, Iron Man attempts to fend Hulk off so he can get back to the device, which he didn't finish calibrating. It's now set to blow thanks to Hulks reckless attack, because Banner clearly thought this plan out in great detail. The explosion nearly kills Iron Man, which I guess is okay because Hulk saved him from being torched. I guess cleaning up a mess you made negates that whole "near death" thing. They go back and have a laugh, Banner condescends some more and Tony has to brush it off, go to the bathroom, look in the mirror and tell himself he's still rich. He's that shaken by Banner's clearly superior intellect.

Anybody else see the problem here?

There's the obvious issue in that, by this point, Bruce Banner has become entirely unlikable. Iron Man is very nearly killed amidst a brawl Banner lured him to a secluded spot with every intention of starting. He's now the smartest person in any room that doesn't include Reed Richards and he knows it, leading to an off-putting sense of sheer smug that makes you want to see someone deck him. Worse still, he doesn't have any of the charm or likable qualities that keep a character like Tony Stark interesting despite his many screw-ups. This is made even more striking by a character throwing out the notion that what Bruce really wants to be is Tony Stark; the issue tries to refute this a bit in the most "nuh-uh, Banner's better" way possible, with Banner himself basically laughing the implication off about an hour after he nearly killed the guy and Stark musing that Banner would have to aim lower to be him, but it really does feel like Stark is the type of character they're trying to mold Banner into now. The results are mixed, to be kind.

A problem that isn't as immediately obvious is what this intellect upgrade might end up doing to the character. There's a decent chance it might ruin him. We're not talking scientist level smarts anymore. He literally builds a new, world altering invention each week. The kind that solve problems like food and energy shortages. Obviously, this is glossed over and the effects this would have on society aren't shown. There's no downside either, aside from the obvious question of how he can make this stuff yet still find himself magically unable to find a cure. In conjunction with the Shield concept, the Hulk isn't even a counter anymore; his destruction is now, thus far, contained and used to take out threats to the US.

How is this character not a Mary Sue at this point? I do realize this could be going somewhere. Trouble is, do I even care anymore? I'm not sure.

The following three issues didn't do much to change my mind. Hulk basically goes off to fight quasi-Atlanteans or some junk. There's one sorta-Atlantean girl who wants to ride the Hulk, but hates Banner - if that sounds familiar, you've read some Hulk comics - whom Banner later kisses in hopes she'd deck him and he'd transform. Aside from the minor sexual assault, it's fine, but after that second issue, I needed something to pull me back. Those three issues did not fit the bill.

On the upside, the art is quite good. I've been a bit negative regarding Yu's art in the past, partly due to how scratchy it could get. There's little of that here. I'm not sure what else can be said about it. You'll never hear me claim to be a good art critic, because I'm really not. I know what I like, can tell you about what I don't and that's pretty much it.

I hate to be this hard on Indestructible Hulk - I've enjoyed Waids work in the past and went into this wanting to like it - but it just didn't work for me. I may read the second volume if the library has it in the future - I'm at least somewhat curious as to whether the aforementioned problems are leading to something or if it's just how the character is in this book - but I'm not going out of my way for it. As always, I note that you may get more out of it than I did; my opinion is far from absolute.

My Opinion: Skip It

Secret Invasion (comics)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Lenil Yu
Collects: Secret Invasion #1-8

Well now, that was certainly a waste of time.

Marvel doesn't exactly have a great track record with events in the 2000's. Most of them sucked. Harsh, maybe, but it's true. Some did have redeeming qualities, but I can't think of one that was genuinely good.

I thought this would be the one to break the trend. It had a good setup - hell, if we're being honest the entirety of New Avengers up to that point had been leading to it - a decent hook and it had readers completely engaged. People were scrambling about, searching past Bendis comics for hints or clues; that's pretty much when you know you've got everyones attention and interest. It should have worked.

Should have.

