The Immortal Hulk Volume 2: The Green Door

On the plus side, there were some crazy fights here, as the Hulk’s new-found immortality is pushed to the limit and beyond. He’s approaching god-level power and is strong enough take on all of the assembled Avengers. Even if you blow him up with a space laser and then dissect him with adamantium blades his parts keep reassembling, which just leads to another big green can of whoop-ass being opened up. The effects can be grotesque in a truly novel way, and his various pieces coming back together to take out one of his tormentors is well worth the double-page spread. Meanwhile, Skinny Hulk, with his gamma power being drained by Absorbing Man is also freaky, and what happens to poor Absorbing Man is off the charts.

In the negative column . . . just what the hell is going on? The Hulkster is possessed by both a literal and metaphorical demon. The latter being the spirit of his abusive father, who still shows up in visions, and the former being I’m not sure what. Maybe an actual emissary from hell, which is where we end up in the end after going through the eponymous green door (which is, sadly, not an homage to one of the signal films of porn chic).

In sum, this is a really weird take on the Hulk mythos – maybe the weirdest yet, which is saying something since it has gone in a lot of strange directions. I have a hunch that writer Al Ewing was trying to do too much. Even the issue epigraphs rarely seemed on point. That said, I enjoyed this volume a lot more than the first, even if it is a dog’s breakfast of crazy. I still don’t know if there’s anywhere it’s going that’s worth getting to, but the trip is turning into a lot of fun.

Graphicalex