Hulk & Thing: Hard Knocks

By Bruce Jones (W) and Jae Lee (A) with Gerry Conway and Rich Buckler

Cover price $13.99. Published by Marvel Comics. Originally printed as Hulk & Thing: Hard Knocks 1-4 and Giant-Size Super-Stars 1.

Plot: The Thing and the Hulk reminisce about old times and tease a fight for three and a half issues before they finally go mano-a-mano.

Strengths: The bonus story by Gerry Conway and Rich Buckler is a really fun old-school superhero story. It’s exactly what the main story should have been, a knockdown, drag-out fight between the Thing and the Hulk. The twist this time is that in an attempt to cure Bruce Banner and Ben Grimm of their respective monstrous predicaments, Banner accidentally causes them to swap bodies. Ben can’t quite get a handle on the extra power he has in the Hulk’s body and takes a pounding from the Hulk (not Bruce Banner, mind you), who relies on the sheer brute strength the Thing’s body possesses to attack his opponent. Throw in Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch, Medusa and Thundra and you’ve got a great little story.

Weaknesses: Jae Lee is usually hit or miss. Sometimes his art is great, like in the Ultimate Fantastic Four annual he did featuring the Inhumans. Sometimes it’s really bad, like in the UFF fill-in arc he did with Mike Carey featuring the Mad Thinker. Hard Knocks falls closer to the latter category. While his interpretation of Hulk is interesting, Thing just doesn’t look like Thing at all. At one point, it looks like Hulk is about to passionately kiss Thing, and I’m almost certain that’s not what’s supposed to be happening.

Bruce Jones, on the other hand, is pretty much always a miss. Granted, I’ve only read this trade, another arc of his on The Hulk, and his run on Nightwing, but they’re all pretty terrible. Just like the Nightwing run, Hard Knocks suffers from bad characterization, bad dialogue, bad pacing and bad action sequences, and a poorly executed ending.

Oh, and there’s the fact that they only fight for the last half of the forth issue. And that when they do fight, they give up for no reason and decide to have a cup of coffee instead. Seriously.

Grade: D-. The Hulk and the Thing have fought many times before, and will fight many times in the future. All those fights are or will be better stories than Hulk & Thing: Hard Knocks. It probably wasn’t a good idea to point that out by including a good Hulk/Thing fight (which is factored into the grade) in the trade.