Savage Hulk #1

Writer – Alan Davis
Artist – Alan Davis
Inker – Mark Farmer
Colours – Matt Hollingsworth

Savage Hulk, much like the Savage Wolverine title, is a book that is to feature different creative teams telling different tales of the Hulk, the first of which is Alan Davis.  In this tale, Davis takes us far into the Hulk’s past to a tale with the new X-Men and expands on that fateful encounter where Banner saved Xavier’s life.  Also in the book is the Leader, the Abomination and a whole lot of action.  Davis’ art is still as slick as ever and his writing has only gotten better with time.  The problem with this particular story is the old-school feel of it.  Sounding and reading like a Marvel comic from the past is not a bad thing, but with the excitement found in many of today’s books, you have to be in the right mood and frame of mind to read something like that or this.  It is great to see the Hulk get a second title after having only a single book for the past couple of years and it is great to see Alan Davis back at Marvel doing what he does best.  It would have been nice to see a new ClanDestine book, or perhaps something with Captain Britain, and maybe it is pigeonholing him a bit by doing so, but it is fantastic to see writing and drawing those books and those characters.  This was a good book in the end, and it is nice to see an early chapter that crosses the Hulk with the X-Men, but one that may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

3 out of 5

Batman Eternal #12

Writer – Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Tim Seeley, Ray Fawkes, John Layman
Artist – Mikel Janin
Colours – Jeromy Cox

Captain Sawyer, John Bard and Harvey Bullock have a plan to stop the gang wars in Gotham and perhaps bring down all of those that are involved as well.  Meanwhile, Batman is accompanying Gordon to trial as Batgirl and the Red Hood try to clear his name.  There is also somewhat of a surprise ending with Gordon on the receiving end, which will mean something to some people and nothing to others if they do not read the other Batman titles.  There was not a lot of movement in the issue, as it only featured our respective heroes talking and discussing things while making little headway in the case.  It was nice to see the subject of the series, Gordon, make an appearance as those are far and few between.  Mikel Janin provides some beautiful artwork for the issue and is a huge difference in tone and quality between this issue and the last.  The writing is as solid as ever, but other than the part of the book featuring Gotham’s finest which furthered the plot along, the issue did little and seems to be spinning its wheels a little bit.  The title has not gotten as bad as Futures End with its watered down pacing, but Eternal could move things along just a little bit faster.  A decent episode from the New 52’s first weekly.

3 out of 5