BB Review Group week 258 - Dark Reign - The List: Hulk #1 (Spoilers)

**Ray G.** · 10-21-2009, 11:14 AM

This week we are reading: Dark Reign - The List: Hulk #1 (Marvel) written by Greg Pak and drawn by Ben Oliver.

Cover

Our reviewers this week are:

Raydawggie 4
Criden
dEnny
Big Poot 8
Cth 8
Jef UK 4
Kingsumo 4
Taxman 5
Mister Mets 7
NickT 7
Changingshades 8

New Rule: If you vote for the winning book in the review thread, you must review within a month of the book's release! Effective as of week 243, by public demand. If you did not vote for the winning book, just drop in and review, and I'll add your name to the list for this week.

This week the Alternative Review Group is reading:

- Hector Plasm: Totentanz by Benito Cereno, Nate Bellegarde, Jacob Baake, Steven Finch, John Campbell, Jess Fink, Ed Tadem, Dean Trippe & Scott Wegener (Image Comics, 10/14)

- http://www.606studios.com/bendisboar....php?p=6394477

The voting for next weeks book will begin Thursday

Our previous reviews:

**ATTN: There has been a change in how we are allowed to review older books. Please feel free to review any of the 24 most recent books at any time. If you would like to review a book older than that please PM me first, those threads are over 6 months old they are locked. If you'd like to review one of those books I'll create a new thread and link to the original.

Spoiler:

Our higest average grades so far were for Pride of Baghdad with 9.66 and Daredevil #82 with 9.64

Our lowest average grade so far Wildsiderz #0 with 2.9

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What we do: This is a fanbased review group, open to everybody.

As people post the reviews, I will add your name and score to a list in the main post and at the end of the week average the scores for an overall grade on the book. We grade on a scale of 0-10, the meanings of which roughly translate to:

10 - Everything I want in a comic, an instant classic
9 - Excellent, a nearly perfect read
8 - Highly recommended but it has minor flaws
7 - Very good, it does have some problems
6 - Above average but has deep flaws
5 - An average comic
4 - Below average, the flaws outweigh the good
3 - A disappointing comic
2 - Forgettable, a waste of time
1 - Stay away!! One of the worst comics I've read

Anyone who participates is asked to please keep this scale in mind when giving a grade so that everyone is operating on the same system.

THERE IS NO OBLIGATION TO PARTICIPATE EVERY WEEK. Please join in as little or as much as you like week to week. If you are uncomfortable giving a grade then just join in the discussions and ask questions.

**Big Poot!** · 10-21-2009, 12:26 PM

I liked this, very good. Smooth dialogue and pacing. The plot confused me a bit though, at the end.

Spoilers:

How did they expose Bruce to Gamma radiation? I didn't get that.

**Criden** · 10-21-2009, 01:36 PM

Dark Poot!, what's your score?

**Big Poot!** · 10-21-2009, 10:26 PM

Hm well I didn't put a score yet, cause I didn't quite get that plot point.

But right now it feels like an 8/10.

**Cth** · 10-22-2009, 06:02 AM

Originally Posted by Big Poot!

I liked this, very good. Smooth dialogue and pacing. The plot confused me a bit though, at the end.

Spoilers:

How did they expose Bruce to Gamma radiation? I didn't get that.

I think there was something about nanobots or some such mention made.

Either way, it's contradictory to what Pak already established, so it confuses me too.

Reed/McCoy/etc tried to expose Banner's cells to gamma radiation except this time, it destroyed cells, rather than mutated them.

But yeah, Banner's right, something always happens, so it's a matter of when, not if he changes back. Still, it's not even been 3 issues

Either way, in all likelihood, we're getting a new Hulk incarnation with World War Hulks.

**Jef UK** · 10-22-2009, 06:21 AM

4/10

I haven't been reading the new Hulk launch. I figured I'd read it in trade.

This for me was not a full meal, as Bendis often says. Even though I thought Daredevil the List wasn't great, I still felt like I got a full story of some sort. Not so much with this one. I could barely tell what was happening in this story. Where'd that lone last bomb come from that Banner detonated? How come it could blow up in Hand's face and she's okay? And then they were all exposed to Gamma radiation? How in any way did Norman achieve taking Banner out of play like it said on his list?

