Incredible Hulk vol. 3 #26Incredible Hulk vol. 3 #26
Title: “Do You Know Where You are Going?”
Writer: Sean McKeever and Paul Jenkins
Penciller: Kyle Hotz
Inker: Eric Powell
Colors: Avalon Studio’s Arsia Rozegar
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Savage Hulk walks past a sign telling him how many miles he has to go to certain destinations. He walks past a church’s sign that asks him if he knows where he is going. Hulk just keeps walking towards a city. He gets to the city and keeps walking. A cat follows him.
A woman looks at a map as her boyfriend is driving the van. She says that they are lost. She asks him if he even knows where they are going. She says that she thought the idea was to leave the city so that they could settle down like normal people instead of puttering around the country. Simon says that this place is as good as any. Nadine says that if he is thinking what she thinks he is thinking, but Simon interrupts and says that isn’t what he meant. He says that this could really be the place for them. Nadine says that she is going to get her hearing checked because it sounded like Simon meant it. He says no more tricks, and that isn’t who he is anymore.
Hulk walks through an alley where drugs are being sold. Nobody runs. They just keep selling and buying.
Nadine wakes up to find Simon casing a convience store. She says that she can’t believe what a lying piece of crap he is. She asks why, if he were serious about settling down there, he is looking to rob a store there. She says that she wants a normal life. She asks what is wrong with wanting a normal life. Simon says that she might want that, but the thought of it makes him sick. He says that he has been thinking and he realizes that he was always thinking about that one big score, but if he just does a dozen little jobs where there are no superheroes then maybe they can finally get ahead. He says that they could buy an RV and he could even stop being the Killer Shrike and buy a cool name like Death Raven (like there is a registry for villains or something). Nadine says that he told her he wanted to settle down. She says that she can’t keep running around like this. Simon says that he couldn’t take it if she left him. He says that she is just going to have to trust him. Simon hands Nadine the keys to the van. He says that she can stay or she can go, but that if she loves him that she will stay. Simon pulls on his Killer Shrike mask.
Hulk stands at the end of the alley and watches two people kiss. Hulk thinks about Betty and Jarella. He frowns and walks back down the alley.
Angela stares out the window. Samson tells Angela that it is three in the morning. Angela says that she is worried about Bruce. She says that he is never going to get the closure he needs if he thinks that Betty might be revitalized from that glass box he saw her in (no idea how she found out about that). Angela says that what Bruce needs right now is support. She says that he has been gone for days and that they are the only friends he has. She wonders where he is.
Killer Shrike runs out of the store with a bag of money. The shop owner calls out for him to come back and fight. Killer Shrike runs right into the Hulk. Killer Shrike blasts Hulk. Hulk says that he doesn’t like it and stomps his foot. Hulk starts to walk away, but Killer Shrike says that the hero types always ruin everything he tries to do. He says that he is not going back to jail. Shrike blasts the building around the Hulk and causes it to collapse on him. Hulk stands up from the rubble and claps his hands. Shrike is driven off into a pole. Hulk says that he wants to be left alone and leaps away. Killer Shrike decides to take that as a win, and starts cheering for himself. He turns to see if Nadine saw him, but the building he knocked onto the Hulk also crushed the van Nadine was still sitting in. Shrike runs over and starts saying all the cliché things.
Hulk watches from a building top and decides to go to sleep. The cat lays on Hulk’s arm as he sleeps.
No Excuses rating: 0 out of 10
Every issue of this comic should be gathered together and glued back into the tree that it once was. This issue seems to exist to ask a series of inane questions about the Hulk that anyone who had been reading the Hulk for five minutes would know. And the answers that the writer provides to his own questions are wrong. He thinks that Hulk doesn’t know about the people in the tanks, but there are dozens of instances where the savage Hulk demonstrates that he does. The writer makes stupid and asinine assumptions about whether the Hulk ever truly loved Betty or Jarella that I find fairly offensive. This comic again shouldn’t be called Hulk, but rather Killer Shrike #0. The entire story is about him and what a moron he is.
The art is garbage. Hotz does such good covers I can’t figure out why his interior art is so worthless.
The thing that makes this issue particularly painful to endure is that this issue would have been #500 if Marvel had left it alone. Most likely Peter David would have written a fantastic landmark issue, perhaps finishing up his storied and legendary run on the Hulk, but instead we get this. One can only imagine the stories Peter David might have told if Marvel hadn’t decided that it was more important to let Joe Casey and Byrne try to run Hulk into the ground. If I wasn’t worried about violating a TOS agreement with my web space provider I would scan and include a big picture of my butt for whoever made that decision to kiss.
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