If you want a textbook example of how bad a comic can be, go no further than this issue of Hulk.Oh, there's nothing wrong with the art. Ed McGuinness and Dexter Vines provide powerful, larger-than-life action sequences, with lots of gritted teeth, bulging muscles and destruction on a huge scale. Oh, and lots and lots of full-page splash panels.
The problem is in Jeph Loeb's story, which has all the depth of a bad videogame.
The cosmic character known as The Grandmaster has assembled a team of heroes - the Defenders (Green Hulk, Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner and the Silver Surfer) - and set them against their opposite numbers, the Offenders (Red Hulk, Baron Mordo, Tiger Shark and Terrax) in a battle to the death.
Each battle takes place in a setting connected to one of the other heroes - so the Hulks must duke it out at the bottom of the ocean, for example. Luckily, the Grandmaster gives them gills and makes it possible for them to speak underwater. (By the way, anyone can speak underwater. It's the breathing part that makes it tricky.)
Anyway, the comic is just one big battle between the heroes and villains - but it's all noise and fury, with no point behind it or particular skill in the conflict.
Next issue wraps it all up, and the end can't get here soon enough for me.
Grade: D
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