Written by Greg Pak
Art by John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson and Christina Strain
Marvel Comics $3.99
Though I hate to jump on the anti-blockbuster even bandwagon, I really am starting to miss Planet Hulk’s storytelling and interesting themes, characters and settings. Outside of Dr. Strange letting a demon possess him, turning into a ten foot monster and kicking the hell out of the Hulk until he, of course, lost, this issue was more of the same. Virtually everyone has known how this last issue is going to unfold, so the build up has seemed incredibly pointless and bland and even myself, an iron man hating, kill reed richards sort of reader can’t even stand the constant beat downs and unfair fights.
By showing the Sentry as a terrified schizophrenic sad guy in his apartment for four issues, they’ve made the final showdown next issue seem even dumber than it really is. And, conveniently, at the end of this issue, he’s in his doorway looking like a bad ass and ready to fight, instead of a 8 year old girl who just saw a spider in the bath tub, like he has for the entire rest of this series.
I just hope that, when this is all over, Greg Pak is going to get back to those good Hulk stories. This has become so stale, I can’t wait for November.
I think science fiction is most effective when it creates paranoia about the present with presentations of the near future. Doktor Sleepless does this rather well. Although no real year is given, or I totally missed it, everything to appear to be slightly in the future, but things haven’t much changed. Graffiti is all over the city with bitter slogans like, “not my future”, or “where’s my flying car”, indicating that technology hasn’t progressed in the way that people want, but Doktor Sleepless, a mysterious, yet famous figure, has reemerged onto the scene and has shown up to yell at everyone over their apathy and discontent. Though there are no flying cars, there are wireless instant messaging systems programmed into contact lenses that allow everyone to know where their friends are and what they’re up to at all times. This system is called clatter.












