Hulk Annual #1: Review

May 2023
David Pepose, Caio Majado

Story Name:

The Viridian Project

Review & Comments

Rating:
3.5 stars

Hulk Annual #1 Review by (May 17, 2023)

Review: My, that cover is scary. What better way to introduce an event they are calling the “Age of Monsters.” So, we are offered a found-footage movie in comic book form, a few years after this movie fad had run out of steam. Okay, though. The second story is more of a teaser than a story and I’m not sure if I followed what was going on so I may be revising this in a few months. At a time when most annuals are parts of crossovers, a stand-alone story is a notable difference.

Comments: Second story is a preview of the upcoming new INCREDIBLE HULK ongoing series.






 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Hulk Annual #1 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

A team filming a documentary on the Hulk is introduced: director Rylend Grant, reporter Karla Fuentes, sound man Tony Donley, and cameraman Manny. A flash forward shows them underground, between some eerie figures and the Hulk….

The team visits Viridian, New Mexico, having fallen on hard times since The Los Diablos Missile Base closed. Bruce Banner’s mentor, Herbert Josiah Weller is interviewed. A local man who runs a gas station shows them CCTV footage of one of the Hulk’s first appearances. Several townspeople comment on Hulk or snipe at the filmmakers. At night they break into the deserted Base and encounter a man running from a huge monster, green and scaly with claws. The team jumps in their truck and tries to leave but the Hulk appears and his battle with the monster causes the road to collapse and the truck falls through to an underground cavern. While they try to extricate themselves from the truck, they are surrounded by Moloids with the Mole Man threatening to send the team’s corpses back to the surface as a warning. Karla bashes him over the head with a boom mic but now Hulk smashes through into this tunnel and he and the monster fall through into a lower level. Grant insists they keep filming when he and Manny fall into the hole and hang on. Then the monster steps on Grant. As the monster seizes him, Hulk grabs it from behind as the mortally wounded man keeps filming. Hulk dispatches the monster, mutters, “I hope it was worth it” and leaves….

The team films Grant’s funeral for the documentary and spots Bruce Banner among the mourners. And then the camera clicks off….

(No title given)
Writer: Philip Kennedy Johnson. Art: Travel Foreman. Colors: Matthew Wilson. Letters: Cory Petit.
Synopsis: Epilogue: a mine owner wants the dead monster (from the first story) out of his mine as it has lain there for months. A trio of weird people stand by the monster’s corpse, mourning their brother’s death. A woman called Eldest has an arm turn brown and scaly, causing the dead monster’s eyes to light up. The mine owner, standing above, sees this and one of the family turns into a huge birdlike creature and shoots up knocking the man into the hole. The other brother has a monster burst out of its body which, receiving permission for the Eldest, slaughters the man. And they are looking for the Fractured Son, meaning the Hulk….



Caio Majado
Caio Majado
Edgar Delgado
Gary Frank (Cover Penciler)
Gary Frank (Cover Inker)
Brad Anderson (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Cory Petit.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Bruce Banner
Bruce Banner

(Robert Bruce Banner)
Hulk
Hulk

(Bruce Banner)



> Hulk Annual: Book info and issue index

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