Written by: Jeff Parker
Illustrated by: Gabriel Hardman and Mark RobinsonSCORCHED EARTH, PART III: The oceans will boil! Red goes into deeply unfamiliar territory to stop the next contingency, and the best ally for the mission is Namor, King of Atlantis! Take a dangerous doomsday scenario and insert two of the most powerful overbearing egos on Earth and… what could go wrong? MEANWHILE…in the Pacific, A-Bomb finds out where giant monsters go after they’ve been driven out, and finds…MORE giant monsters!!
We’ve all jumped on the collective Jeff Paker bandwagon with Thunderbolts, but we’re still all pretty sour on the Rulk. Three issues in, and how is Parker cutting it with the character everyone loves to hate? Find out my thoughts after the jump.
You know, there are no such things as “bad characters.” That’s impossible. A character is not inherently good or bad – it’s how he’s written. While I describe Rulk as the character we love to hate, it’s really just because of a distaste for Loeb’s run, and I’ll admit that I had let that stigma last a bit longer than I should. When I gave in from the point I said I’d stop and continued with Parker, I wasn’t sure how I’d fare, but so far I have to say that Parker’s new style of Rulk storytelling is pretty enjoyable.
For the most part, the three Rulk stories that Parker has done have been loosely tied together via Scorched Earth, a protocol that the Leader and MODOK put in place in case they didn’t win their World War Hulks. Now Rulk is being put to good use by Steve Rogers as he travels across America, putting down certain aspects of Scorched Earth. However, the concept of the arc is that along the way he has to face up against everyone he did wrong when he was running loose, and for the most part that means getting a fist in the face.
To that end, Hulk stands as a very entertaining read. As much as we can’t hate the actual character, seeing him get beaten and bruised repeatedly is highly entertaining. Even have the Watcher basically give Rulk the middle finger is an amusing, albeit ultimately confusing, sequence. While Rulk claims to be part of the good guys now, there is still that overbearing sense that he is a villain, and it’s fun to see the villains get beaten. This issue doesn’t focus so much on someone like Thor or Iron Man smacking the Hulk down, but rather a team-up with Namor that somewhat goes sour, and the end results are basically still the same. For a guy seeking redemption, he sure is going about it the most inopportune way.
However, bringing it back a bit, the Watcher scene is rather indicative of the one problem I have with the book: I’m confused as to it’s direction. Three issues in now, and there doesn’t seem to be any greater story at work here. Stopping Scorched Earth is the primary objective, but other than the Rulk getting his ass handed to him issue after issue isn’t exactly a plot. It makes for an entertaining read in the “one and done” sense, but after two years of an ongoing mystery that hindered on the identity of the Rulk, I’m kinda hoping for something a bit more here. The Rulk is branching out, fighting Spider-Girl in her book and joining the Avengers, and that was foreshadowed in this issue as well. I just wish it seemed like his solo title, since he apparently deserved keeping it, had more going for it now that his identity is revealed. I like seeing him get punched in the face, but that will begin to waver.
Hulk ultimately took the place in my pull from Atlas, which I had just gotten into before it died with issue 5. So unfortunate! On the plus side, Parker and Hardman have teamed up for the main story in Hulk, so I’m plugging along. I miss Atlas, and I like rooting for the villain. A story that takes the bad guy and gives you a good reason to like him and want to see him win usually equates to a story that is a hell of a lot of fun, and Parker has proven he can hit that angle well with Thunderbolts, which has been off the charts. With Rulk, he obviously has a more difficult task due to the inherent stigma on the character, but I think if anyone can make the Hulk work well in this situation now it’s Parker.
We’ll see how and if this works out with the next few issues.
Final Verdict: 7.7 – Buy
