Mike Del Mundo gives Jeff Bennett a run for his money in “Immortal Hulk: The Threshing Place” #1 beware spoilers!
Written by Jeff Lemire
Illustrated by Mike Del Mundo
Colored by Mike Del Mundo and Marco D’Alfanso
Lettered by VC’s Corey PetitTWO OF COMICS’ MOST IMAGINATIVE TALENTS UNITE FOR A HULK TALE LIKE NONE OTHER! There’s a monster raging in America’s heartland – and it’s not the Hulk. When a young girl goes missing on a Kansas farm, Bruce Banner gets the itch – the one that tells him gamma is on the loose. But this town doesn’t take kindly to strangers – especially the big, green, violent kind. Can the Hulk save a child before it’s too late, or is he about to take the blame for another massacre?
“Immortal Hulk: The Threshing Place” #1 is a one-shot issue set around the current status quo of the Hulk, as defined by Al Ewing and Joe Bennet, with a handful of guest artists, in “Immortal Hulk”. A one-shot set during this run is a tough act to follow considering the very intentional layout of Ewing’s main story and Bennett’s specific language of body horror that has been set up in the main book. Despite the challenge, Jeff Lemire, Mike Del Mundo, Marco D’Alfanso, and Corey Petit definitely give the main title a run for its money, primarily in terms of visuals.
Lemire’s script is serviceable but far from the star of this issue. Lemire keeps up a consistent tension in the first half of the issue, because in a Hulk story that starts off with Banner, the reader should be asking “when does the Hulk show up” and Lemire holds that tension in place until a Del Mundo splash page (which we’ll get to later) and unleashes the tension and violence for the climax of the issue. In terms of plot, it’s very much a straightforward investigation into a missing girl, a monster, and a gamma trace. The issue is not nearly long or complicated enough for readers to be really surprised that the missing girl is the gamma monster and the issue doesn’t really play up the surprise. While the plot isn’t necessarily surprising or full of twists, the story is ultimately bittersweet. The girl is now marked by Gamma and her and her father condemned to the same fate as Bruce, but the only difference is that the girl will have a father who cares. The caring father is a definite contrast to what Bruce has been dealing with in “Immortal Hulk” with his own abusive father becoming something close to the devil. However, this comparison feels a little bit hollow because the father and daughter don’t really get enough page time as characters for the impact of their fate to really hit as hard as it could. But it does so well enough that it’s hardly a complaint.
The real draw for “Immortal Hulk: The Threshing Place” #1 is Mike Del Mundo and Marco D’Alfanso going ham on the artwork. Del Mundo’s style of exaggerated features but painted in a sense of realism makes him one of the most unique artists in comics right now. This style really gives off the innocence of certain children’s books which definitely leads into the horror of the book’s back half. In the early pages of the book, Del Mundo’s use of horizontal and wide-open panels to emphasize the landscape of the American mid-west, and breaks this with the first tinge of horror with two pages recounting the disappearance of the girl through ripped newspaper panels. Overall Del Mundo and D’Alfanso do an excellent job setting up the tone of the book in the first half and then going absolutely bananas in the back half.
One of the most lauded elements of the “Immortal Hulk” book has been Joe Bennett’s absolutely insane body horror moments. Personally, I describe them as “*nervous laughter* uh-um what??? Uh WHAT?!”-moments. And it’s so so good to see that Mike Del Mundo saw those pages from Joe Bennett and said “oh I could do that”. And OH GOD did he. This splash page is the most insane thing I have seen in weeks and I cannot describe it beyond that I see a lot of internal organs in various places and it looks wet. And Del Mundo and D’Alfanso don’t stop there! The cop whose been watching over Banner in the cell was eating a bucket of popcorn with a “Pop!” logo on it and oh how great it was to see the logo leap off the bucket to where the cop’s head was when the Hulk squeezes him. I’m not sure if this was Corey Petit or Del Mundo but kudos for that. The next absolutely insane thing that Del Mundo did was a panel where Hulk’s hand smashes through a panel and you can read “smash” in his FOREARM VEINS. Come on now that’s objectively very cool.
Ultimately “Immortal Hulk: The Threshing Place” #1 is a serviceable Hulk story with an extraordinary art team. Scripting wise, it’s difficult to compete with Ewing’s headstart with long term plotting and continuity deep-dives, but Lemire is able to capture a sliver of the tone of those early “Immortal Hulk” issues. Mike Del Mundo and Marco D’Alfanso absolutely kill the artwork in this issue and honestly should be the draw for those on the fence for checking out this issue.
Final Verdict: 8 – A decent Hulk story with incredible and creatively fresh artwork
