But every once in a great while, as I'm trucking along with a planet-saving or moving call-to-arms or second-tier goof-balling, a series of panels will come out of nowhere and stop time. That happened this week with World War Hulk Aftersmash: Warbound #4, a title I'd almost given up because it's confusing as hell and frankly irrelevant to much of what's going on elsewhere. These random-ass aliens, having come to Earth with the Hulk to beat down a few self-important superheroes and failed, are now running away from the government and have all these weird powers and don't really belong anywhere. They find themselves in the middle of some big gamma-ray chaos with Hulk's superest super-villain, and for some indecipherable reason, one of them (Heroim) begs another one (Korg) to kill him because apparently Heroim's power is causing all the problems. Whatever whatever confusing, and then this (click to enlarge):
I'll confess, this sequence brought me to near tears--because it was unexpected, because it revealed so much about a character's private thoughts that had not been at all evident before, because it tells us without any awkward bullshit that there is an entire race of men who, through a ritual of deep friendship, reproduce homosexually. Events in World War Hulk had shown Korg to be earnest and devoted, with an intense sense of responsibility, but this was heart-rending and, in my view, extremely elegant work by Greg Pak and artist Leonard Kirk.
What happens after this is a cliffhanger involving some sudden giant robots that didn't do much for me action/suspense-wise. But I'll read the last issue, not because I give a crap about the robots or the gamma dome of death, but because now, finally, I really care whether the aliens get home safely, away from earthlings and their talent for ignorant judgment.
3 comments:
Have you read Planet Hulk? It didn't strike me as my kind of thing originally, but I found it to be really emersive in collected form (I suspect reading it monthly would have slowed it down a little too much). Part of the surprise was how engaging the Hulk's Warbound were, considering they were all largely new characters, in a Lord Of The Rings getting a gang together kind of way. With that in mind I can see why their continuing adventures could appeal, although without the Hulk as a hook it does lack a wide appeal.
And while any attempt to add more homosexual characters into comics should be encouraged, it's a damn shame that it seems it always has to be in the context of death or violence.
I didn't read it, actually, I started with World War Hulk and just haven't had a chance to go back. As I said, the continuing adventures only appeal to a point, but when they look at a character like this, it makes all the irrelevant stuff worth it.
The first Illuminati book, where they actually send Hulk into space, the Planet Hulk series and World War Hulk, when read together, really make for a great storyline altogether.
What seemed like a minor thing (Hulk shot into space) really turned into one of the most interesting Hulk stories in a long time.
Long story short: you should read Planet Hulk. You'll probably really dig it.
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