Scan barcode
A review by jstilts
The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk by Greg Pak, Juan Santacruz, Carlo Pagulayan, Gary Frank, Aaron Lopresti, Takeshi Miyazawa
adventurous
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Maybe I've grown up.
I used to think this was a great graphic novel - it's not. Is it a great Hulk graphic novel? Yes absolutely, and the difference between those is huge.
Mainstream comic books don't really lend themselves well to the graphic novel format, because they are serialised to the nth degree so that there's rarely a great starting point that has a great ending point shortly after.
Planet Hulk is an exception: what has occurred before is mostly irrelevant and summarised neatly in 3 panels as a prologue. The ending leads into something else, but it's as definitive an ending as is needed, and certainly marks a huge emotional life-changing moment in it's abject tragedy.
But this praise is merely saying Planet Hulk has a beginning, middle and end and doesn't require any prior knowledge before reading - that's not an impressive bar to clear, it's just that most serialised comic books collected into graphic novels fail to do that and it's pleasant to find an exception.
Planet Hulk is an interestingly tragic tale with gorgeous artwork - but it's a very slight tale with barely sketched characters despite it's length, and at it's heart is a Conan The Barbarian kind of story, with all the predictability those sorts of savage muscle-bound swords-and-sorcery tales carry. It would probably have worked better as a short story.
It's good for what it is, but what it is isn't much.
I used to think this was a great graphic novel - it's not. Is it a great Hulk graphic novel? Yes absolutely, and the difference between those is huge.
Mainstream comic books don't really lend themselves well to the graphic novel format, because they are serialised to the nth degree so that there's rarely a great starting point that has a great ending point shortly after.
Planet Hulk is an exception: what has occurred before is mostly irrelevant and summarised neatly in 3 panels as a prologue. The ending leads into something else, but it's as definitive an ending as is needed, and certainly marks a huge emotional life-changing moment in it's abject tragedy.
But this praise is merely saying Planet Hulk has a beginning, middle and end and doesn't require any prior knowledge before reading - that's not an impressive bar to clear, it's just that most serialised comic books collected into graphic novels fail to do that and it's pleasant to find an exception.
Planet Hulk is an interestingly tragic tale with gorgeous artwork - but it's a very slight tale with barely sketched characters despite it's length, and at it's heart is a Conan The Barbarian kind of story, with all the predictability those sorts of savage muscle-bound swords-and-sorcery tales carry. It would probably have worked better as a short story.
It's good for what it is, but what it is isn't much.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Abandonment, Body horror, Death, and Classism
Moderate: Genocide, Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Racial slurs