Written by: Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente
Arted by: Khoi PhamTHE END OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE IS NIGH! As the penultimate step in the destruction of all creation, the CHAOS KING’S annihilating army of slave gods — including an undead (and angry) ARES, GOD OF WAR — takes on every divine pantheon on this mudball called Earth! Can Thor, All father Hercules and the God Squad rally Earth’s feuding gods to beat back their common enemy and save existence itself? Or will a shocking betrayal pave the way for the triumph of chaos and darkness? More epic, divine madness from New York Times Bestselling “Incredible Hercules” writers Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente and fan-favorite penciler Khoi Pham!
The Chaos King continues his plan to usurp the entire universe and it’s up to a “rag tag” God Squad to stop him! In this issue Thor, Hercules, Sersi, The Silver Surfer and of course Hercules and Amadeus take up arms against the evil Mikaboshi! Review follows the cut!
This issue was incredibly difficult to review.
On one hand the book has a real feel to it that makes everything feel quite urgent. Mikaboshi, the Chaos King is completely digesting all of reality, and you can tell that everything is hinging upon our God Squad. When Zeus, Ares, and the rest of the dead gods are all under the thrall of The Chaos King; and when Galactus is having trouble calming them down, you know things are bleak. Even Amadeus loses his trademark wit near the end because things are SO bleak. That’s when you know things are getting bad.
But while Pak and Van Lente are telling a brilliant conceptual story about evil gods and the universe they wish to destroy, as well as the recently resurrected Hercules and his team of heroic gods trying to save the universe as we know it; some of the dialogue is kind of clunky. Hercules has always been a tad…creative with his words, but when The Chaos King is saying stuff like “The Celtic Otherworld: Fated for Endless Sameness…in my inky mass!” I groaned. There is dialogue like this throughout the book, and not just from Herc or Mikaboshi.
The same goes for Khoi Pham’s work on the panels. In at least half of the book, his work is absolutely brilliant, with superbly laid out action scenes and some character designs that are spot on. The splash pages have even worked out to be absolutely stunning, which is a marked improvement from some of his earlier Hercules work (see Mighty Avengers), but at other times, the visuals were still a bit on the muddy side, which caused for some distraction. That being said, Pham’s work is some of the best it’s been, and I can see why he was chosen for such a cosmic event.
All in all, the book is probably one of the best events going on right now. Herc is a capable leader now, and I hope there’s a God Squad Team in the future as well as a buddy book with Herc and Cho returning. But the book still felt uneven, with moments of brilliance dimmed by some slight mistakes in both the writing and art.
Oh, and the sound effect “HRRRRRRRRRKKKKKK” is better than VJJJJOOOMMMBBBBBB. Eat it, Matt.
Final Verdict: 7.0 — Buy
But has anyone else noticed a little bit of an editorial flub? On the cover, it appears the even got shorted from five to four issues, but in the Even Checklist, Issue #5 is still there. What’s up with that, Marvel
