I've been looking forward to this issue, because I was a big fan of The Incredible Hercules series and the mini-series that followed.Unfortunately, this comic - Herc - is apparently taking a different approach.
Where the former series was loaded with humor and larger-than-life exploits, this finds Hercules depowered (after the events in the Chaos War) and largely humorless - but still fighting the good fight.
He's living in Brooklyn where he finds plenty of thugs to deals with - and he wields some amazing weapons to help offset his lack of godly power.
But is a mortal Hercules really interesting? He's reduced to fighting street thugs and is (presumably) outmatched when forced to tackle one of Spider-Man's old foes.
It's like watching an action film from the '80s - the good guy saves a shopkeeper from the mob, is offered a place to stay - is there any doubt what will happen next?
The art by Neil Edwards and Scott Hanna is solid, with some great sequences (the fight in the subway car is quite good), but some panels are hard to follow. In one, it looks like a thug is pointing his gun at his own face.
So I'm not really bowled over by this series as I had expected. There's no Amadeus Cho and no Avengers allies in view.
I hope I'm wrong, and that writers Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente are going to surprise me - but so far, aside from a terrific Neal Adams-ish cover by Carlo Pagulayan, there's not much to recommend this series.
Grade: B
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