Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Artists: Nic Klein & Danny Earls
Color Artist: Matthew Wilson
Cover Artist: Nic Klein
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
After some time being hunted, and nearly losing Charlie, Hulk ventured to LAs Vegas to confront Eldest and force her to restore Charlie, but things didn’t go as he wanted. Eldest showed that she was a real problem, she manipulates Bruce to betray Hulk, and Charlie is back to normal but now she’s surrounded by monsters. Read Incredible Hulk #19 to see how the Green Goliath gets out of this one.
Review:
Okay, so we’ve reached the final part of this encounter between the Hulk and Eldest. The previous issues had Eldest defeat the Hulk and overwhelmed him with her macabre shapeshifting powers and monstrous form. All while reaping the seeds of distrust and resentment placed in Bruce Banner’s mind by her and unwittingly by the Hulk himself to get him to sign a supernatural contract that gives her access to Hulk’s body in exchange for reviving teenage Charlie in a new body. But now Charlie’s trying to rescue them from Eldest and is finding that a nightmare to do by herself. Then she finds out she’s not alone. Fair warning, there will be SPOILERS in this review for the main story and some of the backups.
The story starts with Charlie inadvertently making a deal with Lycana, an ancient wolf/werewolf deity and a daughter of Eldest, and she wakes up to find her pursuers’ dead on the ground. Immediately she gets captured and is brought to Bruce and Hulk, whose body has been turned into a horrific tree courtesy of Eldest. Charlie tells off Eldest, and soon enough Eldest allows the Skinwalker that killed and ate her father to try and kill her. At first she’s scared, but Bruce tells her that whomever they turn into is someone they killed. This revelation both unburdens and enrages Charlie as she turns into a ferocious winged werewolf-like creature and attacks the Skinwalkers.
Not long after that, we get a series of epic double-page spreads from Nic Klein of Lycan Charlie (which is what I’ll call her in this form going forward) taking on Eldest before being defeated, only to be followed up by a gruesome Hulk transformation in the vein of Immortal Hulk. Then the Hulk proceeds to beat down Eldest in three pages flat, with the tree form of Bruce that he came out of I might add, and ending it with a classic Hulk Smash. After that, Bruce wakes up in a shop with his tattered clothes, and Charlie’s backpack next to him with her skin inside, while Eldest who survived swears vengeance on Bruce and the Hulk with the implication that she’ll get some other Gamma-mutates involved.
Naturally, I enjoyed this story arc, with only two real criticisms/complaints. The first is that this story arc feels like it should’ve happened earlier. Because Phillip Kennedy Johnson had this series spend so much time on monster of the month stories, progress on the main storyline was moving at a snail’s pace until this story arc.
The second criticism is that the reason behind Charlie feeling outraged about the Skinwalkers killing her father feels unearned. Look, perhaps Johnson intends to explore the mental complexities that come with being a child from an abusive household through Charlie. But as of now, I don’t think he’s doing a good job. Because Charlie has shown nothing but disdain for her father for his abusive behavior throughout this series, and it doesn’t help that her father is a stereotypical hillbilly, redkneck, abusive father. So not much thought has been put into the character or their dynamic. Plus, she literally beats his ass in the first issue and nearly killed him anyway and walked away feeling good about it. There’s no emotional complexity, no tragedy, there’s nothing compelling in their dynamic to make Charlie or even readers feel anything but glad that her dad got his comeuppance.
So why would she feel hurt let alone enraged that they killed her father? She shouldn’t, in fact she might be a little relieved that she didn’t kill him but not for any moral reasons. Probably so that she knows she legally didn’t kill him, since she was a runaway fugitive to the public at the moment, and even then that could be argued in self-defense since the man drove his car after her while drunk intending to do harm. The only times where she ever feels bad for her dad is two times when the plot demands it. The first time was during Hulk’s encounter with the Swamp Witch, and the second is this issue where she says, “You killed my daddy” like that’s supposed to emotionally mean something to anyone. As a result, her epic transformation into Lycan Charlie is diminished because of that.
Then there are the backup stories celebrating the legacy numbering of this being the 800th Incredible Hulk issue. Naturally, some stories are hits and others are misses. The first Amadeus Cho story is both hit and miss, mainly because it feels rushed. The She-Hulk story is too overly comedic for my liking and feels out of place here. But the best is the Red Hulk backup with Thunderbolt Ross in a flashback story as Red Hulk and then returning to the present (maybe) where he’s in Dr. Doom’s captivity. I have no idea where they’ll take that story if anywhere at all.
Final Thoughts:
The Incredible Hulk #19 concludes the latest story arc and celebrates the 800th legacy issue of the Incredible Hulk. The story concludes Hulk’s confrontation with Eldest as Charlie gains a new monstrous power while we get epic Hulk action thanks to Nic Klein’s art. Some moments weren’t so great while others hit much harder. The backups, like any anthology collection, are hit and miss, with the third story with Red Hulk potentially being the best if not the most interesting for a potential future Hulk story.