Bruce Banner - The Hulk Appreciation 2021

[Vordan]

On the other hand, limiting it to prose is a smart way to limit things to McGees perspective; which does wonders to the presentation of Hulk as a true classic assailed/burdened by a bunch of worthless has beens, once elevated by editorial spite and now cast back into the ash heap, until rescued by other classics.

I quite liked the prose issue myself, even if part of me wishes we had gotten it from Hulk’s perspective. That said, it definitely shows why issue 50 is so oversized lol, there’s a lot Ewing has to wrap up.

Hot take... The fights are just mediocre.
Both fights against the Avengers should have been much, much more epic and brutal.
Both times Hulk almost loses and basically defends himself. What's worse, every time he's being saved (by Gamma Flight and Fantastic Four). Are you serious?... After all this talk about "not bowing to no one"?...

Immortal Hulk is still one of my all-time favourite comic books but in no way it's perfect. I wish fights had more impact to them. I want to see FIGHTING, not Xemnu being KO'd with one punch after so much build-up. Was it cool? Hell yes it was, I screamed like a fangirl after "Welcome to Planet Hulk" panel. But could it have been handled better? Absolutely.

Last hope on the final issue... if all we get is lore and talkie-talkie for 80 pages, I will be very, very sad. Hulk NEEDS to breathe. He needs room to DESTROY and PUNCH. And he has a lot of stuff to punch. Please, Ewing, don't dissapoint.
(Yes I understand that this particular run is more about exploring Hulk's character and mythos, and this is what makes it special, but more "smashing" wouldn't hurt the series)

I’m sure there will be some fighting, but I think Cates will be the one who will give you the fights you crave. I doubt Hulk will beat Leader/OBA by punching him.

[Intothevoid]

Hot take... The fights are just mediocre.
Both fights against the Avengers should have been much, much more epic and brutal.
Both times Hulk almost loses and basically defends himself. What's worse, every time he's being saved (by Gamma Flight and Fantastic Four). Are you serious?... After all this talk about "not bowing to no one"?...

Immortal Hulk is still one of my all-time favourite comic books but in no way it's perfect. I wish fights had more impact to them. I want to see FIGHTING, not Xemnu being KO'd with one punch after so much build-up. Was it cool? Hell yes it was, I screamed like a fangirl after "Welcome to Planet Hulk" panel. But could it have been handled better? Absolutely.

Last hope on the final issue... if all we get is lore and talkie-talkie for 80 pages, I will be very, very sad. Hulk NEEDS to breathe. He needs room to DESTROY and PUNCH. And he has a lot of stuff to punch. Please, Ewing, don't dissapoint.
(Yes I understand that this particular run is more about exploring Hulk's character and mythos, and this is what makes it special, but more "smashing" wouldn't hurt the series)

I think fights are by far Ewings weakest part. I know people like to pretend they dont matter or that they are above it... but guys you need to get of your high horses these are comic books... fights are essential part of them whether people like it or not and while you can write a lot of issues without much action as Ewing has proven, you can only do it for so long before it becomes tedious. Like as you said i loved this issue actually i did love the narration but there was no action at all... we barely even saw anything, so what was the point of bringing in like a dozen different characters?
Although it's not really that bad, Hulk was getting hit simultaneously by OF Thor, Nova, Vision, Captain Marvel, Iron-man, War-Machine, etc... and he still wasn't going down, i think that was really good, but once again short lived, it was certainly a lot better than last issue where Black Panther was slicing Hulk apart way easier than he ever should have.

Also the Xemnu and Agger thing was also underwhelming, Agger got handled by Xemnu which looked cool but not as satisfying as seeing Hulk break him and Hulk actually didn't even one-punch Xemnu, it was Leader all along, now that one really stung, Hulk basically did nothing in that arc.

Like you i hope the last issue is not all just talking and talking, while i do enjoy it greatly, it's gonna be hard to read just 80 pages of nothing but dialogue, we need a breather, we need some satisfying action, we need Hulk to punch someone in the face and i hope Ewing will dedicate at least 7-8 solid pages of it in his 80 page issue to it... that would be a bear minimum that i would be ok with.

[Kingkalamari]

Oh jeez, #50 is gonna be a hellishly amazing time at 80 pages all in hell. I got a feeling they are going to go all out on everything: story, dialogue, art, gore, etc etc.

