“Planet Hulk – Allegiance Part 1”
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Carlos Pagulayan (main story artist) / Gary Frank (back-up story artist)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Incredible Hulk has been telling some of the best stories under Greg Pak for some time. I mean, who knew that sending the Hulk into space would actually be good for the character?
That being said, what we have here is the first ever 100th issue of Incredible Hulk. And it’s quite a monster-sized issue, as the main tale begins the third chapter of "Planet Hulk" and sees the main character gathering his allies together for an all-out strike on the Emperor. Pak does some great work at characterization here, particularly on Hulk’s rather ragtag group of allies, and makes a point of giving each one a little moment to shine. Probably the one that gets the strongest push right now is Miek, the buglike creature whose gone from weakling to hero over the course of the first two parts of this storyline. The battle sequences are as big as the Hulk himself, beautifully rendered by Carlos Pagulayan. He really shows a flair for drawing the immense, monstrous Spikes as well as the smaller, more subtle allies of the Hulk, which is a nice balance that really is the cornerstone of this book.
The back up story, by Greg Pak and Gary Frank, is easily my favorite part of the book. It focuses on a young man named Amadeus Cho (a.k.a. Mastermind Excello, introduced in the recently concluded Amazing Fantasy anthology book), who is apparently the seventh smartest person on the planet. Well, Amadeus has managed to find one of Bruce Banner’s little hideaways and used his mental abilities to not only take out a helicopter full of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents tracking him down, but he also hacked into the computers of Reed Richards and found out what they did to the Hulk. When he realizes the Hulk is not where Richards and the rest of the Illuminati have sent him, he tells Richards that Hulk would have been fine if he’d left them alone. Richards lets Tony Stark know what’s going on…, and we know with "World War Hulk" coming up in a few short months, this story will probably have something to do with it.
There are also two other stories reprinted here: Incredible Hulk #152 and #153 (“Who Will Judge the Hulk”). Not bad. Looks like you get about 100 pages of story, all total, which is quite a deal for an anniversary issue.
I really did enjoy the two main stories, but unless you’ve been following this book for a while, a lot of it is not going to make sense because you might not know who the major players are. However, for an anniversary issue it’s a great way to celebrate one of Marvel’s best characters. Recommended.
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