Hulk Annual #1: Review

Sep 2014
Monty Nero, ?

Story Name:

Vista: The Beginning

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Hulk Annual #1 Review by (July 30, 2019)

Review: Terrific tale closes out the story of Patty Wolman though it downplays her dramatic scheme of “death by Hulk” to a back-up plan. Instead we are shown an even deeper, darker view of her soul and it actually makes us sympathize with a giant plant monster that wants to take over the world. (The Triffids never had a fan club.) Multiple artists bring the story to life with even the section on Patty's history tinted green, the green that overshadows everything for both Vista and the Hulk. I for one would like to see Vista/Patty again and although we know the virus exists to destroy her, now that Hulk is back to being a monster I'm betting he would have a hard time laying his hands on it—if he even wanted to. Now there's a chilling thought.

Comments: Falls between issues 6 and 7 of HULK (2014 series). Hulk's other three assistants, Daman Veteri, Randall Jessup, Melinda Leucenstern, are seen very briefly and only from a distance and do not figure in the synopsis. Illustrated by Luke Ross, LeBeau L. Underwood (Chapter I), Patrick Goddard (Prologue and Chapter II), Marc Laming (Chapter III). Despite ending with “The End?” this is the final appearance of Patricia Wolman/Vista as of 2019.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Hulk Annual #1 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Prologue: Patricia Wolman talking to her mother on the phone, complaining about working for Hulk/Doc Green and mentioning that she is going to her old lab. As she hangs up we learn she has been talking to a recording as her mother is dead....

Weeks later, Vancouver is being covered by green sentient vines, turning infected people into green zombies. As Hulk (a/k/a Doc Green) monitors the situation, his colleagues appeal to him for help. Soon Hulk is dropping from an airplane and trying to analyze the monster growth but a giant vines smacks him a couple of miles away. He fights back and then discovers that the plants a made from his own DNA and they remind him of the creations of Dr Derenik Zadian (see THE INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK ANNUAL #1). As he fights he realizes the mass of vegetation is trying to communicate with him—and a huge field suddenly takes on the face of Patty Wolman, now calling herself Vista....

As a SHIELD agent inform Patty's father that she is dead, absorbed by the ecosystem she created, the reader is show  her history: as a kid she was concerned with the environment so she aspired to become a scientist. Her mother closely supported her until Mom died of cancer; after this Patty threw herself into her work to hold off the grief even as her father fell into illness and financial trouble. Patty created Vegetal Intelligence Sentient Transmission Array (V.I.S.T.A.) but the experiment failed and she lost her funding. She was diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease so in desperation, she took a job with SHIELD working for Bruce Banner all the while hoping to uncover the research of Dr Derenik Zadian, which she eventually did. As her mind started to go, she fused her consciousness to V.I.S.T.A. and she went mad, her mind becoming a massive vegetable monster bent on exterminating the human race, her ecosystem's biggest threat...

...which is where we find Doc Green trying to talk her out of this, presenting the good as well as the bad of humanity, condemning her despair. Hulk channels lightning down a copper wire to short her out but her Hulk DNA causes her to recover. Hulk then unleashes the viral pesticide he had created which wipes her out. Hulk assures the locals he will help them rebuild....

Epilogue: On a small island in the South Pacific a boat and its crew are destroyed by Vista....



?
Jordan Boyd
Mike del Mundo (Cover Penciler)
Mike del Mundo (Cover Inker)
Mike del Mundo (Cover Colorist)


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