Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk

I hate superhero comics nowadays.

I can’t keep up with them, they’re all too heavy and bloated with continuity issues, crossovers, I abhor the overall art styles coming from both Marvel (too realistic and dark) and DC (too bright and colorful), and it’s all losing its appeal. It just exhausts me and frustrates me, looking at the shelves full of superhero comics in stores when trying to find something genuinely interesting.

However, I love Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk, despite having no idea what the hell’s really going on in the Ultimate Universe or where this fits.

Let’s flashback a bit: Early 2006, I’m a senior in high school, some friends have just gotten me back into comics, and I’m picking up just about anything I can find (which leads to some ultimately painful, regrettable purchases) in comic book stores, nearly spending entire paychecks. This was when the first two issues of Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk were released together in one fancy “Director’s Cut” book, with sketches and the complete scripts for the first two issues. I got it out of curiosity, and was floored. I couldn’t wait for the next issue to come out…

…And, well, I kind of had to. Issue 3 was delayed so horribly that it didn’t come out until March 2009. Yeah. THIS YEAR. I had to wait THREE BLOODY YEARS for the series to pick back up again, and it just recently finished up, with the sixth and final issue coming out just last week, and I couldn’t be happier.

I mean, c’mon. Three pages into the first issue, you get a glorious two-page spread of Hulk ripping Wolverine in half. You heard right, HULK RIPS WOLVERINE IN HALF.



Yeah!

You’d think being ripped in half in the first issue wouldn’t make the rest of the story very interesting, and while these first two issues are largely flashbacks, it doesn’t stop crazy things like this from happening.

Oh right, plot. Did you read volume one of the Ultimates or watch the Ultimate Avengers movie? The basic gist is this: Hulk went mad, killed 600-some odd people in New York, and it was up to the newly-formed Avengers, known as the Ultimates, to stop him. Afterwards, S.H.I.E.L.D. publicly executed Bruce Banner by leaving him on an empty aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean and dropping a nuke on it.

Except, you know, it didn’t kill him.

Flash forward a bit, and strange, violent occurrences are happening across Europe and Asia, events that, linked together, prove that Hulk is still alive. So Nick Fury hires Wolverine to go find Hulk in the Himalayas and kill him.

It just gets better from there.

There’s one primary reason that I love this story: Every single issue, without fail, has something positively INSANE happening, and hilarious (though admittedly somewhat juvenile) dialogue that always has me laughing out loud.

“Right before I got twisted around so I could see my own ass…I was lookin’ down at you and thinkin’, ‘what would be a really neat way to *&(@*&ing kill that mother*&$^*?”

The writer is Damon Lindelof, apparently the head writer of Lost, which I’ve never watched, so I can’t make any comparisons, but I can say the guy does a bang-up job of writing a good comic book story that’s actually FUN and ENTERTAINING. He also makes many sly references to previous Hulk Vs Wolverine encounters in the original Marvel universe, throws in a reference to Star Trek, and even takes a jab at that whole Civil War fiasco in a conversation between Captain American and Iron Man as they play ping pong out of costume. As far as the artist goes, Leinil Francis Yu, he can be a hit or miss artist, especially if someone else is inking his work and if the colorist is half-assed, but thankfully no one inked his art in this and the coloring isn’t too bright, but isn’t some monochrome, dark crap, either.

Plus, I can’t imagine many other artists being able to render a nice big shot of Wolverine, naked, trying to fight a panda and having flowers come out of his hands as opposed to his usual um, claws.

So, it is awesome, what more can I say? Even if you hate superhero comics, if you’re just a fan of wacky, violent hijinks and such, it is definitely worth checking out. The trade will undoubtedly be out in a few months’ time so you’re going to have to wait, but trust me: I waited three years for this, and it’s totally worth it.

[Brett]