Immortal Hulk: Volume 5, Breaker of Worlds
Author: Ewing, Bennet, Bodenheim, Garcia
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Publishing Date: 2020
Pgs: 119
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
Guest-starring Alpha Flight's Sasquatch! The monster inside Bruce Banner is fully unleashed - in a brutal, bloody battle with the monster who made him. Blood will flow. The truth will come out. There can only be one winner...and it won't be the IMMORTAL HULK
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Genre:
Comics
Marvel Comics
Superhero

Why this book:
Ewing’s run on Hulk has been immensely entertaining.
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Least Favorite Character:
General Fortean is,an unlikable guy. Dedicated to his mission beyond all else in his life. He's basically a Thunderbolt Ross clone in character aspect if nothing else. Anything to achieve your goals. Seeing himself as a patriot even though he's gone off book, way above top secret, and beyond his command structure.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The flashbacks to Fortean's childhood as he translocated based at least partly on faith rather than science is fascinating. Troubling that he would make the move without checking and rechecking his targeting and equipment. An act of faith in science and technology when he is hunting the Hulk, an exemplar of science gone wrong. Is it drive overpowering logic? Is obsession overpowering sense of duty? Is it a sense of duty and dedication to goal beyond everything?

Favorite Scene:
The husk…That is a wicked image of Fortean in the husk. That’s pretty incredibly gross. Damn, that's what is left of the Abomination. And Fortean just stuck out his hand like he was calling a puppy or a kitten. The moment of realization that he might have messed up is well done.

Fortean Abomination vs Devil Hulk with Gamma Flight and the rest of Shadow Base caught in the middle.

Fortean tells Samson that he wants to dissect him. Ick. I hear that in Herbert West voice from Reanimator.

Overused Phrase/Concept:
The revolving door of comic book death is moving way too fast.

Tropes:
Obsessed military commander: Fortean is way too into his role as judge, jury, and executioner to the exclusion of all other considerations.

Villain kills characters to make themselves look bad assed and the victims are alive again before the ink dries on the pamphlet page.

This run on Hulk broke the modern rules of watching paint dry while fluffing up the page count for the Trade Paperback. A lot goes on in this series.

Become the monster to beat the monster.

Hmm Moments:
So effectively, General Fortean MJ-12ed the Hulkbuster initiative into the shadows as a way of avenging his mentor and giving him leeway beyond the Federal/private sector partnerships that predominate military spending and operations. Smart, but he's on his own ego trip in all this too, characterized by the look back to Sunday school when he was taught that authority was all. That's a whole lotta characterization packed into a few pages without overloading the narrative. Very well done.

WTF Moments/RUFKM Moments:
No way did Fortean just kill off all those characters. Puck and Sasquatch especially. Doc Samson has died so many times, he should almost qualify for the Nick Fury joke funeral where afterward, his friends sit around, toast, and roast him while taking bets on how he'll return next time. {headache] And they are literally, all but one, alive in the opening pages of the next issue.

Wait...What?:
JFC! When Fortean gets his wish to find a way to stand up to and defeat the Hulk, he went just a bit further than Thunderbolt Ross did. That last image of the first chapter, Holy crap.

The Unexpected:
Hmmm...is Hulk supposed to be the Galactus of the next universe? That's A good twist. Make it really heart-rending, make him have to consume all the other gamma-irradiated immortals: friends, foes, and the unknown, to herald the next universe beyond the Big Crunch and the heat death of the universe.
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Pacing:
A lot goes on in this TPB.

Last Page Sound:
Nihilism is so strong in this collection of issues.

This was a good set but they should have picked a better stopping spot. Hate cliffhangers. The last issue fits better with the next selection than with this one. Of course, that means that the Fortean section would have been on its own and much shorter than the other selections. Guess there really isn't A good way to do this.
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