Written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente
Illustrated by Khoi Pham, Tom Palmer and Bob McLeodTHIS IS IT!! THE MARVEL UNIVERSE’S LAST STAND! The Chaos King unleashes his ultimate attack against reality as we know it — and our survival depends on a boy, his god, and their ragtag band of allies: The Mighty Thor! The Incredible Hulks! The Dead (and Living?) Avengers! The X-Men! Alpha Flight! But are they enough to stand against THE ANTI-ETERNITY … The force that seeks to negate all existence itself? In this issue, the universe dies and everyone wins! …What?
Will Hercules and Amadeus Cho make it out of this deal alive? Will humanity? WILL EXISTENCE? Find out by buying this book, or read my review and prepare for the astonishing!
As a major fan of Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak, their Incredible Hercules run, Herc himself, Amadeus Cho, and really, every supporting character they’ve used during their tenure, I expected Chaos War to be the bee’s knees.
But something happened along the way that made this book fall apart at the seams and make it feel more like a non-starter than anything.
I’d have to say my biggest problem with this issue, and Chaos War as a whole, is it feels like a major, Earth shattering moment only in theory because of a rushed feeling story and no real sense of urgency. No matter what is happening in this story, it never feels like it connects with me as a reader – even major bits that I feel I should love like Amadeus Cho having to make a choice between everyone in the world when moving them to the Continuum world (from Incredible Hercules) fall flat with me. Because of the way the story is sped through, things don’t feel like they develop naturally (and that may happen in the many tie-ins I didn’t read) and they don’t feel like they have time to be emotionally resonant with the readers.
Also, as theoretically terrifying the Chaos King (or Mikaboshi) should seem, for the most part his presence never really felt that impressive to me. There never seemed to be any negative tension in the story – or “will they survive?” tension. I think if you look back on it, more characters came back to life in this series than died (which is a rarity even for comics).
There is a lot to love here though, as Simon Bowland was the star of the book with his onamonapias (which I’m sure Van Lente and Pak had a hand in). Little things like “LASSTSSTAABB” when the Chaos King is eating reality are hyper literal and hugely entertaining because of it (the Baxter Building’s near destruction sound might have been the best one).
Also, the way the story wraps up is perfect. I have to say, my favorite part about Incredible Hercules was the dynamic developed between Herc and Amadeus, and I love the way they work together at the end. The high five revealing Herc’s newfound humanity? Genius.
Overall though, this book just kind of read like the story Van Lente and Pak wanted to tell but in fast forward, and as much as I enjoyed the first four issues of this series visually, Khoi Pham really felt off his game here. There were sections I honestly couldn’t tell what exactly was happening, and storytelling bits – like the final move against the Chaos King – were hard to decipher as I was reading them. I wanted more from this, and I genuinely think I’ll be getting that when the new Herc book comes out because let’s face it – people want the lovable relationship between Herc and Cho back. They want this back.
Thanks for delivering on that Mr. Pak and Mr. Van Lente.
Final Verdict: 5.8 – Browse
