Review of Planet Hulk #1

I am usually one to shy away from the big Marvel events. I don’t always have “good” reasons for that, except it is going to require a lot of time and money to be invested. I do usually check out the beginning of an event, just to see if it is something I’ll be interested in. Let me tell you people, Secret Wars is definitely worth both your time and your money. Secret Wars takes place on Battleworld, the only world that is left. It is filled with fragments of what we know about the Marvel characters. It has enough familiar voices to keep the characters true, but a whole lot of wacky scenarios to keep things hella fun! Battleworld is a planet composed of many different regions, each containing the characters we love. This is a fantastic idea. Many books are going to spring out of this event, but the beauty is, you can pick and choose what you like. Read about the areas on the planet you are interested in and leave the other junk behind. Don’t forget to read the main title Secret Wars as well, to tie it all together. This week we get our first installment of tie-in books. The first one that catches my eye is Planet Hulk #1. The area known as “Greenland” (where do they get this stuff?) on Battleworld is the land of the Hulks. The Hulks are not happy with their living conditions and because of it are a nuisance to the god of Battleworld, Doom.

I know you must be a little skeptical at this point. You are thinking, “One Hulk can’t even carry his own movie. What can a whole country of Hulks do? Have Mark Ruffalo, Eric Bana and Edward Norton ever worked together?” You are right. If this story was just about the Hulks, I think it would be a tough sell. Enter Captain America! On Battleworld, Captain America and his sidekick Devil Dinosaur (That’s right! Cap and Rex fighting side by side) are gladiators. They fight in arena competition for sport. However Cap has lost his buddy Bucky and will do anything to find him. Doom devises a plan to send The Captain and the Devil to Greenland, to control the Hulk situation. He tells Cap that Bucky is being held prisoner by the Red Hulk so obviously Cap is sold and so am I.

This book is a lot of fun. If you need a break from some of the more serious areas of Battleworld then make sure you pick up Planet Hulk. Let me just break it down for you, Captain America and Devil Dinosaur fighting a country of Hulks! I can’t hand over my money fast enough.

– Dean