Hulk, the Wild West, and Dinosaurs. Get it? Good.
Now this is what I'm talking about. If you love to laugh and have fun reading comic books, and you aren't reading Indestructible Hulk, then let me say this to you: fail. Seriously, Mark Waid's run with Hulk has got to be the most fun I have reading comic books. The characterizations are great, the action never ends, and the laughs don't make you giggle, they actually make you laugh. The cover alone is worth the price tag: Hulk riding a T-Rex with three cowboys.
Anyway, Hulk and Banner must stabilize the timestream after the events of Age of Ultron. They are recruited and sent back to pre-determined "hot spots" in time to stabilize them. Hulk goes as Hulk, and Banner with his mind and consciousness in a small observation robot. I can't ever recall Hulk and Banner both being active in the story at the exact same moment like this, but I enjoy it. There's a great deal of humor in the Banner-bot teasing and egging on the Hulk to keep him angry. Anyway, they are after a time-anarchist named Tok who has taken over a small mining town. The how and why I won't spoil, as I'll leave that for the book itself to explain. The cowboys are three outlaws of the time (I'm guessing) and are very reminiscent of Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, and the like. The dinosaurs? Well, they are Tok's muscle. And if Hulk punching a T-Rex in the face sounds like fun to you, it's a lot more fun seeing it. The issue feels very fast paced, and it is, but it's fast because it's fun. My personal favorite line coming from the Banner-bot: "Hulk vs a mountain. Never bet on the mountain." If that made you smirk, or intrigued, read this book.
Matteo Scalera's artwork is full of life and motion. If you look at the panels fast enough it almost feels like a flip-book rather than static pictures. The colors are vibrant and add to the chaos that is a Hulk fight, and add life to the art without feeling cartoony.
There are no real bad things to say about this, only that you only get one serving of Hulk a month. My one minor, and I do mean minor, head scratch moment was why these cowboys so readily accepted taking orders from a floating, "talking anvil". Clearly they've never seen a robot before, but I just chalked it up to the fact that once you see a dinosaur appear out of no where, you kind of just go with the flow.
This book gets a solid 5/5. If you were thinking about checking out Waid's epic Hulk run, this is a great arc to start with. Start with the previous issue, issue 11, before picking this one up so you get the full story of the arc, and you will not be sorry. Hulk continues to deliver as my second favorite title of the month, and seeing as my first is getting cancelled this will easily fill that void.
