Most of the heroes in Marvel series have undergone several changes after the significant events of Civil War but none as important as the Hulk! Now, after all those months that the green hot blooded menace spent away from us he’s coming back, and he’s really mad.
In the beginning of Civil War Nick Fury asked Bruce Banner’s help to deactivate a weapon satellite made by Hydra years ago, Banner accepted and Hulk was sent in outer space to destroy a potential threat to human kind. A threat that proved to have been created not by terrorists but by SHIELD and Fury himself, so after his mission was accomplished the situation changed dramatically. SHIELD found it convenient that Hulk would not return on Earth and the other heroes discovered a chance to get rid of him at last in order to protect civilian lives, so instead of bringing him back they threw him in a black hole to be left alone in a world empty of intelligent life forms!
Of course nothing worked out as planned and Hulk found himself on a planet scourged by war and death, a battlefield between imperial and rebel forces in a war he didn’t understand and didn’t want to be involved, but things change when he proves to be the savior a whole world waited for, the Green Scar, and a whole new chapter in Hulk’s history opened which you can follow in the storyline. But enough with that, Planet Hulk is over and the Hulk is coming back frustrated, betrayed, confused and very, very mad. They have sent him away when he tried to save them but he will never do that mistake again, the puny humans will pay for what they’ve done to him, Hulk smash!
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The Civil War is over and all the Marvel characters that got involved one way or the other (which might include all there are) continue in their separate series through the changes they suffered, well or bad. Spidey is back in black, Cap is hurt somewhere in a S.H.I.E.L.D base, the Iron Man leads the registered heroes, but what about Fantastic 4?
If you followed the events of Civil War you will know how they affected Marvel’s most famous family, Sue and Reed Richards came one step away from separation (Sue was frustrated by the turn things took and the outcomes of her husband’s actions like Hulk being thrown in a black hole and the Thor clone murdering one of their own) and only in the last moment they agreed to give their marriage a second chance, one that would need their entire attention and effort. So Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic took off leaving their team lacking two members, or do they? The second most famous couple in the Marvel Universe takes their place in the quartet in issue #544, Storm and the Black Panther, after their recent wedding in the middle of the war!
I sincerely doubt this will be a long term change in the series, I find it hard to believe they will be able to tie in effectively these characters in the same book, especially the Thing and the Human Torch who are totally connected with the two missing members of their team, but who knows, maybe for 5 issues or so it will be a nice change. What seems even more interesting though is the turn the story takes in issue #545 with the return of Galaktus and the Silver Surfer, can you imagine the Black Panther against the devourer of the worlds? I can’t!
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A common policy in the comics industry is that when sales go down events goes up! Especially if you are a Marvel fan you might have noticed something wrong with their main Universe, those old-fashioned issues where the good guy fought the evil one in a big battle, well no more of those, nowadays we have to read about cosmic, historical events every month. But is this the actual point or are they really afraid to drastically change something out there?
The Civil War is over, the super hero registration act has passed and as hard as I try to find what changed in the Marvel titles the only difference I see is Spider-Man being unmasked, his family in danger and him back in the black suite (for 4 months before he finds a new one I guess). Captain America dies in issue #25 of his own series and in Civil War – The Initiative we find out that nooo, Rogers is not really dead but hidden in a secret SHIELD facility, the X-Men are again on the run (big difference), Iron-Man is assembling a new team of Avengers (wow, innovative), only poor Hulk had to be thrown into a black hole (what, you thought he wouldn’t return? Check World War Hulk Prologue: World Breaker #1)! So is anything ever going to change, and do we want to?
This whole thing reminds me of similar events and how they too changed nothing, like the House of M and Infinite Crisis. It’s the perfect way to attract attention to your main titles by killing a couple of the secondary characters nobody would ever read about, present them like decent people and pretend it made a difference to the first class heroes. So DC killed the Blue Beetle, who gives a damn (except from those guys I met on line the other day creating a poll to make them bring him back)? Marvel killed Goliath and some other nobodies who might return anytime from another dimension or a gate Dr Strange will make or a black hole or something. Nothing’s ever going to change because deep inside we don’t want to; these heroes are our favorites for reasons that don’t allow them to change. You think otherwise? Well give Spider-Man 6 more months with his identity revealed and you’ll see!
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