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Hulk: Gamma Games #1: Review

Feb 2004
John Turman, ?

Story Name:

[Gamma Games Part 1]

Review & Comments

Rating:
3 stars

Hulk: Gamma Games #1 Review by (May 30, 2023)

Review: Another comic based on a videogame? And one based on the 2003 Hulk movie? So here we are. The story is rather simple: Leader drains Bruce of his gamma energy so he can expose others to it in hopes of creating a more docile Hulk. Betty was the bait (twice) and the Humanoids were part of a test. And the two Feds are in the story as a pretext for showing Bruce with Hulk Hands. The biggest surprise in the series is that Leader’s plan is better thought out than we had reason to expect from this miniseries—the writer, John Turman, co-writer of the film, has no other comics credits. The aspect most like a video game? It’s in issue #1, which spends ten out of twenty-two pages showing Hulk bashing Humanoids. But the tale has a very serious character moment: Bruce, having wanted to be free from Hulk, must now choose to become Hulk again to stop the villain’s nefarious scheme. If this were Hulk’s only appearance, the dilemma would be amazing, but we’ve seen it so many times before, Bruce having to depend on the Hulk for various goals, that it is now a pretty old trick. The ending is quite abrupt: Bruce must stop the Leader who is morphing people into monsters but instead of rescuing the people and curing them—remember that a device that could do this is at the center of the story—Hulk just kills them in a panel or two and then blows up the prison, how we are never told. The art is the low point, rather unattractive, looking like dayglow paint on a black background and rendering Bruce and Betty rather ugly, though the Leader comes off very well.

To sum it up, this miniseries is better than it looks but the art is very off-putting.

Comments: Set in the world of the 2003 HULK movie and its companion video game; Marvel has designated this reality Earth-400083. The tough guy asks, “Do you mind if we dance wif yo date?” being a quote from NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE (my father thought the line was hilarious and quoted it for years afterward). The artists are credited as “UDON’s Ramon Perez and Roberto Campus.”






 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Hulk: Gamma Games #1 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Bruce Banner meets Betty Ross at a bar; she tells him Gemini Labs where she works has some new gamma radiation storage equipment that can possibly cure him of being the Hulk. A pair of tough guys try to take Betty away; Bruce just walks out, to the guys’ derision…and then Betty clobbers them….

At the lab, Betty shows Bruce a Gamma Orb, to extract and store gamma radiation. Although it has never been tested on a living creature, Bruce insists on trying. The machine extracts the radiation from him, leaving Bruce weak. And then the real inventor of the device, the Leader, comes out of hiding, revealing that he had Betty hired by the company because she is the only one who could lure Bruce to the lab. Bruce gets angry—and Leader beats him to a pulp, though the experience is not as satisfying as he had hoped. Leader takes Betty and the storage unit away. Angered, Bruce generates enough gamma to turn into a smaller version of Hulk; he is attacked by a multitude of Humanoids and keeps growing larger until the full-sized Hulk is back. He fights his way through an army of the pink robots and out of the building, finally dropping down on a nearby dock where he reverts to Bruce Banner…. 




?
(Unknown artist) (Cover Penciler)
(Unknown artist) (Cover Inker)
(Unknown artist) (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Rus Wooton.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Betty Ross
Betty Ross

(Elizabeth Ross)
Bruce Banner
Bruce Banner

(Robert Bruce Banner)
Hulk
Hulk

(Bruce Banner)



> Hulk: Gamma Games: Book info and issue index

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