With perennial Multiversity favorite “Immortal Hulk” coming to a close this week, we thought it’d be fun to grab a few contributors and have a good old fashioned roundtable about the series, it’s end, and the horror and beauty within. Join us as we say goodbye, more or less, to a series that wormed its way into the cockles of our hearts and made our brains go “ewwwwww” at least once a month.
Matthew: This was my first time reading a Hulk series. Was this anyone else’s first Hulk book? I’m not even sure what inspired me to pick up the first issue. I must’ve dug the horror premise.
Jake: I’ve read hulk off and on for a while, but I’ve never loved a run as much as I’ve loved this one. How did it feel to learn all the weird mythology and continuity of Hulkworld in this series? Were you surprised that there was so much dark stuff about his abusive dad? Whoof.
Matthew: Oh yeah, all of this mythology was really surprising. It was really dark, but gave so much depth to a character I had never thought of as particularly deep before. The book also had a good balance of not requiring me to know every bit of Hulk history, but still rewarding readers that have that knowledge.
Elias: Yeah, this was my first real experience with the Hulk. I’d seen his movie and read comics with him in it but until “Immortal Hulk” launched, he was just the big green guy who’s always on the run or sometimes with the avengers. I was absolutely floored by how dark the series was, how perfect the hook ended up being, and even more shocked to find out that much of what Ewing did was actually based on prior Hulk lore and not new here.
I was curious how Ewing would loop in the really esoteric stuff like his time in the Microverse and, like, Planet Hulk but he seemed to mostly skirt the edges of those stories in favor of the EC comics horror and philosophical musing. I have loved this series for its willingness to commit to the body horror and making it gorgeous in its grotesqueness. Which makes it really awkward to talk about now because of some of the artist’s non-Hulk work.
Matthew: I think we all know what you are talking about when you say non-Hulk work. Some of it that unfortunately spilled into the pages. I feel like I was naïve for letting it slide when it happened in the book because it was obviously indicative of much more.
Elias: Same here. I wanted to at least mention it at the outset because I’ll probably still be praising the art for the series and this final issue and it wouldn’t feel right to completely gloss over it.
Chris: This is not my first rodeo with Hulk, but while I have more of an attachment to the Peter David, Greg Pak and even Mark Waid series, it was a very good series, certainly a much better take on Hulk as a horror comic than the underwhelming stuff Bruce Jones was writing (gosh) almost two decades ago.
Elias: It really captured the dark atmosphere necessary to sell Hulk as something scary while also digging deep into the characters. “Immortal Hulk” is the kind of thing I dream of getting from most comics. Mostly consistent art team, introduces and deepens supporting characters, and has the right balance of long, medium, and short term stories.
I mean, we opened on an arc that’s entirely one and done morality plays and ended on an 80 page philosophical Yelling At God comic. It’s almost Job-ian in that way and I love it.
Oh, and with a healthy dose of Bosch in there too.
Chris: OK, so let’s get into the final issue: it’s a real challenge to end a story for a character who is literally and figuratively immortal like the Hulk, since we all know he’ll always be back soon in another issue by a new creative team.
And yes, it absolutely reminded me of the Book of Job, with the Hulk asking the One Above All – who is God in the MU – and by proxy, us the creators and the audience, why he must suffer?
Continued below
Matthew: You’ve always got to put the toys back in the box when you’re done playing with them!
Clearly, we love when Hulk suffers. It’s why we loved this book
Chris: Yeah, I mean as much as we love him we know he can’t be happy for long, otherwise he wouldn’t be so sympathetic.
So it was appropriate that the One Above All and the One Below All turned out to be one and the same.
Elias: I absolutely loved that reveal. And the way it’s presented as the One Below All being the One Above All’s Hulk??? Masterful thematic resonance. I just… I really, really loved this issue as its own thing and as a completion of this run.
There’s so much to pick apart and dissect and consider.
Like all the stuff with Sterns! And now we have a Red Hulk that doesn’t suck??
Chris: Yeah I’m not sure about Sterns and Banner being distant cousins thanks to some turn of the century infidelity, definitely not the silliest twist in comic books though.
(To Ewing’s credit, it could be interpreted as a psychological metaphor, but it’s clearly canon now.)
Elias: Yeah, that was my reaction too. I don’t really know what to make of the past stuff but the present Sterns stuff was really interesting to me because it also got to some of the bigger questions Jackie and Hulk are asking. What is a monster? What is a person? Who gets to be seen as either and why? And, crucially, who is allowed to be transformed from monster to person and be forgiven in the process? Because Devil Hulk is not forgiven by Jackie at the end but he is seen as a person. The layers are added without obscuring the original idea. I love that resolution. It’s not clean but it is meaningful.
Jake: The biggest question mark for me is where we go from here. Hulk is a malleable idea, and sometimes that lends itself well to doing something completely different, like what you see in Planet Hulk. Is this going to be like Hawkeye, and every Hulk series after Immortal will be weird amazing horror? Or are we going to see a series that continues to explore Hulk’s connection with the One Below All but with a lighthearted tone? I don’t know!!
Elias: To kinda meta-game a bit, I suspect we’re going to get a few Spawn-esque stories from the next creative team. Big action, big muscles, but maybe not as much depth as it thinks it has. I’m ready to be proven wrong though!
Chris: Que sera, sera is how I feel: if it’s good, good, I’ll check it out, if it’s bad, I’ll wait for the next run. I must admit though, part of me enjoys the prospect of a less gory and grotesque Hulk comic: yes, it made perfect sense for the tone of “Immortal,” but I like my Hulk to not come across as such a melty, noodle-like shapeshifter.
Elias: You mean you don’t want Hulk to fight the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Chris: Wouldn’t that just be a rehash of “Immortal’s” finale?
What do we think of the perception online that the book has been tainted by Bennett’s behavior, and that (as his sign off letter seems to indicate) that Ewing can’t enjoy his achievement?
I agree with the sentiment that’s become common now that Marvel (and DC) should stop putting together creative teams randomly.
Like I know it’s hard to do that in a monthly comics market where the deadline is king, but you’d think Marvel would’ve learned to be more cautious after the “X-Men Gold” controversy five years ago.
Elias: I don’t this is a problem of Marvel putting random teams together because the team itself was very good, even if 6 inkers had to come onto the title per issue during the middle of the run, and instead a problem of the corporate machine being bad at ensuring the people they hire aren’t representing terrible ideas in their art. This is specifically in reference to the political cartoon Bennett made and not editorial completely failing to catch the #47 screw up.
My hesitancy around this is because I don’t want companies to be allowed to monitor and control their employee’s social media and using that as reasons to unjustly firing someone, like if a creator talks about making a union or swearing at a troll, but at the same time, what you put out there has real effects and if you’re using your platform to denigrate groups of people and support a pretty reprehensible dude in power, that shit has consequences that ripple out.
Continued below
It doesn’t taint the book for me but it does make the finale feel less triumphant and more tragic, especially for Ewing and the rest of the crew who should be able to hold this book high as the masterpiece that it is without somehow feeling like it’s shameful to be holding up.
Chris: That’s a great point about vetting going both ways; and on a strange flipside, I know this sounds messed up, but as bad as Marvel’s royalty structure is, I’m glad it means Bennett won’t be making money off hardcovers and trades for the series.
It is certainly an awkward note to end on.
Elias: I mean, we can always end with a discussion on whether or not Ottley will go spaghetti noodle, noodle Kugel, or rotini with Hulk’s arms. My money’s on him breaking out the farfalle.
Chris: I keep meaning to learn these Italian terms, and I never do.
“Foodie Hulk” anyone?
