INCREDIBLE HULK EPIC COLLECTION: FALL OF THE PANTHEON [NEW PRINTING] Paperback – November 8, 2022

Peter David's incredible decade plus run on the Hulk is unmatched. If you are a fan pick this up. It's the Hulk with Banner's brain. It makes for better stories and they have more depth than the usual Hulk smash fare.

And with that fitting line from W.B. Yeats, the Hulk’s longtime association with the Pantheon comes to an explosive end in one of the most emotionally devastating storylines by writer Peter David. Death and destruction envelope the Hulk, as does a familiar long-buried aspect of Bruce Banner’s personality which rises to the surface once more… with a weird new twist on the classic formula.As an avid reader of the series growing up in the mid-1990s, I was often frustrated during the “savage Banner” phase of the Hulk’s life. It put a cap on his strength and forced him to hold back against foes he would normally be able to cut loose against. At the same time, one can appreciate what Peter David was trying to accomplish: as with the Mr. Fixit stories years before, he shook things up in an unexpected way by taking the dichotomy of Banner/Hulk and completely inverting it. The concept of a smart Hulk who has to hold his temper in check for fear of reverting to a raging human form in the midst of battle harkens back to the character’s early days, when stress would act as the cause of the man-to-monster transformation and vice versa (this would be before the calm/anger trigger would be established as the “norm” for the Hulk). This new wrinkle also serves a two-fold purpose: one, it effectively conveys the character’s feelings of loss and helplessness in a profound way. An increasing number of the stories David wrote during this period placed the Hulk in situations in which his key asset--limitless physical power—was useless, and his new incarnation, being helpless in both mind and body, is a reflection of that. Secondly, most significantly, it reins in the merged Hulk’s superiority complex by taking him down a few notches, forcing him to confront his own mortality. The savage Banner didn’t last very long, but it did endanger his life on a number of occasions and served as a catalyst for several upcoming storylines.Among the socially relevant issues David explores here are child abuse (a central theme of the Hulk), abortion, the homeless (in a two-parter featuring his arch-enemy the Abomination), and most profoundly, the threat of AIDS. Indeed, issue 420, “Lest Darkness Come”, in which the Hulk’s friend and former partner Jim Wilson dies of the disease, still holds up as one of his landmark stories, a beautiful piece of writing that still wrenches the heart. Once again, David isn’t trying to provide solutions to the problems, or sway people in one direction or the other. But he does make you think about the consequences, most often by showing what results from giving in to the extremes of either side.The shift into more gritty territory is reflected visually in the transition in art chores from Gary Frank to Liam Sharp. Sharp’s detailed and low-keyed style is in sync with David’s switchover to a more somber third-person narrative about a Hulk who keeps to the shadows, doing his best to remain inconspicuous to the extent of wearing normal (if large) clothes. The run was shorter than those David had with Dale Keown and Gary Frank, but like his predecessors Sharp’s pencils make this brief era a distinctive one.Hulk Epics: Fall of the Pantheon is a collection that includes some of the darkest and most topical stories from Peter David’s run, marked by a surprising change in the status quo. At the rate in which these hugely packed volumes are being produced, I’m hopeful the Epics line will reach as far as the end of David’s run, roughly another thirty issues away now. Next up: Ghosts of the Future!

Another outstanding entry in Peter David's god-like run on "The Incredible Hulk".A must-read for any fan.

An interesting collection. The first half covers the trial and fall of the Pantheon and the second half covers Hulk and Betty’s attempt at a quiet life. The second half is better than the first mainly because I only got into Hulk because of Planet Hulk.The Pantheon and “intelligent” Hulk weren’t very familiar too me so the first half wasn’t that engaging. The second half though is much better and worth the read.

Enjoyed the story, loved the art and would recommend to every hulk fan. Got this collection while on 99 cent sale

This collection is completely nonsensical. The first few issues address the fall of the Pantheon while the second half of the collection is a series of completely unrelated, disconnected, and uninteresting storylines.

