Immortal Hulk - Hulk in Hell
Author: Dwing, Bennett, Hotz
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Publishing Date: 2019
Pgs: 112
Dewey: YA 741.5973 HUL V.3
Disposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
The Hell Beneath Them All ruled over by The One Below and the Hulk and friends have fallen through the Green Door into that place. Where The One Below has found his way up into the light via the body and soul of Bruce Banner. It wears human souls as masks. It will be free. Unless Bruce’s separated alternate personality, the Devil Hulk, has anything to say about it.
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Genre:
Marvel Comics
Graphic Novels
Comic Books
Superhero

Why this book:
Hulk Smash!
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Favorite Scene:
The denoument between Hulk and Banner in Hell. Bit of a cliche with the one personality in a multiple “taking care of” the others, but it works here.

Favorite Quote:
The words Ewing put in the mouth of the Hulk here as he describes his motivation to Samson:
“The President can end all life in minutes and the whole system’s designed to make it that easy. Can’t have anything get in the way of armageddon, right? You know how close we’ve come over a radar glitch? ‘Cause those days are back. Check your phone...maybe it’s happening now. Or maybe it won’t even matter. The planet’s already boiling to death; wildfires, hurricanes, whole chunks of the food chain dying off. Every time you hear abou tit, it’s worse. Less time. Less hope. But the humans in charge pretend they don’t even believe it. Because if they did, it’d mean they’d been wrong and humans are too weak to ever admit that. Too puny. You wonder why I'm angry? You want to know why I want to end the human world, Samson? Because if I do it, maybe some of ‘em will live.” That’s a great line.

Juxtaposition:
Doc Samson should have been a middle ground. One one extreme, the Hulk, on the other, the Leader, and in the middle, the perfect Gamma hero, only it never worked out that way.

The Unexpected:
Damn...not him...not there. I hope that isn’t Hell.
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Pacing:
Well paced. This is how you write a monthly comic that is going to be turned into a graphic novel. Doesn’t feel like there is any filler here.

Last Page Sound:
Yep...that means Ross too, I guess.

Things I’d Like to See:
Another Hulk movie where we get to explore Mr. Blue(The Leader), Doc Sampson(Betty’s ex), and Betty, would be a wonderful aside if The Red She-Hulk turned out to have been sexually transmitted and that is how Betty and Doc both got it. Say she went back to him after Bruce went off the reservation...or rather his alter ego.
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I'm really enjoying this horror take on the Hulk. It's nothing simple or cheesy. It's complex, Jungian, and most fascinatingly Qabalistic! Scratch what I said about the basic Freudian mystery, this is going all the way into the deeper mysteries.

The green door? Sure, you could call it hell, but possibly it's only the collective unconscious.

And Bruce? We're getting into the nitty gritty of a full-blown Dissociative Identity Disorder. Daddy issues? Yep, them too. And best yet, the Greeny is growing up, getting meaner, more intelligent, and making long-term plans.

You know, like doing for the Earth what the Swamp Thing was supposed to do in DC. Maybe we ought to remove people to heal the planet, no? :)

So interesting! And Bruce doesn't even show up more than a blip here. It's all Devil Hulk running the whole show. Am I thrilled? Is this a great horror comic? Is this one exciting me?

YES. ( )

Hell is astonishingly boring . . . especially when packed with Qabalah lessons and populated with people we know won't be there very long since they're immortal. I mean, it's right there in the title. And it has gone beyond just the Hulk, as almost no one in this series can seem to stay dead for very long.

I have the next volume cued up already, but I'm not sure I'll be sticking with this series much longer. ( )

In the previous book Banner is walking toward home. Alpha Flight is out to try to find him with the help of Lankowski. But they're not the only ones looking for him. They're just the first to find him. The Avengers go out to meet him and find him changed from the old Hulk. Tony feels the need to use the Helios Laser on him which would annihilate the area around him. All that's left is a skeleton that the government takes. Alpha Flight goes in search of him as a group of scientists experiment on him. He breaks free and the government sends Carl Creel, the Absorbing Man after the Hulk to absorb his gamma radiation. But things go wrong. Someone opens the green door that the Hulk has been trying to keep closed. So the Hulk and Jackie MacGee go through the door to hopefully seal it shut again.

In this book, when the Absorbing Man, Carl Creel, absorbed the Hulk what he absorbed was not his gamma radiation but David Banner so the Hulk is the Hulk, or the Devil Hulk all the time now. He is in a Hellish nightmare dreamscape that is what is behind the green door. The author uses this time to offer questions about the nature of God and Hell and Satan's role in things. He also examines the Qabalah and Zurastism and the Bible for clues to the existential questions he asks about God and higher powers that be that the Hulk represents. Does God have a Hulk?

Meanwhile, beyond the green door, Jackie meets up with her dead father and Hulk finds the bodies of Rick Jones and Betty's dad Thunderbolt Ross as well as his own father. This book explores David Banner's early years and the abusive father that he had. It also has Creel and another man looking for the Hulk in order to make things right. Creel gives the Hulk back Banner and the door is closed. Banner goes in search of Betty who tells him to come home. When he does all hell breaks loose because there are those interested in killing him for good.

This book was incredible. The art was glorious and gorgeous in the pictures it portrayed beyond the green door. It was magic come to life on the page. I still love the quotations that the author uses to introduce each issue. This was a magnificent book and I really loved it. I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

-William Shakespeare (The Tempest)

Fathers and teachers, I ponder, “What is Hell?” I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)

Love never dies a natural death.

-Anais Nin (The Four Chambered Heart)

You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

-Albert Camus (Intuitions) ( )