The Immortal Hulk, Book Four

The Immortal Hulk (Collected Editions) #7-8

by Al Ewing, Joe Bennett (Illustrator), Paul Mounts (Illustrator)

Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s best-selling, Eisner Award-nominated saga continues! There’s a new monster in town. He’s cuddly, lovable, and available for your corporate retreat. Sure, there was another Hulk once — the angry green one who made all those nasty threats about ending the world. But who needs him? The Living Hulk is here…you might know him as Xemnu…and he’s going to save us all, or your money back! But how did the Immortal Hulk get erased from the world? And who will triumph when Xemnu battles Bruce Banner?! Plus, the Leader sets his sights on infiltrating his archenemy’s band of allies in preparation to enact his nefarious, intricately planned scheme. And deep in Banner’s mind, something is reaching through the Green Door. It wants to hurt Banner badly. And the Devil Hulk takes that personally…

COLLECTING: Immortal Hulk (2018) 31-40

Genres: Marvel, Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Superheroes, Comic Book

248 pages, Hardcover

Published November 16, 2021

Reviews

[Baba]

Two more volumes read of this standout Marvel series, first in The Immortal Hulk, Vol. 7: Hulk is Hulk Hulk and his allies go all-out against ROXXON and their deathly charismatic CEO, bring the series to almost conventional storytelling and hence the weakest volume so far for me worth Three Stars. I then read Immortal Hulk #0 and then Immortal Hulk: The Threshing Place #1 before returning to this book and the sense shattering Four Star volume The Immortal Hulk, Vol. 8: The Keeper of the Door which brings all the main ongoing plot points to a place where Bruce Banner and most of his allies are truly in jeopardy! This was a return to Immortal creativity and allowed me to give the overall book another 8 out of 12, Four Stars.

2024 read

[Tuni]

I am so torn with how to rate this. On the one hand I really like the story. The layers of what is going on with the green door and Bruce’s internal system.

However, there is a reason I never picked up Immortal Hulk when it was running. Looked like too much dark body horror for my tastes. When a friend lent me the first volume, I figured I had made a bad assumption. It was horror, but the gross out body horror was at a minimum. It just keeps getting worse and worse, though.

It just takes me right out of the story. Instead of focusing what about what is going on in the story, I just sit there waiting for it to be over.

So I guess three stars. Because this is a great hulk story and I want to know what is going to happen in the last 10 issues, but I can’t really say I ENJOYED reading it.

[Mitchell]

Greatest Hulk story ever.

Sophisticated plot with stunning artwork. This Hulk story is the ultimate in story telling and adventure. Every Hulk fan will walk away with some enjoyment after reading this run.

[Justin Partridge]

“Hrrgh. YOU…”

“Me.

Folks SAID ya might be droppin’ in fer a visit - - so WE said we’d HANDLE it. The OTHERS, they wanted to grab ya wit’ a FORCE-FIELD…or a FRAMMISTAT…

…but I said NO. Just keep the PERIMETER, I said. Make sure there’s no RUBBERNECKERS to get HURT. And here we ARE. Just th’ TWO of us. They rolled their EYES a little, sure. But my team knows ya owe me a REMATCH…

…maybe even a whole dang HONEYMOON.

But lookin’ at ya NOW? I’m thinkin’ you oughtta quit right here. While yer AHEAD. Even if you don’t TALK like it…yer a SMART COOKIE, Hulkster.

I know ya know WHAT TIME IT IS.”

Now this? THIS is my favorite stretch of the Immortal Hulk. And not just because of that aforementioned Best End Page in All of Comics Reveal of Aunt Petunia’s Baby Boy.

And I remember some static online when it was dropping “oh it’s just The Leader again! Whys it The Leader again?!” To that I say, shut up, yer dumb. This Leader is absolutely NOT that Leader anymore and we see that explicitly stated in some….pretty horribly amazing ways throughout so cry into your PAD comics, I’ll take this, please and thank you.

