Hulk #45 Review

The origins of Dagan Shah’s powers are finally revealed. Today I will be reviewing Hulk #45. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Hulk #45

So let’s talk about the book. Rulk and Machine Man are captured and Shah uses this opportunity to mind probe Rulk and learn his true intentions. Afterwards, he leaves to reveal himself to the world. This allows Machine Man to come up with a plan of escape. Freeing Rulk, the two smash a hole in the floor and jump in. When they reach the bottom, they are confronted with an alien organism who reveals the origin’s of Shah’s powers. As Rulk begins to smash the technology, Shah returns and tears the Machine Man in half. And that’s the book.

So let’s talk opinions. Great. So now we went from magic to alien technology. Definitely didn’t see that one coming. And to be honest, it kind of pissed me off. Why the sudden switch? Why the added layer of enemy when we just finished with an alien story arc? (A boring as hell arc, at that) At least we got an origin to Shah’s powers. That was nice. I loved how monkeys stopped an alien invasion by eating the invaders. (Those are some damn hungry monkeys) That scene was freaking hilarious. Other than that, the humor was pretty absent this issue, which it should not have been since Machine Man is pretty hilarious. Also, no Arabian Night. Another missed opportunity to give further exposure to a possible new character. Once again, we had limited action and absolutely no Rulk smashing. Instead, we get one quick action sequence with Machine Man. While it was cool, the name on the cover is Hulk, not Machine Man. I think that the writers of a Hulk book sometimes forget that without Hulk actually smashing things, its not really a Hulk book. It’s a book about any random guy. What sets Rulk apart from the pack is the fact that he has decades of experience hunting a monster but has only been one for a brief period of time. The writers need to focus on that aspect a bit more. And start giving Rulk some real enemies to fight. Some huge powerhouses that only his massive strength or his energy absorption powers can deal with. That’s where the whole Omegex story arc failed miserably. I pray that next issue’s battle with Shah is worth the wait. At least the art was good. The whole alien underworld had a sort of Tronish feel to it, just with light instead of darkness. The Shah panels were really good. He looked very menacing in all of them. The one action sequence was well laid out. It also reminded me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. (Oops, sorry. Didn’t mean to kill you. My bad. Wascally wabbit) Overall, the plot moved along nicely and it was nice to look at, but the excitement definitely wasn’t there. Hopefully that can change next issue. That’s my opinion folks. Take it or leave it.

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