Generations: Banner Hulk & Totally Awesome Hulk #1 Review - Marvel Monday

Generations: Banner Hulk & Totally Awesome Hulk #1 Review

Writer: Greg Pak

Art Team: Matteo Buffagni, Dono Sanchez Almara

Marvel Comics

Release Date: August 2, 2017

Hulk Smash Hulk!

Are you ready for another Marvel-esque type of event comic? Well then are you in luck, because just in case you weren’t already following the Edge of Venomverse, or Secret Empire, we have the first issue of Generations dropped on us this week featuring the Hulk’s. You may say to yourself what is Generations, and to that, I would most likely answer ‘we still don’t know’ even after reading this, so let’s jump in here and try to determine just what the heck is going on.

Our issue kicks off with the focus on Cho Hulk wondering where in damnation he is. This is the very 1^st ‘Generations’ issue, and we the reader get some vague information about teleporting to the Vanishing Point from the Introduction page, but that’s about our only hint by the end of this issue. 

Cho Hulk quickly takes a bullet to the back of the head, in this strange land, only to turn around and notice Banner Hulk is taking on an entire battalion of a General Ross led army (the non-Red Hulk version). So we have a classic Hulk vs Army situation brewing here in the Vanishing Point … not a bad start to an issue, especially accompanied with some pretty well drawn action sequences, but we never move on really.

From here Banner Hulk begins to lunge towards a group of military soldiers pursuing him before Cho Hulk steps in punching Banner Hulk far away from the situation, to save lives while calming the situation. This decision by Cho leads to a Hulk vs Hulk mini battle as Cho lures Banner further away from the Army.

Eventually the two Hulks catch up to each other calming down enough to have a brief chat depowered, and this is the point where Cho discovers the other Hulk, is indeed Banner, as he suspected.  The military catches up with them pretty quickly before discovering too much more about the situation. To buy the two sometime Cho leaves a hologram on the clifftop to allow them to weasel away.

A mile later up the coast the two depowered Hulk’s approach a farm house to swipe some shirts, before Banner moves to a dumpster, to find the most delicious looking dumpster burger I’ve ever seen. Another explosion off in the distance catches both of their attention before long and it’s the Army attacking and fighting off a giant creature from the Black Lagoon awoken from all the bombing whisking them away again before too much is shared between the two heroes.

Cho Hulk takes the initiative and starts trying to get the monsters attention to lure it back to the ocean, while trying to avoid it suffering further damage.  Cho’s attempts to clear the situation up goes array, forcing Banner to Hulk out as well, Cho starts losing control of the situation and the story events almost repeat themselves in reverse at this point.  Both of the Hulks again find safety, again turn non Hulk, and have another discussion about controlling the monster within. Like clockwork the military interrupts the two Hulks for a final time as Banner jumps off, and Cho is magically transported back to where he came from, as the story suddenly comes to a strange conclusion.

Overall Generations Hulk provides a decent but very thin story that stops itself, every time progress feels it’s starting to be made, in this meeting between two behemoths. By the third of fourth time the military appears, screwing things up, you tire of the trope, and want to move on to something else, which prevents this book from being something to recommend unless you’re the biggest of Hulk fans. 

The art find its moments to excel but some panel transitions are a little inconsistent making it difficult to tell one Hulk from another at points or what’s really happening because thing are too zoomed in.  The moments are few and far between though and the team overall did a great job making it at least something enjoyable to flick through.

Bits and Pieces

After a promising start to the issue, the story spends too much time repeating the same events over and over, making this a pointless one shot with too high a price point to recommend. I still have no idea what Generations is other than random meetings between heroes I wanted to care more.  

5.5/10