 Hey everybody, welcome to another exciting episode, another edition of A Week in Geekdom here on YouTube, Geo here, and today we're talking the immortal Hulk oversize hardcover, Volume 1. Let's do this. Welcome back everybody, and yeah, we're talking Hulk. This is my first ever owned Hulk book. I've read stories digitally about the Hulk, but I've never really owned a Hulk comic, per se. It just wasn't a hero that appealed to me for some reason, even though I have to admit he is one of the best ones when it comes to Marvel comics. And there's just this ferocity and innate anger in the nature of the character that I can see how it appeals to people, especially with just him letting loose and just taking everybody out and being such a badass. And when you pair it up with a great writer like Al Ewing, you get the immortal Hulk, a fan favorite modern run on the character that I think has quite the potential to become one of the defining runs for the character. Without having too much of an in-depth knowledge on the character, you can go ahead and enjoy what you're reading. It is a fantastic, almost, and I hate to quote every single comic book YouTuber out there, but it has this weird, awesome horror gothic vibe to the way the story is written and the almost terrorizing characterization for the Hulk that immediately sets it apart from everything else that Marvel is publishing at the time. It may be someone different of an interpretation than what some people might be accustomed to, some people want the more superhero-ish thing, some people want more comedic elements, but it stays very true to the origin of what the Hulk is, this comic book amalgam of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with superhero tropes and all that stuff. It starts off with a bang, I mean, literally. If you know what happens in the first issues, it literally starts out with a bang. That was a poorly timed joke, but I'm gonna run with it. The wholesome Green Goliath won't go down without a fight and he is now on the run from everybody and sort of harkens back to even the Incredible Hulk TV show. And that's a thing that the book does really well where it does a lot of callbacks and references to older stuff that you might know. For the most part, I really enjoyed what I was reading. This book contains, I believe it is, yeah, issues 1 through 10 of the Immortal Hulk and Avengers 684, which is the stuff I mentioned, where they explained why Bruce Banner and the Hulk are dead. Now at the start of this series, Bruce is on the run and as soon as people realize that the character is alive, this massive manhunt begins in true Hulk fashion, which I really appreciated. And it's sort of grounded the story without the theatrics of supervillains and all that stuff. At the first couple of cases, he's actually, and by cases I mean villains, he's involved with stuff that's not too overblown and exaggerated from gangs to a scientist father trying to recreate the gamma exposure to prolong his life and his son to squabbles with other characters in the Marvel Universe like Frickin' Sasquatch. The series touches on these subjects in mini story arts and they're all done really, really fricking well. Al Ewing has a knack for these characters and he's able to bring that horror sensibility to the Hulk and give him a conscience and the way that he is interacting not only with villains but with other heroic characters is really cool. Now the only thing I would say that I did not like about this first part of the story was the interactions with the Avengers. I thought it was a little bit hokey and it sort of took me out of what I was reading and brought me back to Marvel Now, all new Marvel, whatever, that type of story with them trying to capture him because the government's after him and I didn't like it at all. I was just reading past that and I know it was interval to the story of how Hulk eventually gets captured in the story arc but I could care less. I was just waiting for him to free himself from those shackles plus the concept of the green door which is sort of this I guess alternate dimension with this being that controls all the gamma mutates and stuff like that which I really thought was excellently teased at. Also the absorbing man is in this book which is interesting because we, or at least I previously saw him in the Black Bolt miniseries or Maxi series, the 12 issue series from Salamina Med and now I'm seeing him here take it out on the Hulk which was amazing and just reincorporating the Hulk's origin with the gamma test and how everything takes place back at the beginning. Really awesome stuff and the book is just one giant set up of exposition in a dark and twisted way for what's to come and I'm all up for it. I know the run is going to be what 50 some issues or 50 issues, hopefully it does stick to the landing and if you guys want me to continue reviewing in Mortal Hulk I will gladly do so because I really do want to get that second OHC and continue the story from there. Another thing that I neglected to mention in this video is the amazing art from Joe Bennett from this book, obviously the covers from Alex Ross, they're fantastic, some of his best work as of late, but the art in this book is really really amazing, fantastic character work right there and when you see the Hulk he is a true brute and force of nature and really friggin scary. The art by Joe Bennett is able to drive home the point that Al Ewing is trying to make that this character has grown beyond what was expected into something else, something different and it's us for the reader to find out what exactly that difference is but just man just overall it really gives you a creepy eerie feeling when you're reading it. There's a cool fight with Sasquash right there. There are a couple of artistic changes especially with the hotshot issue which is really cool, I like that character's retelling that the same storyline and you see it from different perspectives usually but now you're presented that story in different art styles so that's really cool, that's a nice touch and probably my favorite part of this book is the story with Dr. Fry and his son which is spectacularly written and my favorite thing about the book and just really eerie and sort of a dark twisted tale, you have a normal family man struck by grief and what he's willing to do blinding himself to his ego and putting his son through an epic ordeal that is just, I mean the outcome of that story is probably one of the creepiest and dark and twisted things that I've read in Marvel in quite some time and I won't show it just in case you've never, you haven't started reading this. Fantastic stuff, I can't recommend the book enough so yeah, Immortal Hulk, OHC Volume 1. Fantastic, if you can't get the oversized hardcover, get the trade paper back regardless, do give it a read. Thank you everybody for tuning in, thank you for liking, commenting, subscribing and being a part of a week in Geekdom, again it really does mean a whole lot, thank you so much. If you're subscribed, hit the little bell icon so you know when new videos pop up, you can also follow me on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all that fun stuff and remember I got a merch link down below if you're interested in some shirts, there's a link for that and what else, nothing much, that's about it, stay tuned for Fable Fridays and I will catch all of you on our next episode.