TITLE: The Totally Awesome Hulk Issue #21
YEAR: September 2017
COMPANY: Marvel Comics
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Robert Gill
Colorist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Artist: STONEHOUSE
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Editor-in-Chief: Axel Alonso
I last wrote about the “Weapon of Mutant Destruction” in my blog post for “Weapons of Mutant Destruction: Alpha Issue #1”.
About how the Weapon X program, which has long been decommissioned would be back and now this time they are creating a perfect soldier.
In the pages of “Weapon X” and “Totally Awesome Hulk”, undetectable adamantium cyborgs with mutant powers have targeted Logan, Sabretooth, Domino, Warpath, Lady Deathstrike and Amadeus Cho (Totally Awesome Hulk) leading them to band together. What they found is a secret laboratory conducting horrific genetic experiments with one goal in mind, eradicating all mutantkind. The arc kicked off in “Weapons of Mutant Distruction: Alpha” Issue #1 and the cover alone shows how frightening this possible new creation may be…a Hulk and Wolverine hybrid?
And once again, we get a cover showcasing the skeleton of this huge behemoth with claws and a skeleton possibly with adamantium-laced bones.
The comic starts with a young man named Bobby being dropped off to the top secret area and being taken to Black Level, Batch H.
And not long after he gets there, the brain conditioning begins with Bobby being taught that the mutants are evil, how his brother was savagely killed by the Hulk and with the appearance of Reverend William Stryker, asking Bobby to join and serve the cause.
Meanwhile, the brilliant Amadeus Cho learns that Weapon X has been shipped a lot of materials to create an army.
Sabretooth wants to nuke the top secret facility but Amadeus is against it as there are innocents working at the location. Amadeus tells everyone that they must save Robert Edward Andrews, how he has been troubled and how he’s a creepy, racist loser who volunteered to be part of the Weapon X program but he doesn’t deserve what the scientists are about to do to him. How he’s just a dumb kid and wants to belong and he feels they should save him.
But the others are no as convinced. Lady Deathstryke feels he wants to kill all mutants and doesn’t want to save him which leads to a debate.
As everyone is not too excited to save Andrews, it upsets Amadeus who takes the suitcase of nukes but this leads to a fight between Sabretooth and Amadeus who has changed to the Hulk. And what an interesting fight it was between both Hulk vs. Sabretooth. So far that Sabretooth throws Hulk and the nuclear device and sets it off on him. But will a nuke be enough to destroy Amadeus? Of course, not…let the fight continue between these two.
With this fourth part of “Weapons of Mutant Destruction”, this issue of “The Totally Awesome Hulk” issue #21 finally starts to get to the nitty gritty of the storyline as it prepares Amadeus, Old Man Logan and the others to prepare and infiltrate the lab where the Weapon X experiments are being done.
Not to say this issue sucks because the fight between Hulk and Sabretooth was pretty cool and to see how everyone reacts to Amadeus about saving a kid who hates mutants. Priceless.
Brian Pak’s writing so far is good but for something this huge, I was expecting something greater. By part four I was hoping a major battle between the group vs. this next creation but as it looks like right now, the storyline has become a search and rescue storyline with any teasing of the Hulk/Wolverine hybrid only being featured on the cover.
The writing by Greg Pak so far has been cool and the artwork by Robert Gill being solid, I’m waiting for something major to happen now, not five issues in.
But with the series pretty much focuses on the group planning a strategy, it sure is taking a while to get to the actual storyline and with two parts left for “Weapon X” issue #6 and “Totally Awesome Hulk” issue #22 but so far in a rating of 1-10, it’s around a 6 so far.
I guess I have high expectations, so I’m looking forward to seeing if the writers have something awesome planned for these final two parts. But I’m staying patient, staying cool and hoping for the storyline to kick to full gear with part 5.
We’ll see…