I am Sakaarticus

Planet Hulk - Greg Pak and a big pile of artists - I didn't read Planet Hulk when it was coming out. I read a good bit of World War Hulk, and enjoyed what I read. I have been reading Incredible Hercules since it sprouted up out of that. I am not a fan of big events, but I sort of feel like this was all done pretty well, and the story was a good one that made decent sense, and they really did something with it. 

The big brains in the Super Hero world decide that they have to deal with the Hulk. They get the Hulk to save the world again, and they repay him by sending him to a far off world that is supposedly a lush uninhabited paradise... like that farm that parents always say the family dog was sent to. Hulk actually ends up on a world with an evil emperor and slaves and gladiators and all manner of monsters and disparate creatures that would all be considered unfavorable if they were on earth.

The story that unfolds in this terrific large hardback is epic and heroic. It is the classic Warrior King story with the Hulk in the role of strange gladiator from a faraway land who may be the chosen one who delivers the slaves from bondage, etc. etc. It is seriously the perfect setting for the Hulk to be set loose in. 

My real issue with this is the whole way it is set up to end. The poor long suffering beast is finally put in a setting where he has righted wrongs, fought injustice and won, and gotten the girl, to the great benefit of an entire world. Of course that means that a few pages after he gets to realize happiness, boom, there goes the world, the woman, the unborn child, the masses he united, everything, just boom. I hate that. However, it set up a good reason for him to come to earth with his warbound buddies and kick everyone's butt all over the place, but still... He had been on a planet where his very blood could bring life to the soil.

All told, it is one of the better events (planet Hulk into World War Hulk, although only Planet Hulk is in this volume) This is a terrific story. It is fun and exciting, it's epic. I borrowed this from my public library, but I can see wanting this in my collection some day. Greg Pak has more than proven himself to be a pretty great writer.