The Immortal Hulk #20 - Marvel Comics

IMMORTAL HULK No. 20, September 2019

Shifting an impressive 83,059 copies in July 2019, at least according to “Diamond Comic Distributors”, this ninth best-selling title of the month seemingly replaced Al Ewing’s long-running narrative to explore “the Hulk as representative of… [the Devil’s] darker side, the shadow side of ourselves” with a mouth-watering, action-packed fun-fest which sees Bruce Banner’s alter-ego brutalising a pair of General Fortean’s awesome-looking War Wagons. In fact, such is the sheer carnage on show, that it’s debatably difficult not to feel the British writer had momentarily taken his incarnation of the jade Goliath back to the Bronze Age of comics, when the green-skinned behemoth was predominantly just an unthinking, wrecking machine; “Wagon One -- Wagon Two -- Report status, please -- What -- What just happened --?”

Sadly however, such a pulse-pounding endeavour disappointingly doesn’t start until halfway through the twenty-page periodical, as the book’s opening scene rather tediously depicts the “emotionally reserved physicist” once again talking to his abusive father in the Below-Place. This wordy-heavy, dialogue-driven confrontation is disconcertingly slow, to the point where even a tearful, fleeting appearance of Banner’s mother can’t help energise a thoroughly tedious debate as to whether gamma radiation is “a measurable scientific phenomenon” or “from another angle -- from above, or below -- it’s a magic spell.”

For those readers willing to endure such a dreary discourse though, the subsequent sight of a “hard reset” Hulk knocking the new Abomination into tomorrow is well worth the wait, and delightfully is just a taste of things to come following Fortean’s calculatingly cold decision to “cauterise” the situation once his heavily-armed flying machines “have your monsters in sight, plus the loose end.” Whether it be the Harpy’s unbelievably vicious mid-air scrap with Subject B, where Betty Ross persistently claws away at her hideous rival’s flesh-melting digestive system, or the titular character’s decision to pummel War Wagon Two into its compatriot with a sound barrier-breaking punch, Joe Bennett’s pencilling is absolutely top notch, and packs every single pulse-pounding panel with enthralling, energetic life.

Admittedly, these sense-shattering shenanigans sadly come to a resolution all-too soon, with the Hulk tearing open the badly-beaten Abomination in order to reveal a significantly shrivelled Rick Jones curled up inside the creature’s corpse, and General Fortean ordering his forces to “pull back” following the arrival of Walter Langkowski’s Omega Flight. But even so, this fight sequence is so ferociously fast-paced that it is undoubtedly worth this comic’s cover price alone.

First published on the "Dawn of Comics" website.'

Writer: Al Ewing, Penciler: Joe Bennett, and Colorist: Paul Mounts