Hulk Visionaries: Peter David—Volume 1

Comic Info

Incredible Hulk (2) #332

Reprints Incredible Hulk (2) #331-339 (May 1987-January 1988).  Rick Jones battles being the Hulk, and Bruce is forced to team-up with the Leader to safe him.  When the gray Hulk takes over Bruce again, Bruce finds himself on the run.  With S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to capture him, Hulk will battle X-Factor and other enemies while trying to remain free, but it could cost him his relationship with Betty.

Peter David starts his prolific run on Incredible Hulk with this volume and it continued over ten years.  This volume finds him working off things established in the previous Hulk run and kind of “solving” the problems of what he wanted to keep and what he wanted to move on.

At the beginning of the collection, Rick Jones is the Hulk and Bruce is debating becoming the Hulk again.  This allowed David to really reintroduce the gray Hulk (who first appeared in Incredible Hulk (1) #1) but had resurfaced in recent issues of the series.  With the gray Hulk, David was able to give the Incredible Hulk book a completely different spin with a “smart” Hulk that still had no care for Bruce Banner.  The cunning and smart Hulk almost serves more as a Mr. Hyde (as often indicated in David’s run) to Bruce’s Dr. Jekyll.

Incredilbe Hulk (2) #337

It is the Jekyll and Hyde aspect of the Hulk that David real takes on later in his run, but here, David seems to be ironing out the ideas he intends to establish later in the series.  It is a bit wobbly at first with a lot of jarring issues and this collection is kind of unbalanced.  Appearances by X-Factor seem a bit forced and there are too many one shot issues that have Hulk questioning if he is good or evil.  Betty’s relationship with Ramon also seems underdeveloped and a bit of a write off.

These first issues also feature art by Todd McFarlane who had gained popularity on DC’s Infinity, Inc. but had yet to step into his iconic role as the artist for Spider-Man (and introducing Venom).  The art is pretty average to slightly above average and doesn’t have many of Todd McFarlane’s signature traits.  I think McFarlane gets too carried away on comics with the non-linear background stuff like in Infinity, Inc., Spawn, and Spider-Man so I actually kind of prefer this style of his art.

The first collection of Peter David’s run does give the Hulk some direction.  It isn’t as focused as some of his later stuff.  I’m not a big fan of the whole Pantheon run, but I do like the multiple personality aspects of the story leading up to it.  When compared to the standings of the Hulk currently, David’s work feels like gold.

Related Links:

Hulk Visionaries:  Peter David—Volume 2

Hulk Visionaries:  Peter David—Volume 3

Hulk Visionaries:  Peter David—Volume 4

Hulk Visionaries:  Peter David—Volume 5

Hulk Visionaries:  Peter David—Volume 6

Hulk Visionaries:  Peter David—Volume 7

Hulk Visionaries:  Peter David—Volume 8