Marvel Graphic Novel Collection Issue 8 review
“Caught in the heart of a Gamma bomb explosion, Dr Bruce Banner now finds himself transformed into a powerful, dark, and distorted reflection of himself.”
This week sees the release of the next installment of the Marvel Graphic Novel Collection, and gives us our first taste of the green goliath we lovingly know as The Incredible Hulk. Except there is a problem, this Hulk isnt green, he’s grey, and only appears at night!
The latest release reprints Peter David’s Silent Screams, a story that takes place between issues 370 and 377 of volume one of the Incredible Hulk. This book sees the dream team combination of Peter David (X-Factor) and Dale Keown (Darkness). Peter David wrote an epic 136 issues of the title, truly making the character his own, and for many fans he was the definitive Hulk scribe. Dale Keown worked with David for two years, but many remember his work from the now classic Hulk: The End (previously reviewed in one of my Library hotpicks).
The story presented is an odd one, after various events that are recapped in the books obligatory “what you need to know” section we find a character that has undergone numerous changes. Peter David established the Bruce had Multiple Personality Disorder hence the ability to display various versions of the Hulk. The main character in this book, and a long time favorite of mine is the Grey Hulk, also known as Joe Fixit.
Both Hulk and Bruce are in agreement for once that the most important thing they need to do is find Betty Banner (Nee Ross). the whole world believes that both Bruce and the green hulk are dead, and he’s decided that it is time to end that chapter,
The book has some classic stories and actually features one of the first comics I owned in the form of Incredible Hulk 371. Bruce/Hulk meets with the Defenders, Doc Samson, Skrulls, and a mysterious organisation who have been stalking him (later revealed to be the Pantheon). The book also features the return of the green dumb Hulk and some very clever moments when large parts of the story are played out inside Bruce’s mind. The ending of this book is fantastic and I’m pretty sure introduces us to another Hulk who was another favorite of mine.
Now the bad part, unfortunately there seems to be some problems at the company producing this book. Firstly, and this is a tiny thing, the back blurb states he encounters Freedom Force, he doesn’t they have confused them with Pantheon, there was indeed an issue featuring freedom force, but it’s not in this book. Secondly, and frustratingly, my book has numerous pages duplicated during issue 377. I have e-mailed the company, but reading other people’s comments online regarding their dealings with them, I don’t imagine this will be resolved.
So what are the added extras in this book, as always we have a featured on the artist and the writer. The feature on Peter David is good as it is focused on his thought process during the writing of the story you have read, although makes no reference to his other work such as his long run on X-Factor (despite suggesting volume one as a recommended read). The feature on Dale Keown is your typical artist bio, which isn’t that informative.
There are alternative versions of the hulk including Bannerless, Grey, professor, Maestro, Gladiator (also referred to by fans as gravage {grey + Savage}), and strangely House of M version (this may be due to Panini owning rights to produce that story). There is a feature on the origin of the Hulk which presents Stan Lee’s inspiration for the character, but doesn’t give much in the way of the characters fictional history.
Our book reveals this time around are all Hulk focussed with issues 45 & 46 revealed as Planet Hulk part 1&2, and book 55 revealed World War Hulk.
So that leaves the list now looking like this….
Book 01: Iron Man: Demon in a bottle
Book 02: Uncanny X-men: Dark Phoenix
Book 05: The Mighty Thor: The Last Viking
Book 10: Spider-man: Kraven’s Last Hunt
Book 11: The Incredible Hulk: Silent Screams
Book 16: The Mighty Thor: In Search of Gods
Book 21: Spider-man: Coming Home
Book 22: Spider-man: Revelations
Book 25: Spider-man: Blue
Book 27: Captain America: The New Deal
Book 28: The Ultimates: Super-Human
Book 29: The Ultimates: Homeland Security
Book 36: Astonishing X-men: Gifted
Book 40: House of M
Book 43: Iron Man: Extremis
Book 44: Captain America: Winter Soldier
Book 45: The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk part 1
Book 46: The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk part 2
Book 50: Civil War
Book 53: The Eternals
Book 51: Fallen Son: Death of Captain America
Book 52: Thor: Reborn
Book 55: World War Hulk
Book 56: Thunderbolts: Faith in Monsters
Book 60: Siege
The next book to be released will Wolverine, which I assume is the Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s four-part series, so it will be interesting to see what they pad the book out with as so far they have all been 6-7 issues long.
Related Posts
Marvel Graphic Novel Collection Issue 35 Review →
Marvel Graphic Novel Collection Issue 34 Review →
Marvel Graphic Novel Collection Issue 33 Review →
Thought i would update the printing issues from this book, as i said took a long time to get a reply but this was it:
“Dear Mike
Thank you for your email,please accept our sincere apologies for the delayed response.
Kindly be advised that because you are not subscribing with us, we will charge you for the replacement.
You need to return the faulty book back to the store where it was bought from , for a free replacement.”
So went to newsagent to just ask about it, he had sold out of copies and said his copy had same problem. Good customer service, oh wait, no, awful customer service