Incredible Hulk: Return of the Monster

For me, this is a story of two halves. The first three or four chapters are among the best comic writing I've seen in a long time. Very minimal dialogue; the story is propelled by body language and panel progressions. The whole story arc deals with Bruce Banner being on the run (yet again) for the murder of a child the Hulk may or may not have been involved in. The story here is nothing original, but the execution of it is breathtaking in it's subtlety. Focusing on Bruce Banner is a genius move, for once it's possible to understand the man behind the monster. This is done through gesture and use of language. It's the superb team of Bruce Jones & John Romita Jr that realises this.

But in the second half of the story we find out that a there are two covert agents that are hunting Banner for their own ends. This is when it starts to slip into more familiar territory and I started to lose interest a bit. Jones is able to keep it away from cliché territory, but it's still not as good as the first half. The subtlety that kept me intrigued is almost gone in favour of random acts of violence. The Hulk, bizarrely, only features briefly but when he does he always makes an impact (pardon the pun).

It was interesting to read something by Bruce Jones. The last thing I read of his was the chilling short "Jennifer" (with exemplary artwork by Berni Wrightson); it's a fresh take on the most hackneyed of stories (the chase or fugitive scenario). John Romita's artwork is more precise and measured in this story than others. I still miss his sleeker style from the 80's when he drew Spiderman. For some reason when he drew Daredevil his style became very blocky, less streamlined. Thankfully in this story it's not as bad as it was in, say, the Cable mini-series.

Read this if you like the Hulk; read this if you can't stand the Hulk because there is more to the Bruce Banner character than you first thought!!!