The Immortal Hulk #33 // Review
Twists upon twists, upon twists in The Immortal Hulk #33, written by Al Ewing, with Joe Bennett on pencils, Ruy Jose, Belardino Brabo, Marc Deering, and Mark Morales on inks, Paul Mounts on Colors, and a special art sequence with artist Nick Pitarra, and Michael Garland on colors. Previously, Banner and his Hulk personalities banded together to “destroy the world as it is”, and their first target was Dario Agger and his Roxxon Energy Corporation. Agger wasn’t going down without a fight, though, as he is also known as the Minotaur, the immensely strong Thor villain. He used his business cunning to throw up obstacle after obstacle for Banner. He ended up making a deal with Xemnu, a powerful alien who can control public perceptions by changing people’s memories. The Xemnu assault proved most effective, turning Hulk into public enemy number one, and even making Banner believe himself to be a villain. Now, with the Hulks trapped inside Bruce’s mind, they must find a way out to make him remember the truth of the world.
This issue is Ewing at his best, plain and simple. Not only does he bring the confrontation with Agger and Xemnu to a stunning and disturbing conclusion, but he manages to add some layers to the mystery of Hulk’s psyche, introducing even more of Banner’s old personalities to the mix. The Worldbreaker Hulk is finally on the scene, and he does not seem to be wanting to fall in line with the Devil Hulk’s plans. How this will affect Banner’s plans moving forward is anyone’s guess, but it’s fun seeing a classic Hulk personality shift come into play again, proving that Banner is never stable, no matter how much it seems like he is.
The villains of the arc are well played here, with Ewing using them to really lean into his horror tone. The turns both Agger and Xemnu take in this issue are truly the stuff of nightmares. On top of that, there is even more revealed about the one tugging the strings in Hulk’s life lately, and you will be left floored at the conclusion. No one has added to the Hulk rogues gallery in a more effective way than Ewing within the last 20 years, and it will be nearly impossible to top him when he’s gone.
Bennett, Jose, Brabo, Deering, Morales, and Mounts are always in competition with Ewing for the most enjoyable ingredient of this title. Still, the additional art team of Pitarra and Garland on the “Mindscape” portion of this book offers an interesting new flavor to the story. It’s assumed that a separate art team was chosen for that particular sequence, because of its unique setting, just as another art team was brought in last issue for specific pages set not completely in reality. Whether this will be an ongoing practice moving forward is anybody’s guess, but it’s certainly making for some crazy, off-center visual storytelling in the meantime.
Altogether, this was another slam dunk from the team of Immortal Hulk. This book only gets better the deeper into the story, and character Ewing digs. If you’ve been missing this title, you will no doubt regret it in the long run. This story will go down in history as one of the best Hulk runs of all time, and this issue is one of the greatest of the whole thing.