This week I finished the latest Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: Fall of the Pantheon by Peter David. Unlike previous volumes, which I finished off in just a few days, this one took me a while to finish, on the order of about 3 weeks. I just couldn't make much headway with it. I'd read a chapter or two then put it down for a few days. This isn't the best Hulk era by far, and re-reading these stories after a couple of decades since their initial publication, I was quickly reminded how I didn't really enjoy them very much back then, compared to the bulk of David's Hulk saga.The stories are mostly dark, moody, and oppressive. David must have been going thru some dark times in his life when he wrote these books, and while I've always been a fan of his work and remain so today, this era is at the bottom of the list for personal enjoyment for me. The art by Gary Frank in the early part of the book is fantastic as always. However, the second half of the book features art by Liam Sharpe who would have been better suited taking on a straight up horror comic. His Hulk is overly veiny, aggressive, and just kind of ugly. He also regularly draws Betty in overly suggestive poses wearing cheesecake attire. The end of the book is littered with fill in artists, of which, the only highlight being one issue by a young Terry Dodson.Content-wise, to start this Epic volume we get a couple of throwaway stories in the "Tales to Astonish" one-shot featuring the Hulk, Wasp, and Hank Pym fighting a reincarnated version of Loki. The Hulk is mostly a second stringer in this issue. Next is the Hulk vs. Venom one-shot. Both the Tales to Astonish and Venom stories are just kind of "meh" and can easily be skipped. They have zero ramification to anything going on in the main series at the time. The painted art in Astonish is nice, but the Venom artwork is horribly dated and just screams "1990s!". Next up is a weird Thor vs. Hulk arc which never really explains who or what the deal is with this red-haired alternate version of Thor. "Hey look kids! It's Thor! But a weird knock-off version!". Next up we have the classic Jim Wilson AIDS issue which is terribly sad and depressing but extremely well written ... I believe it won a comic writer's award back in the day?The book's middle arc features the conclusion to the years long Pantheon era which reads fine, has great art by Gary Frank and was mostly okay. After the disbandment of the Pantheon we hit the "Savage Banner" incarnation of the character where the Hulk, when enraged, would morph down into Banner's body as a fail safe mechanism. I get the Hulk had a wide variety of transformations over the years, but this was probably the weirdest.The last third of the book includes a two-parter featuring the Hulk and Man Thing hunting down a child murderer, a multi-part battle with Speedfreak set against a backdrop of an abortion clinic protest, which let's be honest, all reads horribly nowadays. Also we get an appearance by the Hulk's longtime foe, the Abomination. In his few appearances during the David written Hulk era, the Abomination is portrayed as a crazy protector of the innocent sewer dwelling homeless in NYC which is a completely weird, random, odd characterization for such a classic Hulk villain. Finally, because it was the 1990s we have a mandatory 2 part crossover story with the Punisher killing Nick Fury and the Hulk attending Fury's funeral. Glad that dreck was later retconned.Overall, I give this book a C-. Even though this volume wasn't the best (or even good in spots) I am thankful it was finally collected, and glad to have the stories back on my bookshelf. I look forward to things picking back up in the next volume. This book was honestly kind of a downer.

Enjoyed the book

The Hulk Epics have been alternating between the very beginning of the series and the Peter David-written run of the nineties, and this latest, volume 21, is one of the latter, collecting material from 1994-1995. It's another period of transition for the character, who at the beginning of the volume is still running the team of Greek-themed superhumans known as the Pantheon, and still permanently settled into the Hulk body but with Bruce Banner's brain.However, the search for traitorous former Pantheon leader Agamemnon leads, via a trip to Asgard, to a climactic battle that sees Hulk's relationtip with the team finally severed, and leaves him with a new quirk to his transformations - if he gets too angry, he'll be left in Banner's fragile body but with the Hulk's savage mind! He and his wife Betty are left as fugitives once more, hiding out in small town America and trying to keep a low profile, despite all the threats that just keep finding them...We also see the end of artist Gary Frank's tenure on the book, to be replaced with a short run by Liam Sharp, whose exaggerated figures are something of a match for the green goliath. David's writing is the same as it ever was, although this is certainly not the highpoint of his decade-long stint; there is certainly action and character aplenty, although his injokes and references continue to be extremely clunky. The volume does at least tackle some serious subjects, such as the AIDS crisis, the pro-life/choice debate, homelessness and child abuse, with varying degrees of tact and efficacy considering the main character is a musclebound green powerhouse.Also included are the lusciously painted Tales to Astonish one-shot that teams Hulk with Wasp and Hank Pym to battle a wannabe Loki in Norway, and a charity issue that sees him both battle and team up with Spidey foe-turned-antihero Venom; the former is much more fun than the latter, it must be said.Extras include six pages of Swimsuit Special pinups of various Hulkverse characters, Two articles from Marvel Age covering the two specials, and two letters pages from the era. This is very much a changeover volume, not quite as good as the already-released volumes 19 and 20, but still very worth the time of fans of the character.