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A Crisis of Chronology: Chaos War

By | October 23rd, 2010
Posted in Columns | % Comments

The shenanigans of Hercules and company within the pages of Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente’s Chaos War have not only brought back dead heroes, but dead columns as well! Chaos War #1 had a handy checklist in the back of the issue that listed the bare minimum of trades to read in order to prepare yourself for war, but if you have read this column before then you know I never take the easy way out. Follow the cut to prepare yourself for the madness that is the Chaos King!

While Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente are the architects of Chaos War, the plot line that gave birth to the event was first laid down by Michael Van Oeming in his 2006 Ares miniseries. Mikaboshi, the King of Chaos was created by Oeming in his mini Thor: Blood Oath, but Ares serves as enough of an introduction to the character. The mini was recently re-released in trade alongside the Dark Avengers: Ares mini by Multiversity-favorite Kieron Gillen, which you’ll be wanting for the purposes of this list as well. Plus, they’re both great on their own, so you should read them anyways.

While many of the main players in Pak and Van Lente’s saga are divine, one of the most important characters — and indeed the one who gives everything a kick-start — only has loose ties to Celtic mythology at best: The Hulk (what, you’ve never heard of Cú Chulainn?). Pak started solo on The Incredible Hulk with the jaw-droppingly good “Planet Hulk,” which shot the big green lug into space. Pak then brought Hulk back to earth with a vengeance in World War Hulk, writing both the main book and The Incredible Hulk tie-ins (you’ll want those). The Incredible Hulk tie-ins are collected in the first Incredible Hercules trade, which I recommend reading after finishing the main event.

Upon finishing World War Hulk, Pak handed the reins of the Hulk over to Jeph Loeb, but still continued to work in the green giant’s domain on the Warbound miniseries and the Skaar: Son of Hulk ongoing (collected in two trades). Shortly after his run on Son of Hulk, Pak was put on The Incredible Hulk title once again, this time featuring the de-powered Bruce Banner and his patricidal son. The whole run so far has been good, but the first trade (“Son of Banner”) is the only one needed for purposes of this list.

Running simultaneously to the events going on with the Hulk, J. Michael Straczynski brought back Marvel’s reigning god of thunder (Thor, duh) in a critically-acclaimed run. The only downside to JMS’ stay on the title was that he left the book with the plot rather unresolved. Luckily, the aforementioned Kieron Gillen did a great job of picking up where JMS left off. Hell, I enjoyed Gillen’s run just as much as JMS’! Thor plays a pretty large role in The Incredible Hercules ongoing and its follow-up mini, Prince of Power — as well as having his own tie-in mini for Chaos War — so I highly recommend boning up on your Odinson history.

Here we finally arrive to the most important series on this list: The Incredible Hercules, by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente. Fans have been singing the title’s praises since it started, and it has just gotten better with age. The series combines action, humor and grand-scale storytelling to amazing results, and it includes some of the best sound effects ever made up for comics. While many were originally drawn to the book by its humor, the series steadily ramped up its intensity as time went on (not including the light-hearted “Thorcules” arc). Chaos War is the climax of that build-up, and I am very much ready to see where it goes. If you’re at all dubious about doing all this reading for one event, pick up the first Incredible Hercules trade and I guarantee you’ll be picking up the others.

Continued below

To wrap up our list, we have a handful of other series to tack on. If you haven’t read Civil War, I would give it a flip through, but you don’t need to if you’re already familiar with the story. When Dan Slott took over Mighty Avengers and gave the team a complete overhaul — resulting in my favorite Avengers team — he added Cho and Herc to the roster. Since the Mighty Avengers play a big role in some of The Incredible Hercules, I would recommend picking up the first trade (it also does a good job setting the stage for Dark Reign while still fitting thematically). Also, if you haven’t heard, Siege is pretty important for the fates of Ares and Asgard, so be sure to chalk that one up on there, as well as the Thor tie-ins. Finally we have Pak and Van Lente’s Prince of Power mini, which features Amadeus Cho and is a direct follow-up to The Incredible Hercules. This should be read directly before Chaos War.

List time? List time. As usual, an asterisk marks something that is optional.

  • Ares
  • Planet Hulk
  • Civil War*
  • World War Hulk (with the Incredible Hulk tie-ins)
  • Against the World
  • World War Hulk: Warbound*
  • Thor by JMS, volume 1
  • Incredible Hercules: Love and War
  • Skaar: Son of Hulk
  • Thor by JMS, volume 2
  • Sacred Invasion
  • Mighty Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest
  • Planet Skaar
  • Thor by JMS, volume 3
  • Dark Avengers: Ares
  • Incredible Hercules: Dark Reign
  • Banner and Son
  • The Incredible Thorcules
  • Latverian Prometheus
  • Assault on New Olympus
  • Siege (with Thor tie-ins)
  • Thor: Siege Aftermath
  • Prince of Power
  • Chaos War

Also, I totally call dibs on a story tying the Hulk to Cú Chulainn and The Táin if it hasn’t been done already.


//TAGS | A Crisis Of Chronology

Walt Richardson

Walt is a former editor for Multiversity Comics and current podcaster/ne'er-do-well. Follow him on Twitter @goodbyetoashoe... if you dare!

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