bottom line: marvel won’t take the revenge storyline to it’s ultimate conclusion, which is either, the wronged gets their revenge (which for the hulk clearly means the death of the illuminati) or the wronged learns to forgive and gets on with their life.

There’s no point to the Strange/Hulk conflict (which WWH #3 was devoted to setting up). Strange could deal with the Hulk by transforming him, banishing him, or, if necessary, killing him. The Hulk, like Superman, has no innate resistance to magic. The plot, as such, is an example of a writer artificially constructing a way for Strange and Hulk to fight, as if he were a kid with two action figures. Hulk wins because he *has* to win, for the sake of the story, as is practically always the case with his “high as it needs to be” strength level.

The material with the Illuminati is hardly worth reading, since the Avengers/Defenders War invalidates the concept. Bendis and Reed have notably avoided the topic in the ILLUMINATI miniseries; I doubt that Brevoort or anyone else at Marvel could deal with the conflict without resorting to absurd contrivances. It’s apparent why Bendis liked the Illuminati concept, since it’s related to crime fiction, conspiracies, and secret councils with hidden agendas, but the concept is only valid for a superhero universe made to order for it.

The lack of actual story material is obvious in other issues, such as THOR #3, which exists solely to depict the conflict between Iron Man and Thor, and Stark’s humiliation. The plot material (New Orleans; the “diplomatic” solution to handling Asgard) seems to be aimed at preteens.

The storytelling, in the Marvel Heroes titles I see, has declined to the point that the professionalism (level of effort) of the people associated with the stories can seriously be questioned. A person could write at length about how unfavorable comparisons between the Marvel of the ‘70s and ‘80s and the current Marvel are. The “illusion of change” policy in force back then encouraged some shoddy plotting, but there were writers who wrote well, and even the shoddy stories actually were structured as, and functioned as, stories. Too many current Marvel issues are just glorified picture books; if one reads an issue for plot content, there’s hardly anything there.

Short of a massive change in Marvel’s editorial regime, I don’t see prospect for improvement in the situation. The writers have to be motivated to write stories, in the traditional storytelling sense) to do well, but the emphasis placed on aiming stories at new and short-term readers, and the employment of writers who don’t know the characters (screenwriters), or who don’t want to write superhero stories (Bendis is the prime example). . . Marvel could be described as an animated corpse who rarely speaks intelligibly and intelligently.

SRS

To believe this series, Hulk never injured or killed anyone because he subconsciously was a genius who knew how to throw tanks around in just the manner to disable equipment and not hurt anyone inside. Hulk can break buildings but somehow know that it either won’t be occupied or there is just enough room inside to protect anyone inside. Hulk is not only a super-genius but a super-AWARE genius. This without even the excuse of Captain Marvel’s Cosmic Awareness?

In the last issue of Civil War it was claimed that people were killed in the fight. It sounds like Captain America should have just asked the Hulk to help him and then noone would be hurt.

I get the warbound are supposed to be superhumanly strong etc—but I’m opposed to Sakaar being krypton.

Oh, I do hope the cheering crowd gets what’s coming to them. If it were up to me, I’d send the Warbound off in their ship with all their adoring Earth-fans. The second these gits realized what Brood had in mind, they’d be screaming for the Illuminati and Co. to save them.

Overall a disappointing issue to an increasingly disappointing series.

Sorry the last one got mucked up so heres the actual one!

Oh and this is all Meik’s fault, somehow. He’s absent from the Warbound mini cover so something must happen to him.