"The Quarry" (part 1 of 6)
Writer: Robin D. Laws
Artist: Brian Ashmore
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Synopsis:
Just in time for the movie: A fully painted Hulk mini-series. Hulk smashes robots, bulldozers and men in iron suits - because he's Hulk and people don't understand him. Bruce Banner is on the run, escaping his latest pursuer when a young college student gets caught up in his misadventures. But is their meeting by chance or part of a larger conspiracy?
Comments:
I think that Marvel has done a great job promoting the Hulk character in advance of Ang Lee's film adaptation. You can't go anywhere on the Web without being assaulted by ads for the Hulk video game, the Bixby/Ferrigno TV series DVD and the animated series videos. Every recent Marvel comic contains a half-dozen Hulk ads. Don't even think of walking into the toy section at Wal-Mart or Target with small children - hell, my local grocery store has a giant, inflated Hulk by the check out line. When the first X-Men and Spider-Man movies came out there was an uncomfortable silence from the House of Ideas. No more.
There are several Hulk comic series hitting the stands in hopes of capturing new reader interest. Hulk: Nightmerica is a fully painted, 6-part comic series that could exist pretty much anywhere in the comic's continuity, though it appears to lean towards the live-action television series for its inspiration. The art is beautiful, completely painted in watercolor by veteran illustrator Brian Ashmore - more on the art shortly. The story is. well, perhaps Marvel's zeal to reach retail shelves in the same week as the movie release affected the quality - another round of editing would have really helped.
In a wise move writer Robin D. Laws opens on a full-page of the Hulk in all his biohazard glory. Someone wearing a 1950s B-Movie armored suit is fighting Hulk in a small midwestern town. We aren't told why and Hulk doesn't know either, presumably someone is always after Hulk - at least that's what the story says. There is no indication of time or place, when the scene shifts to the interior of a corporate office the caption only says: "Elsewhere". I figured that this was a retro story set in the Hulk's early days, judging by the look of the town, until Hulk drops a PT Cruiser on the guy in the iron suit.
Afterwards Hulk is still pissed and vents his rage on some construction equipment in a rock quarry, hence this issue's title "The Quarry" - which is probably meant as a metaphor and I'm just too square to catch it. Shortly thereafter, anger issues resolved, Bruce Banner awakes and runs into Chrissie, a college girl who just happens to be a journalism major and part of the Hulk fan club. Look, I won't go on and spoil the next dozen plot points but suffice to say by the end of the issue a government conspiracy to nab the Hulk is revealed and Chrissie is right in the middle of it. I realized that by the final page I had been frowning, and probably had been through most of the book. I really didn't get the point of this story - fortunately, I get five more chances to find out.
The art, on the other hand, is pretty damned cool. I've been a big fan of fully painted comics since Alex Ross's Marvels and Kingdom Come. Artist Brian Ashmore, known for the recent Batman: Absolution hardcover, is a traditional fine artist and he brings his understanding of light, color and the human figure to bear on the Hulk with impressive results. Ashmore uses watercolors with a bit of gouache paint and colored pencils to portray a vivid world filled with believable human characters. Watercolors are used to provide the backgrounds and character colors; gouache (a very opaque water-based paint) for highlights and black shadows; colored pencils for edges and other tiny details. It's good stuff that ranks right up there with Alex Ross's work. Ashmore is really solid on human faces and mechanical objects like robots and cars, though some of his full-sized figures sometimes look a bit stiff.
Final Word:
Is Hulk: Nightmerica the kind of story that moviegoers will be interested in? Well, the Hulk is shown on about half the pages, there's lots of action, there's a pretty girl, there's some government bad guys and the art is unique and impressive. Unfortunately, the dialog is kinda weak and the plotting is confusing and a bit flat. Seems like a 3 or 4 issue mini-series or just selling this as a trade paperback would have been wiser, since a TPB could have gone immediately to booksellers like Barnes & Noble, which are often right across the street from most movie theaters.
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