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Overanalyzing Anime
Blog Owner & Lead Writer
The twenty second issue of Immortal Hulk immediately tackles the fallout from issue twenty one, wherein General Fortean stormed the Alpha Flight Space Station to retrieve the Abomination’s husk. We now know that all the members of Gamma Flight seemed to have survived the encounter, more or less; well, all except for one. Walter Langkowski (better known as Sasquatch) never revived after being killed by General Fortean’s mech suit - much to the surprise of everyone on the Space Station.
Meanwhile, General Fortean, for all his talk of being “in control,” is starting to exhibit side effects from his impetuous decision to fuse with the Abomination Hulk. While, for the most part, he does appear to be holding his own, the green fluid dripping from his nose - what he refers to as a “minor side effect” - would suggest otherwise.
Elsewhere, we see that things are as dysfunctional as ever at #TeamDevilHulk’s base of operations. We have Rick Jones, who’s seemingly barely holding on to life; Betty Banner, who seems adamant in making Bruce feel guilty by only showing her “gamma form(?)” to him; we have Bruce, forever the bravest of his many personalities, who can’t stomach seeing Betty, and who has now relinquished control to Joe; and McGee, who’s wondering just how the hell she ever wound up in this situation.
We focus on Joe and McGee for a moment, as they discuss where she stands with each of Bruce’s alters. While Joe tells her that Banner doesn’t trust her, the same can’t be said for Devil Hulk, who Joe says “likes” her. McGee wonders where she stands with Joe, and Joe tells her that he likes the fact that she pisses off the “puny humans” with her articles.
Their conversation is suddenly interrupted as Rick Jones awakens - gamma powers in full effect - and informs the team that he remembers everything that happened to him. But, more importantly, he knows where they can find Shadow Base.
We switch back to Gamma Flight, who, through backtracking General Fortean’s translocation signal, have also found out the location of Shadow Base. They ready themselves for a surprise attack, but upon teleporting to the
base, they find themselves surrounded by Abomination Fortean and other members of Shadow Base. Apparently Fortean and his Psychic Surveillance Technicians were watching Gamma Flight the entire time.
However, just when Fortean thinks that he’s finally gotten the upper hand, a thundering noise booms overhead, as #TeamDevilHulk crashes the party - setting up one hell of a confrontation for the start of issue twenty three.
So, this was quite an issue. I’m going to start from my least favorite aspects of the story and work my way to what I found the most interesting.
Gamma Flight has been wholly uninteresting to me. In fact, aside from Sasquatch, Samson, and Creel, I don’t even know the names of the other members of the crew. And, even though I know Sasquatch and Creel, neither of them really interest me all that much anymore. Each had their moment to shine in the earlier issues – especially Mr. Creel with that whole… that whole… I honestly don’t even have the words to describe what happened to him back in issues nine and ten. But, that was when he piqued – and he just has not been as interesting since then. None of them have, honestly.
So, now, with Sasquatch dead, I cannot even say that I really care all that much. I like the implications – the idea that Devil Hulk sapped him of his Gamma power and now, without it, he’s able to be killed. It’s evidence that their immortality stems from their gamma power, but then, we already knew that. We’ve seen it happen time and time again with the other – what does General Fortean call them again? Oh, yes, Mutates. The information is not new, and therefore, it really isn’t all that exciting.
Their plan to infiltrate Shadow Base was sound, but they were not even able to pull that off properly. They just do not seem very useful, and as such, I question their genuine purpose in the story as of now. But, things change form issue to issue so, who knows, next month they might do something that fundamentally changes everything. Guess we will find out.
Moving away from Gamma Flight, we take a look at #TeamDevilHulk which is filled with interesting moments. For example, I find it incredibly interesting how Betty refuses to show her human form to Bruce. It seems as though she does it to punish him – to make sure he remembers that he is responsible for turning her into a monster. And the guilt trip is obviously very effective, because Bruce cannot handle even looking at her, proven by the fact that he sends out Joe Fixit in his place.
Betty seems to have a lot of hostility towards Bruce, and I cannot say that it is not warranted. Bruce (and his many personalities) have made messes of a lot of people’s lives – and I believe that it is fair to say that Betty has received some of the worst of it. Not only has she, herself, been turned into a Mutate, but her father was also consumed by his wanting to apprehend Bruce Banner. One could say that that has more to do with General Ross’s issues – but it still was a byproduct of Bruce Banner’s experiment’s turning him into the Hulk.
The moments focusing on McGee and Joe were also very interesting, as we got to see how each of the main personalities feel about McGee. While Bruce is weary of her, the other two mains – Devil Hulk and Joe FixIt – seem to like having her around. It is nice to see her reaffirmed as an important character; for Joe to acknowledge why she is important to the dynamic of the team, despite her seemingly not belonging.
Moving on from that, the last thing I wanted to discuss was General Fortean – who I will now be referring to as Abomination Fortean. Despite his limited role in this issue, I have to say that Abomination Fortean was definitely the most interesting aspect of this issue. After focusing on him for the entirety of issue twenty-one, I was anxious to see what would happen to him now that he had seemingly bonded with the Abomination husk, like something akin to the way a Symbiote bonds with a human. At first, it really did appear as though he had things under control – however, that quickly proved to be... untrue.
While we have yet to learn the extent of what the husk is doing to him, it can’t be anything good – especially not if he’s excreting copious amounts of green blood from his nostrils. I have to say that it seemed like such an odd choice for him to do that. Even in re-reading issue twenty-one, it just didn’t seem to make a lot of sense for him to do that to himself. I suppose the argument could be made that he wasn’t aware that the husk would latch onto him as such, and now we are just bearing witness to him making the best of a bad situation. Don’t know, super care; hopefully we find out next month.
All in all, this was a really exciting issue. The ending sets the stage for what will hopefully be a thrilling start to issue twenty-three! Be sure to tell me what you thought of the issue and your predictions on what will happen next! Also, be sure to check out the rest of my site for more awesome comic book (and non comic book) related news and reviews!
My score: 8/10
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