The Incredible Hercules, Vol. 3: Love and War

The Incredible Hercules (Collected Editions)

by Fred Van Lente (Writer), Fred Van Lente, Clayton Henry (Illustrator)

The Greek Goliath is looking for some R&R after the events of Secret Invasion and hopes to find it in the arms of ex-Renegade Namora. However, there's no rest for warriors when the Amazons declare war on Atlantis! These ain't your mama's Amazons, so is that why Amadeus Cho sides with them instead of Herc? Plus: ARES returns!

Collecting: The Incredible Hercules 121-125

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Mythology, Fiction, Fantasy

128 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 2009

About the author

Fred Van Lente is the New York Times-bestselling author of comics as varied as Archer & Armstrong (Harvey Award nominee, Best Series), Taskmaster, MODOK's 11, Amazing Spider-Man, Conan the Avenger, Weird Detective, and Cowboys & Aliens (upon which the 2011 movie was based), as well as the novels Ten Dead Comedians and The Con Artist.

Van Lente also specializes in entertaining readers with offbeat histories with the help of his incredibly talented artists. He has written the multiple-award winning Action Philosophers!, The Comic Book History of Comics, Action Presidents! (all drawn by Ryan Dunlavey), and The Comic Book Story of Basketball with Joe Cooper (Ten Speed September 2020).

He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Crystal Skillman, and some mostly ungrateful cats.

Reviews

[Michael J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

In contrast to Marvel's more serious depiction of Thor, the Greek God/Immortal (also Incredible) Hercules has been played as a more fun-loving, light-hearted character. In my opinion, no other creative team has done as fine a job of detailing that than Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak. They also manage to mix in their truncated versions of Greek mythology along with the usual superhero shenanigans. Couple this with some neat art from Clayton Henry and Salva Espin and the result is an above-average, entertaining comic. This is more deserving of 3.5 stars, if Goodreads ever decides to accommodate fractions.
This time around Princess Artume, the daughter of the Amazon queen Hippolyta brings together a new breed of Amazon warriors and decides to attack Atlantis, just when Hercules is trying to spark a romance with Namora, princess of Atlantis. Hercule's sidekick Amadeus Cho is selected as a potential breeder for Artume, which excites him until he learns what normally happens afterwards. He bonds (but not romantically) with Delphye Gorgon, who tries to get him released from the fatal situation.
Poseidon is a captive of the Amazons and Hercules and friends get involved in the rescue, but not before a fight with Prince Namor.
In between the action, Van Lente and Pak add in a re-telling of how Hercules tricked Atlas as well as Hercule's prior relationship with Queen Hippolyta. Fun stuff.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to be suspicious of stories written by men that deal with female-only cultures and their goals. But I was pleasantly surprised by this story, which featured a House of M-style fantasy world where men and women were switched in terms of power and influence. Rather than resorting to stereotypes and cheap jokes, Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak present a world that's a mirror image of our own -- where men are objectified and thought inferior and face glass ceilings. It's a true subversion, and it makes its point well -- plus, Herc and Amadeus Cho remain compelling protagonists, and the Namor and Namora guest appearances are gold. I definitely look forward to continuing to follow this series.

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably my favourite Incredible Hercules graphic to date. The Amazons led by Hippolita's man-hating daughter Artume have a plan of world domination - they want to steal this mystical artefact - the Omphals take it to the Axis Mundi and reshape the world into an Amazonian utopia. They kidnap Herc's sidekick Amadeus Cho to help them locate it. Herc teams up with Namora Princess of Atlantis - giving us a nice Submariner crossover.

This is quite good on its classical references - The Atlas, Pandora and Amazon myths are here - and Cho rewrites some classical documents - Sappho, Homeric Hymns. If you know your Classics there's loads here to enjoy - There's a very funny dialogue where Cho argues against being Hercules' eromenos. It also doesn't shy away from throwing terms like Dodekatheon at you.

The other thing in its favour is its very female friendly. Artume may be misguided but there are plenty of strong, sympathetic female characters - Dephyne the Gorgon, Artemis and Namora rocks. There's a hilarious scene where we see the fantasies of some of the characters - Herc sees himself with Narmora surrounded by a drunken orgy and she sees herself kissing her cousin Namor - its actually quite touching when she basically brushes him off and accuses him of chasing anything with a pulse - when he really does seem to love her.

Some other highlights include gender reversal like the myth of Pandora gender swapped - an all female super hero team and Iron Man done ancient Greek style.

