After all the heady stories that came out of Planet Hulk and World War Hulks, Marvel did what it always does when it thinks the Hulk is getting too complex. Dumb things down and go back to basics. Unlike what they did earlier in the decade, this time they did it right. Instead of having Banner being the primary Hulk and going on mindless rampages, they gave us a new Hulk, a red Hulk. So here is a Hulk with a new personality, beating the shit out of everybody, and there’s a mystery behind who this new Hulk really is.

Jeph Loeb gets a lot of flak for some of the stuff he did in the 2000s (Ultimatum comes to mind), but I think we need to cut the guy some slack, the guy’s son died of cancer at 17 years old. Also he wrote some great stories like Batman: The Long Halloween, and the Marvel’s Color quintology (Spider-Man: Blue, Hulk: Grey, Daredevil: Yellow, and Captain America: White) As far as his work on the Hulk, it’s not his best work, but it’s not bad either.

The first 16 odd issues of Hulk Vol. 2 were just fun. They didn’t require a whole lot of deep thought, they were just brawls between the Red Hulk and other characters in the Marvel Universe. The dude bitch slaps the Watcher. That’s how tough this fucker is. There’s not really much to say about it other than that. I guess my only complaint about this run was that there were a few too many mysteries. On top of the Red Hulk, you also have Rick Jones who had been transformed into A-Bomb with no explanation, as well as a Red She-Hulk.

At least with the Red Hulks they were played off as new characters, but with Rick Jones — who was last seen in World War Hulk — seeing as A-Bomb for the first time makes you wonder if you missed an issue somewhere. So when these stories were first published it was a little jarring. The other odd choice was in the last three issues of the decade (Hulk Vol. 2 #14-16) which reveals the Red She-Hulk. She’s suddenly there wearing a ripped up Domino costume carrying a gun and a sai. It’s obvious she just fought Domino and Elektra and they are nowhere to be found. The intent (I guess?) was to lead readers on a red herring in making them think the Red She-Hulk might be either of those two women. Instead it was actually a bad narrative choice as the actual battle is later told during Fall of the Hulks. However, since it was a b-story to the main title it was a little confusing to follow at first.

Anyway… Although the mystery is a little disjointing the early Red Hulk stories are a fun read as long as you don’t expect very much out of them.

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