If there’s one thing the current volume of Incredible Hulk has done, it’s add depth to the supernatural side of the Marvel Universe. It has played with existing concepts, like Man-Thing and Ghost Rider, even adding a new version of the latter, and it has introduced ghouls, fallen angels, and werewolf demigods, besides.
Marvel
Gods Drink Blood, the most recent collection, slows down on the new introductions but doesn’t skimp on the deepening of its own mythology. With Hulk’s sidekick-esque Charlie now in possession of the fabled skin of that aforementioned demigod, she’s got something to learn about werewolves; who better to teach her than Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night?
Perhaps the most affecting story in the collection, however, occurs in issues #22 and #23, in which Charlie – now proficient in changing her skin and becoming someone else – removes her skin and stuffs it in a backpack so that she can play basketball with some kids as a pretty blonde girl (a recent victim of her bloodlust). This sounds weird, as I try to describe it, and that’s because it is, and delightfully so. The idea of unburdening your skin like a Halloween costume is both compelling and distressing, and artist Nic Klein captures that distress, especially when a goblin-like creature named Norgul comes along and snatches Charlie’s skin and wears it.
Norgul is a delightful little creep, and sad: the last of his kind, all Norgul wants is a friend; he thinks being Charlie – a perfectly normal human girl – is his best chance at a BFF. Norgul’s just another example at Incredible Hulk’s commitment to expanding the horror mythology of the Universe; at the end of issue #23 we’re given a text page detailing the history of his race, the Rutlings, and their struggle as the world was slowly overrun by humans. Norgul’s story is a tragedy – he doesn’t make any friends, and his fatal encounter spells the extinction of his species – but he’s just one of a thousand wrinkles of the dark underworld this book has given us.
Marvel
For all the additions of lore and concepts, Gods Drink Blood barely moves the Hulk’s narrative forward – these issues feel like diversions from the ongoing narrative arc. The Hulk is no closer to understanding the forces that align themselves against him, and there’s a listless, ambling quality to these issues. When Charlie finally turns the pair on the path to meeting Doctor Strange in New York, it feels like a relief to have a sort of compass introduced to the story: finally, a direction known, a signpost in the distance.
We know something big is out there waiting for these characters, but Incredible Hulk as a whole has been very sparse in giving us reason to fear it – the Eldest is spoken of in rumor and myth, but we’ve yet to see anything but its lowliest of foot soldiers, all of which Hulk summarily thrashes with the minimal of trouble. There’s a lot of stuff happening in the series, but not a lot happening, if you catch my meaning. Action abounds, but momentum spins out.
Gods Drink Blood is another engrossing collection of gruesome new myth, and it succeeds in its horror and magic; it does little to move its characters along, and this makes the whole endeavor feel like its dragging its feet.
You must be logged in to post a comment.