Building My Own Trade #13

The Immortal Hulk Director's Cut #1-6
By: Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, Paul Mounts (with some additional art talent on books 2 and 3)

One of my favorite philosophical questions to dive through centuries of writing on, is what is the inherent nature of humanity?  Are we good? Are we evil? Are we somewhere in between?  This is the fundamental question at the heart of these Immortal Hulk books, as all of them start with a quote on the human condition. One of my favorite quotations on this question comes from Samuel Johnson:

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

While there may be some truth to Johnson's sentiment, Bruce Banner in the Immortal Hulk would probably claim otherwise.  Book 1 begins with a gas station robbery gone awry, where the robber shots the clerk, a 12 year old girl, and an unknown man in the store.  We find out that this man is the Bruce Banner who is presumed dead (I'm probably missing something from a storyline before this).  However we learn, while Banner may die or be killed, his beast, the Hulk, cannot.  Book 1 and 2 show the rise and fleeing of the Hulk in taking down the shooter from the gas station and the gang he was working for, as well as finding a cave in a small town where a man who had been conducting radiation experiments to fight death is also poisoning the town.

The first book that piques my interest, is book 3.  Book 3 is where we see the tale of the Hulk intervening in a hostage situation in a church, which may be nothing special.  However, the way this story is told is amazing.  There are several people who are interviewed (a bartender, the old woman, the priest, and a local detective) and each of their interviews are told in a drastically different artistic style.  My favorite may be the James Dean-obsessed old woman. What really drew me in, was the use of each artistic style throughout each narrative, and how they really wove together quite beautifully to tell a seamless story from multiple accounts.

Books 3-6 seem to establish the primary story arc, someone has possessed Sasquatch's gamma form, and has it out for the Hulk, and in book 4 we discover, after a quite epic brawl in the hospital that Bruce's father has come back through the "green door" to possess Sasquatch.  However, as Hulk stripped Sasquatch of his gamma form/power, the evil Dr. Banner Sr. is trapped within the hulk form which Bruce is unwilling to unleash until the end of book 6....

I'm glad I picked these books up, and now it seems like I have another 25 or so to pick up!  I really like these Directors Cut books for the same reason I love a lot of TPB purchases I make, I love seeing the creative process unfolded, and these first 6 Directors cut books pay off in spades for two reasons:
1. You get to see the full book in sketch form, which is something I absolutely love, and I spent considerable time flipping back and forth between the finished and sketch forms.
2. Most books also include script elements, outlines, draft notes which also help show the evolution, and to the curious new-ish reader like me, it is something quite satisfying to read.

What should you do? Even if you are not a Hulk fan, I think any of these books are worth purchasing if you want a prolonged peek behind the curtain.