Non-Doomino Effect: The Immortal Hulk #18-23

Because of work trips and other general busyness, I fell behind on virtually every comics series I was buying, which then impeded my ability to get back on a weekly schedule. These Non-Doomino Effect entries will be an attempt to chip away at the stack so I can get back to the normal routine. Today, it’s The Immortal Hulk #18-23.

I don’t think I’ve been a regular Hulk reader since the Peter David / Dale Keown days in the early ’90s. I bought World War Hulk but that was a miniseries. I started picking up The Immortal Hulk when the hype became too much to ignore, and I probably had a slow week or something and decided it was time to try something new.

This series is really disturbing and unnerving, but it is fantastic. Also the art is really bad, which only adds to the sense that you’re reading something that is getting away with something. Sometimes I wonder if I would like it more if it had someone with a style like Mark Texeira or Bernie Wrightson illustrating it. But then on the other hand, I think the back-bencher art style somehow enhances the atmosphere of the book.

It feels dirty. It feels like some under-the-radar publisher is releasing a bootleg Hulk series that Marvel clearly must not know about. It’s so good. As the new issues have been coming out to the shop, I’ve been catching up on the old issues in this title on Marvel Unlimited (at the time of writing this, Marvel Unlimited is up to #10 while I started reading the hard copies at #18).

Sometimes you’ll feel sort of gross after reading an issue, but I highly recommend this series. One of my favorites.