Showing posts with label Onslaught. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Onslaught. Show all posts

Monday, 7 November 2016

Punisher (1995) # 1-18, Spider-Man/Punisher: Family Plot (1996) # 1/2


(I originally read these comics in late March 2016)

After a meteoric rise in popularity brought about by the character's first limited series in 1986, the Punisher had largely gone out of fashion by 1995. His three simultaneous ongoing titles were cut back to just this one, and it's one of the most bizarre chapters in his history. 

Sentenced to die in the electric chair after killing Nick Fury in the 'Over the Edge' crossover (which I read as part of the Peter David Hulk run last year), Frank Castle is spared his fate by an ageing Mafia (not "Maggia"?) don who offers him a proposition: take over the running of his empire and try to make a difference from the inside. Without too much deliberation and against all common sense, he agrees. Stupid, stupid. Writer John Ostrander tries to make the dumb premise work, but it reeks of desperation. It gets worse when Frank starts sporting a "badass" '90s ponytail. Tom Lyle draws the majority of the run and he's one of my most hated artists of the period, with a whole host of visual tics to annoy. However, he unexpectedly makes a decent writer on the two-issue team-up with Spider-Man, even if the visuals are by committee and emblematic of grotesque '90s excess.

The mob storyline comes to an abrupt conclusion in issues # 11 and 12 and from there Frank is pushed into another story as a S.H.I.E.L.D. lackey, his mission to protect a prominent, pro-mutant preacher in the wake of the line-wide 'Onslaught' crossover. The Punisher feels ill-placed in what should otherwise be an X-Men story. Another desperate attempt to get the readership up, no doubt. Anyway, the run ends with Frank as an amnesiac hiding out in an abandoned church. His next appearances were in Heroes for Hire (1997) # 8 and 9, also by Ostrander.

This run remains largely readable during the mob story line at least, but there's little doubt this is a chapter in the life of Frank Castle that's best forgotten.  
   
   
   
  
  
  


Spider-Man/Punisher: Family Plot (1996) # 1/2 are collected in:

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Punisher (1995) # 11 is collected in:

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Monday, 19 September 2016

Incredible Hulk (1968) # 426-467, Prime versus the Incredible Hulk (1995) # 0, The Savage Hulk (1996), Cutting Edge (1996) # 1, Incredible Hulk: Hercules Unleashed (1996) # 1, Hulk/Pitt (1996), Incredible Hulk: The End (2002), Doc Samson (1995) # 1-4, Abominations (1996) # 1-3


(I originally read these comics in early/mid July 2015)

Finally finished reading Peter David's run on 'The Incredible Hulk,' a run which lasted eleven years. It's often held up as being the best Hulk run ever but I can't help thinking he stayed on it at least 30-35 issues too long, as his final few years are mediocre and meandering. To be fair, some of this coincides with the editorially-mandated 'Onslaught' crossover, where Marvel's non-mutant heroes were whisked away to a "pocket universe" for a year in a bid to revitalise their flagging sales. Banner is separated from the Hulk in the process and there's a feeling of the comic just biding time till he comes back. 


   
   


Notable events during the run include Nick Fury being killed by the Punisher (which actually takes place outside of the Hulk title, in the 'Double Edge: Omega' book, though his funeral is in Hulk # 434), the return from death of General 'Thunderbolt' Ross after having been killed off over a hundred issues previously (# 330) and the death of Betty Banner via radiation poisoning in David's penultimate issue, # 466. She wouldn't stay dead either... *Sigh*


  
   
 
  


'What Savage Beast' is a novel which utilises plotlines David was forbidden from using in the comic. It was probably a mistake for me to read this now as although it picks up from the comic storyline, it subsequently spins off into its own continuity that can't possibly be reconciled with the comic. However, some minor aspects of the novel are later recycled in the monthly. I'd actually read the novel before, years ago, with little prior knowledge of the comic at the time, and had enjoyed it thoroughly, though slightly less so this time. The cover of the paperback edition makes the bold claim that "the characters have never been written better," and it's probably right. It's almost four hundred pages long, but I read it in five days.




The Doc Samson limited series (the first; a second followed in 2006) is an early work by Dan Slott and is utter crap. The 'Abominations' one, a sequel to 1992's dystopian 'Future Imperfect' series, isn't any better. 


   
   
   
    
   
 
   
  
   
   
   
   
   
   


'The End,' published four years after Peter David's ousting from the main title, presents a 'Last Man on Earth' scenario with an aged Bruce Banner the sole survivor of a nuclear conflagration only because the Hulk inside refuses to let him die. Dale Keown provides lush pencils but the caption-heavy script betrays its origins as a prose vignette in which not much actually happens.


Incredible Hulk (1968) # 426 is collected in:

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Incredible Hulk (1968) # 444/445, Cable (1993) # 34 and Onslaught: Marvel Universe # 1 are collected in:

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Incredible Hulk (1968) # 444 and Cable (1993) # 34 are collected in:

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Incredible Hulk (1968) # 445 is collected in:

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Onslaught: Marvel Universe (1996) # 1 is collected in:

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Incredible Hulk (1968) # 449 is collected in:

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Hulk: The End (2002) is collected in:

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