And I think even more impressive is, even discounting the Roxxon/Xemu of it all which…holy moly whatta pairing of villains that whole thing is, once we have this system in place and we have a pretty firm handle on the outlay of it, Ewing immediately starts fucking with it. And starts shifting around our casts and the pairing of alters and how the Devil persona has been framed since the start of Bruce’s DID even before the gamma. It’s just massively cool and also quite a bit ambitious STILL in a book that has basically been nothing but since the very start.

I love it all. I love the Hawthorne issue so much. I love the continued exploration of Bruce and Betty in and out of their mutates. I love DOC SASQUATCH. I love Titania. Dr. McGowan and her Daredevil fandom. I truly don’t want this to end. I know it has to but like…what comic does it like this? What even TRIES TO nowadays? Ice Cream Man? That Texas Blood? Idk.

But we will always believe in Bruce Banner.

[Krzysztof Grabowski]

Trzeci tom w pewnych aspektach pozostawił we mnie niedosyt, ale już czwarty dostarcza wszystko to co najlepsze, jeszcze ze sporą dokładką.

Początek to bezpośrednia kontynuacja trzeciego zbioru. Hulk walczy z niejakim Xemnu. Biały stwór podobny do yeti, wydaje się być na straconej pozycji i zwraca się bezpośrednio do kamer. Okazuje się, że bydlaka w ten sposób oddziałuje na ludzkie umysły, wmawiając im zupełnie inną przeszłość...

Sprawia to, że wszyscy mają Hulka za potwora, a nowego przybysza za sentymentalny aspekt dzieciństwa, który kojarzy się tylko z czymś dobrym. A to wszystko w połączeniu firmą Roxxon i pewnym zmiennokształtnym bykiem...

Nie jest to jednak koniec niespodzianek, bo w drugiej części powróci dobrze znany przeciwnik Hulka, Leader. Jednak tu zaczną dziać się bardzo dziwne rzeczy, a wpływ wroga okaże się dłuższy, niźli ekipa Hulka jest w stanie ustalić...

Nowy tom to horror, dramat, sporo akcji w stylu Hulk Smash oraz solidna porcja body horroru. Niczego więcej nie potrzeba. To piorunujący sosik, który zapewnia pełną paletę doznań, a czwarty tomik jest pod tym względem wyborny.

Bennett wyciska tu ostatnie soki ze swojego stylu, czyniąc wiele obrazów niepokojącymi, jak nie miejscami obrzydliwymi. Wszelakie metamorfozy piorunują, a to nie wszystko, bo zdarza się też komuś coś wchłonąć i jest to przedstawione nad wyraz sugestywnie.

Jedna z najlepszych serii Marvel Fresh o ile nie najlepsza. W każdym bądź razie znajduje się na moim podium. Nad wszech miar pozycja godna polecenia.

[Joey Amorim]

Between the wrapup of the Dario Agger/Xemnu storyline and the reintroduction of the Leader, this may have been my favorite volume so far. One of this series’s strongest aspects is that there’s never a dip in the pace. There’s always something happening and every character feels involved and important. This book just doesn’t miss, onto the home stretch now.

[Ted Williams]

I enjoyed books one and two of this, but it seems to be in a bit of a slump in books 3 and 4
Still enjoyable, but the story feels like it's coasting a little to me

[Jens Deprez]

This series remains great!

[Onur]

when will i stop feeling sad for hulk (never)

[DayDay]

I love how much love Ewing is giving to Hulk’s history in this run. It gives me straight goosebumps ! You can tell he really loves the character. Some fun monster action here too.

[Mateusz Nowowiejski]

03.2024

[Tom Duffy]

Definitely past the peak of its powers but still a tense, exciting ride that keeps you locked in.

[Samuli]

Probably my favorite of the bunch so far, I just loved all this Xemnu and Leader and mindscape shit