First Look Review of Immortal Hulk #1

The Hulk started out in 1963 as a monster/horror comic and with this title, Al Ewing looks to bring back the beast and I’d say he’s pretty scary in this first issue.

Or Is He Both by Al Ewing and Joe Bennet. Published by Marvel Comics, 2018.

We start out at a random gas station in the southwest somewhere with a two-bit criminal trying to rob the place. In the process he shoots not only the attendant but 2 others, a man and a 12 year old girl. All die.

We soon learn that the robbery was staged to pay off a loan from a biker gang. Apparently Thomas Hill borrowed from the gang to pay rent for his family and in return he had to hold up the gas station. That proved a bad move for both Tommy and the gang as one of the dead victims vanishes from the morgue and a monster shows up at the biker hangout. Of course that monster is the Hulk. Apparently the John Doe that Tommy shot was Bruce Banner and while he ended up on a slab, the Hulk burst out of the morgue as soon as the sun went down.

The moral of the story is…nothing can stop the Hulk!

Anyway, the big green guy takes out his vengeance for the shooting deaths on the biker gang and Tommy but of course it doesn’t bring the 12 year old Sandra Ann Brockhurst back.

Meanwhile, with the details of a green monster roaming the town, the level of destruction, and the missing John Doe, the reporter dispatched to the scene of the events, Ms. McGee, can only come to a single conclusion…the Hulk is back.

This issue seems a lot more like a horror comic than a superhero comic though Big Green is working on the side of justice. He does go a bit beyond what we normally expect from a hero (violence-wise) and he really scares the crap outta the biker gang and Tommy. It also poses an interesting situation since the shooter was only trying to support his family and wasn’t necessarily a “bad guy” – he still killed the girl though.

On the whole, the story is good, the art is well drawn (except for one panel where I didn’t really like the depiction of Hulk), and the issue sets things up nicely for future tales. With that in mind, I give this issue a First Look Rating of a B+.

This comic can be found on Marvel Unlimited, Comixology or at your local comic book shop.

Comics Corner | First Look Review of Immortal Hulk #1