PLANET HULK HYPE STARTS HERE!

HULK WANT TO SPEAK TO MANAGER

HULK SMASH!
(Do you see? Yes, thought you might)

HULK NOT HEAR PORK FRY RICE HULK NOT DEAF

YOU PAY HULK OR HULK SMASH

GIVE HULK BIG TIP TOO GAS NOT CHEAP

HULK BRING PEPSI

HULK TOLD PUNY HUMAN NO COKE

YELLING AT HULK NOT BRING OUT COKE HULK BRING PEPSI

HULK WILL SMASH!!!

NO BETTER HULK WILL TURN RESTAURANT INTO JAZZ THEMED BISTRO!!! THEN SMASH!!!

Is this a Sword of the Atom style tale?

(Explaining joke of four months ago).

PH:Exile was kewl. You shut up.

I skipped around on my Hulk DVD and read Vol.2 issues 82 to 99. It was all pretty good, especially once they got to the Planet Hulk story line. I don't get the whole back story of the House of M and Illuminati stuff, but it doesn't really matter.

I'm going to have to pickup the last parts of the Planet Hulk storyline, as I liked it quite a bit. The artwork and covers are really great, it kind of reminds me a bit of Art Adams. I can see the John Carter Warlord of Mars in the influence, but it also kind of reminds me of the Frank Herbert book The Dosadi Experiment. The use of the Brood character and the Silver Surfer were both nice touches.

The bad thing is that when the Hulk gets back to Earth, they will probably screw it up by temporarily killing him off or something stupid like that. Personally, I'd leave him out there in space for awhile instead of bringing him back. I haven't read them, but it looks like Marvel is trying to bring back the whole Mar Vell, Nova, Kree, Skull, etc. space opera stuff with that mini-series with Giffen, I think they might do better leaving the Hulk out in the hinterland to be in those stories for a little while.

I like this thread because Huk-L seems to be growing increasingly irate with the failure to answer his Hulk questions...the payoff (lost in scheduling delays and editorial interference no-doubt) would be a final post in the series with his rage boiling over and the declaration "HUK-L SMASH!!"

I'm kind of surprised how little of this thread actually talked about the crossover itself. I just got around to reading it along with WWH, and was pretty impressed. 13 issues was maybe a little too long, and endings to both stories were a bit "WE MUST MAINTAIN MARVEL UNIVERSE STATUS QUO AT ALL COSTS" but they were both pretty fun and entertaining, unlike most of these giant Marvel crossovers. Maybe the lower hype helped, but I think it helped a ton that Planet Hulk was unconstrained by the rest of the company. It was a story with a relatively neat beginning and end, supported by good original characters.

Compared to House of M and Civil War, definitely more enjoyable. Even WWH, though there was still a bit too much drama and external stuff tied in *cough Sentry cough*, was a punchy fun story in the end.

Thing is, we're gonna find out that Hulk could only beat Black Bolt because he was a Skrull. It's like watching a rigged game.

That said, in and of itself, WWH was entertaining enough other than the BIG PLOT TWIST which was on the viewscreen from the first issue. At least for me, and I'm hardly versed in Hulk lore, so I figure it must have been like Captain Obvious standing up and yelling LOOK AT THIS TWISTY THING HERE. I liked the sense that the creative team was actually having some fun with it and I got the vibe that they were cackling with glee as they wrote/drew/colored/lettered the pages. However, the problem with these things is that indeed, you have to tithe to the Church of Status Quo at the end of things, which always takes things down a notch or three.

What was the WWH twist? That he beat up everyone? Or that the other guy blew up the ship?

The second one.

If Hulk hadn't beaten up everyone, I'd have been sorely disappointed.

But you gotta admit, Hulk righteously beating the crap out of everyone was fun to read. Since the Illuminati are jerks...

Has the once again near-destruction of NYC actually affected the Marvel Universe in any way since, or is it just being blown off as another day (i.e. Xavier's mansion destruction #576)?

I mean, at least the end of Civil War did something, with all the new Avengers crap going on, there is some lasting effect from it (magic Spidey retcon not withstanding, which will probably be undone within 2 years). It seems there's some new red Hulk running around and Banner's locked up somewhere, but otherwise it's been killing time until Secret Invasion where things... may... never... be the same... again.

I've noticed references to NYC's destruction here+there... but nothing really substantial. Then again, WWH was supposed to be a bit self-contained from the get-go, and it did alter the Hulk Storyline. So maybe it did what it was supposed to.

That said, in and of itself, WWH was entertaining enough other than the BIG PLOT TWIST which was on the viewscreen from the first issue.

See, this I don't agree with, but that's because I had spent the past year reading Planet Hulk, & Mek starts off as this benevolent reedy two-foot-tall sidekick (the little Warner Bros dog to Hulk's big dog) that likes to talk about chemming & admiring the Greenscar -- the fact that he embiggens was a shock! Never mind that the explosion is made to look like an actual accident. So whenever macho Mek talked up doing in the Illuminati brain trust, it didn't come off to me as maniacal machinations by the saboteur meant to keep Hulk's eyes on the prize. I think for folks that got in on the ground floor, the actual betrayal really did come out of nowhere.

Or maybe I just really liked the little-turned-big guy.

BTW, I am loving Incredible Herc, and hope Cho's dog survives.

I didn't read PLANET HULK. I might have been better off if I had, so that I could identify with the other aliens, and maybe then it would have indeed been more of a shock.

But from the point I came in on, I knew there wasn't an accident. "Oops, sorry we blew up your planet, Hulkster," just wouldn't work from a story standpoint. The Illuminati are jerks, but that's kinda over the line from jerkdom to villianhood. Besides, if they wanted to blow up the Hulk (yeah right) they'd have just shot him into the Fat Old Sun.

That said, Jeff Parker's issue of the Champions or the Renegades, whichever they're called now, during WWH was a lot of fun, as was the majority of the book itself. Which is far more than I can say for most Big Events.