Monday, October 19, 2009

The Incredible Hercules #136

I continue to be amazed that a comic book starring Marvel's character Hercules can be so darned entertaining - but it is!

That's a credit to the talent of the writers - Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente - and to the way they've turned the book (temporarily, I assume) into a split story, rotating between the adventures of Hercules and his newest ward, his father Zeus (who has been changed into a young boy and had his memory wiped clean), and the cerebral adventures of Herc's friend Amadeus Cho, as he seeks to solve a mystery involving his sister.

The stories have been fast-paced, fun and clever. In this chapter, for example, we find Hercules disguised as Thor, inadvertently finding himself leading an invading army of Elven warriors - only to find himself in battle with Thor, who's disguised as Hercules. (Thus the title: "Thorcules Versus Hercuthor!"

Those two powerhouses have faced off before, but never in a battle this funny.

The art team is penciler Reilly Brown and inker Nelson DeCastro who do an excellent job with both the battle sequences and the (sometimes priceless) expressions on the characters.

This comic just proves that the right creative team can make any concept work. This is a consistently outstanding comic, and well worth checking out - as long as you don't mind some humor mixed in with the slugfests.

Grade: A-

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