Bendis and Marvel promised that you could read just the main miniseries and get a complete story, so I put that to the test. Well, the claim certainly holds up, mostly because there's nothing here. Skrulls invade and the heroes fight back. That's it. This comic is one giant brawl between heroes and aliens. A brawl that someone decided it should take eight issues to tell. Even on a payoff level it doesn't deliver.

At one point, the entire event was going to be split between Mighty and New Avengers, showing characters abductions and replacements by Skrull agents in the past while the battle raged in the present. Think what DC did with Sinestro Corps War. But eventually they went with a standalone miniseries, with all the abductions relegated to the tie-ins. The reason boils down to money, but it damaged the integrity of the event; eight issues of fighting could have been eight issues of deftly plotted invasions, reveals, answers as to when people were abducted and all the trimmings. Instead, we get filler.

Now lets be real here; the question of who was a Skrull and who wasn't comes out to about ninety percent of the buildup to Secret Invasion, including the ad campaigns. With all the explanations held elsewhere, the most interesting part of the story is gone. It's like they stripped the meat off a bone and then handed it to us. As a result, we get eight issues of fighting in the Savage Land and New York City. Eight issues of fighting that had the entire line tying into it for upwards of ten months.

Worse still, after all that buildup, the Skrull reveals aren't even all that interesting. There are maybe four major reveals and they all happen in the first issue. Half of them aren't even superheroes. There was a very real fear going around at the time that the event was going to be used as a cop-out for the actions of certain characters over the past couple of years. Turns out Secret Invasion didn't pull any of that at all - Bendis pokes fun at it with a few fake-outs - but the flipside is that we went through months of characters braying about how they couldn't trust anyone - to the point where fans were saying "enough already, lets get to the invasion" - only to have almost all of the heroes be the real deal. All that hysteria over nothing. Moderation is good - and if the story went too far in the opposite direction I would have been pissed about that - but it felt like the infiltration didn't have the impact that it needed.

Secret Invasion is also packed with filler. Lots of it. Seriously, there are sequences where it's so obvious wheels are being spun because "holy crap I have to fill eight issues". This is at its most noticeable when characters seem to flit in and out of the story at random, ultimately doing nothing of consequence. One of the most ridiculous involves Marvel Boy. We see him from time to time in the course of the story before he's inspired to join the battle. He then makes his presence known on the battlefield, telling the Skrulls that the battle is over and they've lost. We don't even see him again after that aside from him being present in a crowd scene. He just vanishes from the story. That's just one example; they're all over this book.

There's also an occasion where a scene just straight up does not make sense. The climax of the book involves some last resort doomsday weapon the Skrulls had. What it is or how it's actually resolved, I really don't know. Bendis doesn't tell us anything about it, much less how it's resolved. It looks like a tornado hits the character in question and they dissolve on impact. Whatever it was, it happens and then the story goes on its way with no explanation in sight.

I'm not even going to touch the ending, because it's simply insane and makes no sense whatsoever; I realize Marvel - and Bendis - wanted a certain status quo, but what they went for is more like trying to shove the meat clever in a slot made for the steak knife.

It's written, well, like a Bendis comic. Which is to say that it's at times overly quippy. Better people than I have pointed out Bendis' flaws as a scripter - there are times where everyone sounds the same, it's all too fixated on cool lines and so on - but the man can write a good comic. I've read some of them. This isn't one. Most of his bad habits as a writer are on display here.

Lenil Yu does the art; I can't say I'm a fan, but I don't dislike his work either. He does well enough - and packs detail into the fights - but there are times when his art is too scratchy for my liking. I guess it comes down to my personal preference. Others seem to get more mileage out of it than I did.

At any rate, this story is deeply, deeply flawed. There is so much wrong with it that I simply cannot recommend it. Bendis had a good thing going here, but whether it's the format getting in the way or otherwise, it just didn't work. Damn shame too; part of me thinks it should have worked. I hate it when potential is wasted.

My Opinion: Skip It