Hulk vs. Hercules #1 - Mobile Edition

Marvel Comics
Hulk vs. Hercules #1
By Hervé St-Louis
May 4, 2008 - 07:56

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Stan Lee
Penciller(s): Khoi Pham, Eric Nguyen, Bob Layton, Jack Kirby, Bill Everett, Reilly Brown, Carlos Cuevas, Terry Pallot
Inker(s): Paul Neary, Eric Nguyen
Cover Artist(s): Marko Djvrdjevic
$3.99

This is a standalone story that looks at past encounters between Hercules and Hulk. It’s a flashback shared by the Goddess Athena to a young boy called Amadeus. The main story is set at a time when Hulk was traveling from dimension to dimension looking for a place to stay. Having found friendship with local Giants in Olympus, home of the Roman gods, Hulk’s life is changed by the interference of the Olympian gods and some of their old nemesis. As Hulk is about to rampage through Olympus, Hercules is called to stop him. Which one will win this fight?

The story is fun and serves several morals at the end. It explores the characters of both Hulk and Hercules and shows why the two strong men are not the same. However both make mistakes, and whereas one longs for happiness and acceptance, the other one who has fought for all of this and earned it ages ago, is all too willing to destroy the happiness of others and hurt himself at the same time. The big fight, which is a non event, almost doesn’t happen.

The second story is from Tales to Astonish #79 and features both Hulk and Hercules testing each other’s limit. This story, although a classic, is not interesting and probably included in the book only for nostalgia values.

There are many artists who work on this story and they do draw a solid story. But the various art styles interfere with one another and take away from the seamless story that readers expect.