Marvel Knights Hulk 4, Revolutionary War - Warheads 1

Marvel Knights Hulk 4
Keatinge (w) and Kowalski (a) and Filardi (c)

Nikoleta Harrow has brought Banner to the site of the first gamma bomb, the site where Hulk was born. She brings him underground and he realizes that she's allowed AIM to trace them and to follow them there before she reveals that she's also gotten her hands on another gamma bomb and left it on the surface. It goes off and wrecks through AIM's forces. As Banner hulks out, she injects herself with the serum they've created and attacks Hulk as a Hulk herself. she momentarily stops him but he ultimately brings her down and she dies, as she knew she would when she brought him there. SHIELD agent Molly Fitzgerald shows up to bring Banner back in and to answer his questions about the damage he's done. He returns to Paris briefly to apologize to the woman who found him and took care of him before his life returns to what it had been.

I will admit, I was somewhat distracted reading this issue wondering why I hadn't figured out Nikoleta Harrow before this issue. MORBIUS THE LIVING VAMPIRE wasn't that long ago and I clearly knew that Keatinge had written both. I should have recognized Harrow from her brief role in Morbius' adventures. Maybe I would have cared a little more about this series if I had some minor background for its villain. It's hard to say, though, because it takes a special HULK book to make me care too much about people trying to replicate the Hulk conditions and become Hulks. I just can't bring myself to care (I also have trouble with the "I want to recreate the super soldier serum!" storylines and anything all along those lines. Not as much trouble, mind you, and there certainly can be good stories centered around those but by and large they're mostly kind of tired storylines). Keatinge wrote a wrap-up letter at the end that talks about he and artist Piotr Kowalski's desire to get into Banner as a character, to get into what separates him and the weirdness inside of both him and Hulk. I don't think they really hit it. I wonder if a longer series would have given them the chance but this one just felt too rushed and too bogged down in its own story to really care about character until the very end.

Revolutionary War - Warheads 1
Lanning and Cowsill (w) and Erskine (a) and Zamor (c)

Colonel Tigon Liger has been hearing voices calling to him from Hell, the voices of Kether Troop, the team he had to leave behind the last time they stopped Mys-Tech. He goes to one of the Master Keys, a wizard who can open a portal provided he has some information on it first, to try to get him to open a portal to Hell to pull his team out after all this time. Agent Keller meets them at the SHIELD building in England only to find that someone's been building a portal on a missing thirteenth floor. It turns out, unfortunately for Liger, that the builder was none other than Keller himself, possessed by a Psycho-Wraith and prepared to use the captured British heroes (including Captain Britain and Dark Angel, plus others) as surrogates for the Mys-Tech board to open the gate to Hell and unleash a revolution on Britain and the world. Liger is unable to stop Keller now that he has a Master Key there and the portal is reared up and ready to go. It's not Mys-Tech coming out, though, it's Hell's new "liege lord" and Mephisto's chosen champion Killpower.

I've been a bit hard on REVOLUTIONARY WAR as a whole but I stand behind just about everything I've said so far. I think that the tone, by and large, hasn't corresponded with the intended drama of the book and I think that the exposition of who everyone is and the history of these characters has interfered with the storytelling of this book. That aside for this review, I think WARHEADS was just about the most coherent and best standalone issue of this event (aside from maybe DARK ANGEL, which read extremely well even without a lot of context). It really felt dedicated to telling the story and to keeping a consistent tone, which was a huge difference maker. I still think there was a bundle of exposition, maybe bordering on too much, but I've always understood why that was going to happen in this series, even if I wasn't in favor of it. This one, once it starts to get away from the history of the Kether Troop, does a solid job presenting a threat and making us understand why it's a threat. It's still a little confusing but I'm willing to take the blame on being confused. Solid work. Hopefully it's paved the way enough to make the upcoming conclusion, REVOLUTIONARY WAR - OMEGA, powerful and meaningful.