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Posted July 25, 2013 by Alvin Minon in Comics
 
 

COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Hunger #1

See the badass helmet? Yeah, that’s him.

“There. It approaches. An entity as old as existence. Designed to devour all that stands before it…It is death and destruction. It is the end of all things.”

After the Avengers stopped Ultron, Marvel brings us Hunger #1. Here, Galactus makes his way into the Ultimate Universe after the time stream got damaged due to the events that transpired in Age of Ultron.

At the center of all this is Rick Jones, now clad in gold after the Watchers pick him as their new herald. He’s come a long way from being Hulk’s sidekick and now he’s got cosmic powers and looks like the Silver Surfer, only in gold! A trip to get some burgers gets him to the center of the Chitauri-Kree war and a few pages later he encounters a swarm of sentient, all-consuming robotic bugs the Watcher calls Gah Lak Tus. What happens next is all pretty much obvious from the cover: the towering, helmet-bearing Galactus we know makes his grand entrance and spell despair and multiversal danger. A temporal flux later and all realities collapse, time and space get torn and voila: One giant omnipotent World-Eater! Gah Lak Tus and Galactus collide and what we have is something more dreadful than that guy you see on the cover. Best way to describe it without the spoilers? “Galactus…HUNGERS.”

This comic reeks of one big event that’ll happen in the Marvel multiverse. Perhaps the only big thing that happened here is that Galactus popped up out of nowhere and everything else seems like one big preparation for events that’ll come. Joshua Hale Fialkov makes the pace easy to follow and even new readers could jump right in. Dialogue’s light enough to follow and introductions were done smoothly. Right off the bat we get introduced to the center character Rick Jones and his powers,duties, and somewhat lack of sense of responsibility, and the Watcher who despite supposedly being all-powerful, tremble at the sight of Galactus.

Now imagine a ripping sound, followed by some ominous game boss music!

Some people might find the build up slow but honestly,it just made Galactus’ appearance more ominous. Plus, the somewhat sluggishness makes it easy to relate to Jones and his banter and dialogues with the Watcher. We see the funny side in Jones versus the lingering doom in Galactus’ arrival. It could also be pointed out how from the middle of the metro in a burger shack, the story makes its transition to interplanetary warfare and later on dimensional collapse. That’s just how grandiose the events will be and Fialkov’s got full control of how things would go in the next issues of this four-part series.

And even Leonard Kirk‘s art and Jesus Abertov‘s colors follow the pace and deliver dynamic art. In the first few pages there’s a lack of detail and the environment just seems dull. Come the outer space pages and we see solid lines, crisp pencils and colors that slam the reader’s eyes with action. I’d say even the art contributes to the build up as what we get here is a stark contrast of everyday boring life compared to the gravity of occurences in the cosmos. Galactus really looks like a being of the big leagues and by the end of the comic everything looks explosive.

It’s just the first one so things are slow and not there yet. I thought Age of Ultron Aftermath will be a dragging arc about recovering and picking up the pieces left behind but I was wrong. It’s one big event after another and those who missed Ultron, or even those who missed a lot of events, could jump right in. And you know that if it involves Galactus and the Watcher, big things are on the way and Hunger’s a good starting point if you want to see how the Ultimate Universe would change.

REVIEW SCORE: 8.5/10

My Hunger for some comic action’s definitely sated with Hunger #1 and if you wanna satisfy yours, visit Comic Odyssey!


Alvin Minon