I'm not usually a fan of the Marvel Hercules, I find him a complete jerk most of the time, but I thought this one did pretty well with updating the character and myths.

[Ronan The Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing off of The Incredible Hercules Complete Collection Vol. 1 by Pak and Van Lente, this continued and doubled down on the goofy, puerile aspects of the title. At times funny and times juvenile, there's some entertainment value here. If you have any interest in Greek mythology and want to see it played with in the Marvel Universe, you'll probably enjoy yourself. If you prefer your humor with substantive storyline, you might find it lacking on that front, as I did. The art is clean and poppy; fitting for the story. Herc's testosterone-fueled muscles and Amadeus' sugar-fueled brains confronting the (predominantly) misandristic Amazons was a lightly entertaining romp.

[zara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes…I was very hesitant to read this. When men write about the amazonians and/or reversed misogyny it’s almost always iffy.

But UGH I loved this so much. Yes, it was stupid and very random…but that last issue was incredible. I’m not sure if anyone else laughed at the reversal of roles as much as I did…but oh my gosh it was a pleasant surprise.

Delphyne was an interesting character. Glad to see more of her in future volumes.

This series is actually my guilty pleasure. It’s so silly that I am genuinely in love with it.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun, as this book tends to be, but it's less melancholy than the previous volume. It's funny, colorful and mixes Marvel and Greek mythology in a cool, fitting way. I'm glad I got back to this series.

[guanaeps · Rating 4 out of 5]

A "House of M", warped-reality kind of arc, with a deep dive into Marvel "Greek History", including the origin of Atlantis. Nice world building in these issues.

Greg Pak is a fine writer. These issues are funny and entertaining, without feeling cheap. A page-turner.

[Omni Theus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so Much Fun!!
OVERALL RATING: 4.75 stars
Art: 4.5 stars
Prose: 4.5 stars
Plot: 4.25 stars
Pacing: 4.75 stars
Character Development: 4.75 stars
World Building: 4.75 stars

[G · Rating 5 out of 5]

NAMORA PUNCHING BOTH HERCULES AND NAMOR, BECAUSE SHE'S THE BOSS.

Oh my God, so good.

Can I just start by saying that I crackled up every time someone assumed that Cho and Hercules were boyfriends? And that while they argued that it was perfectly normal by Greek standards, Cho argued that it was perfectly illegal because he's sixteen? Cho, my babyyyyy.

I adore Namor and his absurd arrogance. I adore Cho's lines -- ever single one of them -- and I just really loved everything about this. Namora and Herc together makes me grin like an idiot, and I thought the whole plot was very well-executed. I already read The Incredible Hercules: The New Prince of Power, so I pretty much have already fallen in love with Delphyne. Seeing how Cho and her meet is just so lovely. God, she's so amazing. I love her. I love everything. I'm not making perfect sense.

Hera makes for a fantastic villain. She's creepy and scary and fsdmkfsjg I also love her. No matter the media, I always love it when she's the villain. Especially when drawn so wonderfully. God, the arts in this are wonderful indeed.

Then there was Herc wishing Namora and him could be together, and Namora wishing Namor and her could be together, which made me giggle -- I'm not even embarrassed to admit that -- and then the whole Cho wishing to be with Delphyne, and the conclusion. -- well. I adored every detail about it.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The start of this book is a somewhat confusing story about Hercules fighting Amazons with the help of Namora, but without Amadeus Cho, who's been captured. (It pointed out repeatedly that the genius Amadeus Cho is useless without brain-fueling candy, which smacks more than most superhero comics of childhood wish fulfillment.) Fortunately, it all climaxes is a great though not fully-conceptualized female-dominated alternate universe story. As someone queer for feminist theory, it was right up my alley. This book is ridiculously fun, and one of the few superhero comics looking for laughs that actually earns them.

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way better than the last one. But still nowhere near as enjoyable to me as the one where he pretended he was Thor. This one had a bunch more of Herc punching away his problems. And seducing the ladies.

This one involved Atlantis, the Amazons, and some artifact that will reshape the world.

The thing about these comics, the Hercules ones, is that the dialog tends to be kind of witty, and our heroes might not be in a very good story at any given time, but they are good characters, so even when they are bad, they tend to be readable.

And again, when comparing to the last one I read, this is genius level stuff. But compared to the rest of comicdom in general, it's just okay.

