Friday, June 24, 2011

Chaos War TPB


I hate to say it, but as much as I LOVED most of the Incredible Hercules saga, the conclusion didn’t do much for me. The Chaos King is too abstract a villain, and his design is too generic. Having him speak in haiku is a genius move from writers Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak, but I just never got worked up over the guy. There’s lots of good pseudo-science and cosmic yammering, but giant-Hercules fighting a giant Chaos King over the Earth just doesn’t do anything for me.

It’s all worth it for the return of Alpha Flight, but I wonder what happened to Yellowjacket II and Swordsman. I didn’t see them die again, so is there a chance they made it?

In the end, I’m afraid the big conflict didn’t live up to my expectations. The story is suitably huge, and all the heroes on Earth get to give Hercules some props, but the story is just too far away from that Hercules-style story I’ve come to love. (And the resolution is a tad too easy too. I saw it coming back in issue 1, and I’m not as smart as Amadeus Cho!)

Khoi Pham’s sketchy art works better on the alien gods and Chaos King than on the heroes of Earth. Again, I feel he might be better suited to Hercules “solo” stories rather than Marvel U-spanning crossovers.

Average

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