Writers: Greg Pak/Fred Van Lente
Art: Khoi Pham & Stephane Peru
Price: $2.99
Publisher: Marvel
With the Hulk out of commission after the events of the World War Hulk miniseries, the task of keeping his title going falls to two of his supporting cast members over the last few months – seventh smartest person on the planet Amadeus Cho and hard-fighting demigod Hercules.
We open the story with our heroes being confronted by (and surrendering to) the forces of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the issue deals with their interrogation and (yeah, not exactly a spoiler here) eventual escape – not to mention setting up just who will be going after them.
Regular Hulk writer Greg Pak is joined for this storyline by Fred Van Lente, writer of the recent Super-Villain Team-Up/MODOK’s 11 miniseries. Between them they craft an appealing opening chapter, with a good mixture of unfolding events and re-capping of Hercules’ pre-superhero life – specifically, his labours and the death of his wife and children.
There seems to be a movement at Marvel over the last couple of years to push Hercules in a different direction to his standard portrayal. The hard-drinking, hard-loving, Brian Blessed-voiced (in my head, anyway) amusing character best shown in the classic Prince of Power miniseries seems to be almost gone; replaced by a more serious take on the character – effectively giving him the same makeover as the current take on Thor, right down to the distinctive speech patterns being replaced with a more standardised, formal speech. The old Hercules would never have said “Whoa”, as this one does. The old Hercules was a lot more fun, but that’s not to say that this version is totally without merit.
Despite the above reservations about “New Herc”, this tale is off to a good start, and it will be interesting to see where they take the Lion of Olympus next.
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Russell Hillman was born in London but now lives in Coventry. His hobbies include precious little. He doesn’t get out much, but thinks reading a lot of comics makes up for it. He’s wrong.