It’s all in how you approach the mega-event tie in.

If you pick the book up off the shelf thinking to yourself, “Oh god, like I don’t spend enough on comics already!”, you’re missing out. If you roll your eyes at the slew of books with nothing more than a cover banner, a corresponding story and a dream, you might miss out on something original. Sure, I see the big list of books and get just as daunted, just as confused and just as exhausted, but sometimes there’s that one book that overcomes the whole mega-event to not only take a snapshot of the battle from their particular viewpoint, but self-promote as well.

World War Hulk should generate the easiest of tie-in books: the big fight. Despite this being not so much a ‘world war’ (or really a ‘war’ for that matter, discuss!), Marvel is at least sort of hinting, if not show out-right that every hero is throwing themselves against the Gamma Wall and failing to stop his revenge. Every title on the shelves has the chance to line up and take their shot at the big bad guy, to either fail or limp away as needed. So far, the Spirit of Vengeance has placed his stamp of approval on the Hulk’s revenge, the new Initiative Avengers have tried to take on an opponent, we get an all new team of gamma soldiers (who I still doubt will make it out of this event to even guest star), some in the trenches reporting, and a visit to the Mini Mutant Refuge in Westchester.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the World War Hulk: X-Men mini-series. Find some copies (it’s only a three issue series!) and read along!

World War Hulk: X-Men is the first big event tie-in I have truly adored in a very long time. Three issues, in and out, it just gives you everything you want with all the fat trimmed off. If you read Civil War: X-Men, you realized that it mostly existed to finish up the 198 mini and clean up the X-Books a bit, the ‘Civil War’ portion mostly a tack-on title to attract readers by a couple panels of cameos. It was the worst of the tie-ins last year and didn’t do much to further any of the books it was connected to. But this mini-series manages to hit every point the last tie-in missed, and then some.

In short, the Hulk shows up at the refuge for mutants at the old Xavier School and wants to know if he should theoretically kick Xavier’s keister depending on how he would have theoretically voted in the big ‘Send Hulk Into Space’ Illuminati debate. Since Xavier feels Spider-Man levels of guilt for his bad decisions of late, admits he probably would have voted to send Hulk ‘away’ while they found a cure (but yet not into space) and surrenders peacefully to whatever fate the Hulk decides for his theoretical crimes against him.

Strangely enough, that moment is one of my favorite parts of the story. I like my Charles Xavier more moral and honest than I do hiding secrets and manipulative, so seeing the man step up, protect his school and admit to his own shortcomings takes not only guts, but some strong moral character.

However, no matter how noble his sacrifice, the X-Men, having seen the title of the book and promptly told Xavier to sit down, shut up and let them slug it out. He tried, bless his little bald heart, but the entirety of the current available mutant roster seemed set on protect him and/or just beating up the Hulk. That’s all part of the beauty of World War Hulk, the chance to see some real break loose use of super powers against someone who can not only take it, but dish it out just as much. Colossus, Wolverine, Strong Guy from X-Factor, every heavyweight the mutants have to offer step up to the plate to hit and be hit.

Things get interesting when Cain Marko entered the fray as a little exposition from his Excalibur teammates fill the reader in. You see, Cain’s Cyttorak fueled powers had waned since he joined the side of good, so to speak and Cain begs for the power to go deal with the Hulk personally. He gets his wish, but just not the amount of power he was looking for. In the end, Cain Marko has to commit himself to the Gem’s wicked ways in order to get into the fray and even then just can’t match the Hulk’s righteousness. The Hulk continues to smash many mutants.

Hightlights! M getting punted and told to ‘go be invulnerable in Jersey’! Hepzibah pilots/throws the Blackbird to crash nose-first into the Hulk! Logan gets brain damage! Contractors salivate as the X-Mansion again is demolished to smithereens and finally, the voice of a child rings true. Unsurprisingly, it’s one of the New X-Men kids who snaps, Cessily Kincaid who battles Hulk to the GIANT GRAVEYARD outside the school and tells him that, look dude, sure your life was hard but we watch our pregnant wives and utopian cities that accept us and our great accomplishments die, explode and crumble before breakfast. And just for a moment, the Hulk is put into some perspective and doesn’t seem to like what he sees. Since all this sorrow is ‘all Xavier’s fault’, Hulk considers this fair punishment for the telepath and jumps on home to smash people who aren’t so pathetic. The X-Men regroup, repair and heal.

So that leaves us with a smashed up mansion, several characters in severe conditions, the Juggernaut turned back to his darker side, the Hulk actually having paused in his world war tour. The Hulk has been pretty ruthless thus far, taking prisoners and relishing in the conflict so much he’s setting up a gladiatorial arena. The fact that he did something so simple as pause in his destruction and leap off to let the mutants lick their wounds and one of his (theoretical) judges unbroken… maybe Bruce Banner is still in there after all.

Certainly a lot to think about.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Marvel, News & Views, The Fifth Color, Version 1.0 Blog@. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.