[Des Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read, with some cute dialogue, and some surprisingly well realized auxiliary characters. Pak's Hercules has become a bit of a fan favorite, and it's unfortunately also really hard to find and collect, so I picked this up and read it, knowing that it was out of order and not the first story in Pak's run. What I got was a fairly stand-alone story arc that was pretty entertaining and plenty cute, even if it's hard to disassociate DC's better realized Amazons and Greek Mythos when reading a comic book about them.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

After helping to stop an alien invasion, Hercules needs a vacation.
So, he looks up ex-girlfriend Namora of Atlantis and they decide to frolic on a tropical island.

Which is fine, until the amazons attack.
A fun read and I love the combo of Hercules and Amadeus Cho, but after awhile it seems all the writer can do with this series is drag out more gods and greek monsters for them to fight.

Would have been nice if they mixed that up with a few more super villains of something.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Series got back on track.

The problem is that the contrast between Cho and Hercules never quite comes together because Cho is not nearly "ordinary" enough. He's essentially superpowered.

This was a good little story arc. They missed an explanation of why the interaction of the cosmic cube/19-sider or whatever didn't really work. Because everyone touched it!

Oh, well, I'll fill in my own gaps, I guess.

[John-james Glass · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have not read this comic but I have read the storyline and I find it pure sexist. I do not have the slightest clue on why people enjoy this kind of plot. I do enjoy Hercules but dont like his encounters with the Amazon's as they sometimes would beat him. If Hercules is strong, he should have been able to beat the women without taking a single punch. That is how it should have been written instead of having the women win. If a woman was a villain or a hero, they should fight women only.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun. First of all, it takes associations we may have made with Amazons in comics and inverts them all. It also serves as a fun satire of all the baggage of comics generally: that they are misogynistic, that they deny women agency, that they are enabling male power fantasies. Women manipulate the men with transparent charms toward gaining power and control. A dystopia is made that is as Orwellian as anything the patriarchy can cook up. Fun and funny.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hercules decides to have a holiday. Only problem is his sidekick has been kidnapped by Amazons, so that he can solve a riddle for them. This is another fun book, and Hercules finally meets his match in the romance stakes. The Amazons are interesting and dangerous, a very different take to that of DCs Amazons. It also has fun flashbacks to Hercules Labours where he takes on Atlas that has repercussions in the present day. A good read.

[Matej · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting Marvel title that features the right amount of humor, action and Greek mythology.
The writing is great, and the story is fun and interesting, even if you are not familiar with Marvel's The Incredible Hercules.
The art and coloring, which is great, fits the light theme and humor of the story perfectly.
All in all, a fun read that will leave you wanting more.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised by this. It was a lot of fun. I'm sad to see that the art in the next volume appears to change, though, and not be as strong, since Espin and Henry had so much to do with the humorous tone of this one.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like my comics to not take themselves too seriously, and that's what I loved about this title. Some very funny moments highlight this clever mix of superhero action, mythology and science fiction. The Amazons don't hurt either. Looking forward to reading more Hercules adventures.

[David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's Herc and Mr. Cho limping out of the Skrull invasion, but still getting stuff done. Namora kicks so much ass and Namor himself is less dickish than usual.
Onomatopoeia of the collection: all of issue 124; more specifically: NASAROKKK.

[Jedhua · Rating 3 out of 5]

ABSOLUTE RATING: {3+/5 stars}

STANDARDIZED RATING: <3/5 stars>

While this story arc was enjoyable for the most part, I feel the last issue was a bit disappointing. It was not particularly interesting, and was certainly the weakest issue of the five.

[Dustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot.

[Joshki]

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[Imanol Cinta · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mex between myth and comic in this series is amazing, Pak know his stuff and really mix the two genres perfectly.

[Larissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yay Herc! Lewd, lusty and slightly lack-wit, an "incredible" read! ;)

[Lex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delphyne Gorgon: Queen of the Amazons!!!! ! !

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greg Pak's run on Hercules has to go down as some of the funniest super-hero comics of all-time. His Hercules is hilarious without but the butt of every joke and Amadeus Cho is great. In this collection we get to see the true dynamic duo go up against Amazons determined to change the world. And they do! Herc's interactions with both Namora and Namor are fantastic. We still have movement on the Olympus group subplot which is still interesting. The art, mostly by Clayton Henry is very good and goes well with the title. Only slight drawback here is that I wish the last chapter's "new world" could've lasted an issue or two longer. Overall, a very fun read.