#49 is just the roller coaster cranking up to the big plunge, which starts as soon as the issue ends, it was great stuff.

I do wish there was one more standalone Immortal Hulk issue in Semptember, like explaining what happened to the Professor, or some kind of cosmic story tie-in to the Last Annihilation, but at least Gamma Flight will be there.

[Jody Garland]

This isn't the first prose comic story, and it won't be the last. This is a tecnhnique used by guys like Denny O'Neil and Grant Morrison; it's a part of the medium and has been for a while.

On the issue, something I like was the epigraph and how it ties in to the issue title. The epigraph is three tercets from Canto III of the Divine comedy, missing the last line that most people only know. That's the title of the issue.

Another detail I noticed: "The Rocket wasn't a bomb" is an oxymoron and there's no way Ewing didn't think of that.

[Jness]

This isn't the first prose comic story, and it won't be the last.

LOL was anyone here saying it wasn't?

[Jody Garland]

LOL was anyone here saying it wasn't?

Not directly, no, but one post said "It's not a comic" which feels like a value judgement even if it's not supposed to be.

[Dinosaur Hulk]

Also the Xemnu and Agger thing was also underwhelming, Agger got handled by Xemnu which looked cool but not as satisfying as seeing Hulk break him and Hulk actually didn't even one-punch Xemnu, it was Leader all along, now that one really stung, Hulk basically did nothing in that arc.

Oh Jesus... I completely forgot it was Leader. Now there's NO satisfaction at all, ugh. So many missed opportunities for good fights... we'll see. October is just around the corner.

[ChrisIII]

Kind of curious where Savage is. I think it was thought that the 'new' Hulk was Savage and Joe combined, but although he's green instead of Grey it's pretty clear Joe is in charge. He also refers to "The kid" separately in #48.


I can definitely see Joe sacrificing himself for Savage; the two of course used to hate each other back when Savage came back during the second quarter of PAD's run, but now he seems to be a protective older brother.

Kind of cool how the book pretty much started as Devil Hulk but is now pretty much the Redemption of Joe Fixit.

[Kingkalamari]

Letters section also makes it canon Derek the Gamma Rat scuttled back to life in it's own green door!

[xcoijoi]

Gotta say, I did enjoy the comraderie between the FF and Joe, especially on Grimm's part. Too bad Fixit didn't return the sentiment.

I never really care for the Thing, but this issue changes that a bit.

[Ptrvc]

Gotta say, I did enjoy the comraderie between the FF and Joe, especially on Grimm's part. Too bad Fixit didn't return the sentiment.

I never really care for the Thing, but this issue changes that a bit.

I think that's more pride and not wanting to show weakness as opposed to disrespect at Grimm.

Honestly, Ben Grimm is possibly the only Hero in the Marvel Universe that Hulk consistently respects evening they fight all the time.

[Toxin45]

Ross has returned to being a supporting character in Capetian America as red hulk again and as an anti-hero again . Leader is pretty much bull’s priamry villain at this point like always. Emil the original Abomination returns in Gamma flight

[jwatson]

I finally got around to reading Immortal Hulk 49 and wow, wow, wow. I just this is now my book of the week. I honestly can barely tell you what the art looked like as i was laser focused on the words so maybe in a second reading i will more but this is the first comic i've read that with every word i imagined how i would interpret it. It felt so intimate in that respect. this was a really great issue for me.

[HeavenlyDemonic]

Kind of curious where Savage is. I think it was thought that the 'new' Hulk was Savage and Joe combined, but although he's green instead of Grey it's pretty clear Joe is in charge. He also refers to "The kid" separately in #48.


I can definitely see Joe sacrificing himself for Savage; the two of course used to hate each other back when Savage came back during the second quarter of PAD's run, but now he seems to be a protective older brother.

Kind of cool how the book pretty much started as Devil Hulk but is now pretty much the Redemption of Joe Fixit.

Issue#49 showed Joe and Savage separate as they went through the gate to the place below all.

[ChrisIII]

I think that's more pride and not wanting to show weakness as opposed to disrespect at Grimm.

Honestly, Ben Grimm is possibly the only Hero in the Marvel Universe that Hulk consistently respects evening they fight all the time.

I think Joe's probably the closest to the Thing in terms of personality, especially now that Joe's gone through a lot of character development lately. Plus of course they had that cool diner chat a few issues ago.