Red Hulk Appreciation: The incREDible Hulk

[SickAlice]

On Jeph Loeb:

Loeb is a lot of ground to cover in short verse. I think he's a nice man and he got an unfair shake. He get a lot of hate he didn't deserve over something he himself didn't even conceptualize. Everyone's beloved Pak was actually responsible for Red Hulk and Jeph was brought in to manage the character while Pak worked other sides of the Hulk family line and mythos expansion. The reason I make note of it was Loeb is often credited with " taking away " The Hulk and doing so abruptly, which was not the case. Red Hulk was Pak's plan for the thing the whole time. Many readers were justified in that they really came to love Worldbreaker Hulk and didn't want to see that version of the character go and naturally needed something to vent the frustration on. And there was Red Hulk and Jeph. Interesting how Jeph actually rolled with that fanrage and used it for his story, I think he deserves credit for that.

To date Jeph gets a lot snub for being a terrible/worst writer but the butthurt-from-yonder over that really doesn't speak for his actually writing ability nor do I think the sum of work or person in real life. That to me has always been unfair. It's like saying George Lucas has no skill because the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull was disagreeable. As well his work on Red Hulk did land Jeph the big chair over in the animation division so the proof is the pudding. I wonder how the fan reaction would have been had they found a way to keep Worldbreaker and Red Hulk at the same time? I think it would have turned out people would have been less critical of Loeb and gave Red Hulk a less bias chance. Either way it just doesn't speak for his abilities in reality, and definitely not nor should for the kind of man he is. I have to note here again though it was Pak and Loebs Hulk, not either or as people seemed inclined to think. Everything that goes after WWH to Parker coming on board was a collaborative effort. I think people need to mind that when looking at the big picture.

For the story itself I think the identity reveal went on to long though more it was maybe played up a little to hard and detracted from the storytelling itself. It on one hand helped to keep the reader from thinking about the Ross character and focus on getting to know the Red Hulk end of it, a trope used readily by Marvel to date (Marvel NOW! Thor). There was clearly a lot of filler in the first half of his run to compensate for this (Revengers, Code Red) that while fun stuff clearly hurt the overall composure and story structure. The Watcher thing was thoroughly explained. I can only think persons who still have an issue with that are ones who saw scans via Battle threads much like the ones who still think the " cosmic armbar " was actually a thing. In any case there was a lot of hokey stuff in the first half and it's hard to deny when anyone calls it as such. The second half came out better, once they had Ross's identity out and all cards on the table. I'm speaking of course for The Intelligencia, Fall Of The Hulks and World War Hulks. This to me is where the run really shined and came out with one imaginative effort after another. I would even support that this was one of the best era's for the Hulk franchise as a whole given how much was being added here. All in all I think Loeb did a great job and gets way more flack then is actually deserved. At best persons seems to be able to point out a one liner or two, the punching Uatu thing (again it was explained and finished by Parker) and the Grandmaster (this was played rather silly, I think Loeb was just taking a breather here). At worst that WWHulk ended and it was somehow the fault of the next book. Really I've never seen enough substantial evidence put forth to actually support why the Red Hulk series was " terrible " nor the era of Hulk overall.