Very surprised at how much I liked this new direction for the Hulk (despite always giving Mark Waid's work a chance and knowing it's going to be solid even if not to my specific taste). Should not have doubted MW a bit.

For the first major redirection and reinterpretation of the Hulk since Peter David's merging of the 3 personalities of Bruce Banner, I'm really liking that this book focuses a lot more on Banner, what he does and WHY, and a lot less on the mindless slugfesting that kept me from looking at the book much for a long long time. ( )

All Banner, all Hill, all the time.

Banner build, Hulk smash.

Interesting intersections include the indescribable irradiated Ironman.

What can we expect when Bruce gets an offer of SHIELD resources and protection and his own state-of-the-art lab in return for being a loaded shotgun pointed at the world's foes? A great start. What a nice change from always being the world's bogeyman. Hey, what could go wrong? He gets to hand-pick from past allies of villains to propel his projects. What could go wrong? I like it!

We'll see how it continues, of course, but the last part of this volume was kinda... I don't know... fishy? Still, it was funny to see Hulk get the love and Banner get none. :) ( )

Interesting. Bruce Banner gets himself hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. to ‘make magic’ as the Doc and make some noise (while being directed by S.H.I.E.L.D.) as Hulk. Banner has apparently stopped trying to get the Hulk out of him and I guess wants to manage him. Somehow I doubt if that’s all there is to the story. But, the main thrust of Bruce Banner in this volume is, ‘Hulk Smash, Banner Build’.

And Hulk smashes quite a lot. Underwater, on land, and he smashes all sorts of things, even a Mountain, sort of…

I think my favorite part of the TPB was the couple of Bannerville pages. They were hilarious and disturbing. ( )

Very surprised at how much I liked this new direction for the Hulk (despite always giving Mark Waid's work a chance and knowing it's going to be solid even if not to my specific taste). Should not have doubted MW a bit.

For the first major redirection and reinterpretation of the Hulk since Peter David's merging of the 3 personalities of Bruce Banner, I'm really liking that this book focuses a lot more on Banner, what he does and WHY, and a lot less on the mindless slugfesting that kept me from looking at the book much for a long long time. ( )

While I'm not certain if this is a take that has been tried before this is the first time I've seen this concept applied to the Hulk; where he's actually stopped fighting what he is. It's interesting so far and I like the book but I'm not sure how long I would find this enjoyable. The best part of the story is most definitely Tony's reactions to Bruce becoming more involved in developing technology; seeing how the two interact and seeing how they really perceive each other. ( )