Skaar and Banner as a team is interesting, but with Herc and Choi running around, and Hank Pym back to his master of gadgetry ways, Banner as a science adventurer seemed stale.

It gets annoying to me that all the smartest peeps in the Marvel U. are also great engineers. That should be Tony's thing. And Osbourne's. Reed should be the only guy who can do everything. But Banner shouldn't be able to just build whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He should just be an expert on radiation or whatever.

I liked the art.

I wish I hadn't bought this, which for me makes it less than an average comic.

**Cth** · 10-22-2009, 06:34 AM

Counterpoint ->

Originally Posted by Jef UK

How in any way did Norman achieve taking Banner out of play like it said on his list?

It's a stupid risky plan, I agree. In theory, Skaar takes him out the minute he turns into the Hulk. He can't get rid of Banner, so he has someone take out the Hulk instead or at the very least be a thorn in the Hulk's side so he'll be too busy to mess with Osborn or the rest of the US.

One thing I wanted addressed with THE LIST, is why some are killed, and others neutralized? Hawkeye would be a kill, but I'm guessing because of his PR stunt, he can't be killed. Etc.

Originally Posted by Jef UK

Skaar and Banner as a team is interesting, but with Herc and Choi running around, and Hank Pym back to his master of gadgetry ways, Banner as a science adventurer seemed stale.

Pym is getting a little ridiculous, IMO.

Anyways, to get you up to speed, Skaar wants to kill the Hulk, and has no interest in Banner. He's sticking around until he changes, at which point he'll kill him. Banner is trying to teach Skaar humility and possibly change his mind -- all while addressing his own father issues.

Considering Pak did the Herc/Cho thing, it's understandable.

Originally Posted by Jef UK

It gets annoying to me that all the smartest peeps in the Marvel U. are also great engineers. That should be Tony's thing. And Osbourne's. Reed should be the only guy who can do everything. But Banner shouldn't be able to just build whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He should just be an expert on radiation or whatever.

Banner is a weapons guy. It makes sense that he's capable of doing this stuff, especially since his early issues had stuff like this all the time. For years, it's been largely ignored to focus on the man-on-the-run stuff.

According to Mighty Avengers, Pym is the only one who should be able to do anything (bleh!)

Originally Posted by Jef UK

I liked the art.

I wish I hadn't bought this, which for me makes it less than an average comic.

If I had to give the issue a number, I'd give it an 8. I enjoyed it more than the other tie-ins, but like Poot said the gamma thing confused me. Just because it contradicted something said 3 issues previously by Reed and McCoy.

**Kingsumo** · 10-22-2009, 09:21 AM

I am going to have to agree with Jef on this one. I stopped reading Hulk, stopped reading the Herc and Cho story, and after reading issue 600 just don't really care. I thought I would give this a go, as a lot of people are claiming that it is so much better, but honestly the whole thing was kind of meh.

The art was pretty enough, but it was mostly a story of Osborn's toys being beaten by Banner's. Whole lot of one upmanship and who has the better tech, mixed with a little catfight between Karla and Hand, and then the lame ass ending.

After DD and Avengers this one just really fell flat. 4/10

**Ray G.** · 10-22-2009, 12:30 PM

Very bland book. The problem with virtually all of the List one-shots so far besides Avengers and X-men is that they feel like standard stories. There's nothing big or "Game changing" about them. This was the worst of them in that regard. I really like Pak's take on the Banner/Skaar relationship, but there wasn't enough here plot-wise. And I was very disappointed by the ending. I was really hoping for this new status quo to last a while longer.

Weakest of the List one-shots so far. 4/10

Overall, I'd rank them:

1. X-men
2. Avengers
3. Secret Warriors
4. Daredevil
5. Hulk

**Jef UK** · 10-22-2009, 01:08 PM

It seems like the objective of this comic is akin to throw away lines in science fiction where nobody can really explain what's happening, and the characters within the story address that fact, acknowledging the hole for readers (X-Files often did this very well). And I love it when sci-fi narratives do that: acknowledge the problem to move beyond it. Similarly, this issue acknowledged that you can't have all these Hulks running around and not have them show up on Osbourne's radar. Except Hulk isn't going to actually have much to do with Dark Reign, so we got this comic addressing that problem. Except it wasn't very satisfying of a throw away line, if you will.