Product Description

Banished to another planet by those he called his friends, the Hulk faces his most dangerous challenge to date. Captured, enslaved and forced to fight in the gladiatorial contests of the Great Arena at the whim of the planet's merciless ruler, the Red King, the Hulk faces his ultimate challenge: to rise and free an oppressed people or to give in to the monster within and destroy all. This is a must-read for any Marvel fan as it sets everything up for Marvel's big event of 2007 - World War Hulk!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79826 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

great in places, a good setup
i bought this comic in the knowledge of what is to come next, but first let me take you through the back story.

after the hulk goes on yet another rampage on earth Nick Fury decides he has had enough and then gets the hulk on a one way ride into space, the comic opens up with Reed Richards, Iron Man and other "friends" of the Hulk telling him that this is for his best intentions, of course, the Hulk is very angry.

so due to a navigational error the shuttle warps through a portal and crash lands on planet Sakaar. which is inhabited by various warped creatures which are designed beautifully. as the story goes on the Hulk realises that he must fight the corrupt leader to end the tyranny of the planet thus becoming the hero of the world.

this book has some great details in it and has what you would expect from a big green angry guy who smashes stuff for a living. so you can expect little in the way of dialogue (which is its downfall) the book is big on action and jumps between scenes rapidly, again, making it harder to know exactly whats going on at times.

overall its a good book and well worth a read if you want to see what happens next in the marvel universe, it will prove interesting to see after the great civil war series. :) happy reading
Gaz

Brilliant
This is truly a brilliant graphic novel.
First off the setting. The Hulk went on a rampage in Las Vegas after being sent crazy by another gamma bomb and only the intervention of The Thing and The Human Torch of The Fantastic Four managed to stop him. Next Nick Fury of SHIELD sent the Hulk into space to destroy a space station called Godseye which could destroy any position on the Earth if it wished, what Nick Fury hadn't told The Hulk was that the space station was built by SHIELD. After The Hulk had defeated Godseye he was extracted from the Moon by SHIELD but he wasn't going in the direction of Earth...

This leads us to the beginning of Planet Hulk where a secret group, formed by; Black Bolt of the Inhumans, Mr Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, Tony Stark AKA Iron Man, Stephen Strange AKA Dr Strange, Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men and Namor The Sub-Mariner, called The Illuminati. Only Black Bolt, Iron Man, Mr Fantastic and Dr Strange are behind the plot to send The Hulk away, though because of the events of House of M, Charles Xavier is unavailiable and The Sub-Mariner doesn't agree with the plot.
The four remaining Illuminati explain to The Hulk that he has constantly threatened the Earth with his power and they can't have that any more so they have sent him away to a "lush planet. Full of vegetation and game. But no intelligent life forms." so The Hulk can "finally find peace". But of course that plan doesn't work and the ship in knocked off course and sent through a wormhole to the planet Sakaar. What follows is the epic Planet Hulk storyline.

I have tried to avoid giving away any big plot developments within Planet Hulk and can understand why it is an epic story. Not only because of the length (14 comics in total) but because of the quality of the story as well. There are too many comics nowadays who claim to be great simply because of the length but this graphic novel can boast a brilliant story to go along with its length that doesn't make it seem as if the story is monotonous and never-ending.
The events within the graphci novel are so earth-shatteringly (or Sakaar-shatteringly) inportant to future storylines that it grows in quality as it goes on.
I do have one criticism though. I felt a bit cheated by the ending and that it could have gone on for a bit longer but in this graphic novel the inclusion of the, epic in it's own right, 49 page "Gladiator's Guidebook" makes up for the quickly brought on ending. With an incredibly comprehensive study of all the fictional characters in the graphic novel ,that you would only normally get from an encyclopedia printed on its own, is very well done and only adds to the atmosphere of the comics.

Because this comic spans over the Civil War storyline (and everything that follows from it), that occurs in The Hulks absence, World War Hulk sees The Hulk returning to a very different world. The time difference isn't brilliantly explained in Planet Hulk or World War Hulk but this lack of exposition makes it seem even more realistic.

I recommend listening to "Jeff Wayne's Warr of the Worlds" whilst reading this graphic novel. It really set an atmosphere for me that complemented the story.

Brilliant story and impressive length I'm sure that Planet Hulk will soon be included in the sentence "There's loads of great graphic novels; The Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus."

Hulking it out
Before this I was never a very big fan of the Hulk. However this expansive volume really impressed me, the artwork is excellent and the story is good. Sending the Hulk away seems to have done him the world of good, on a world where the days of gladiatorial battles aren't over. He rises Russell Crowe style upwards to challenge the Emperor himself, even with that over with the battle isn't over. It never is with the Hulk.