“Skaar: Son of Hulk” The title alone, if not the visual is enough to make you pick up this title at your local comic shop. It was enough for me to place it in my box of must-reads and read it I did with mixed pleasure. Let me give the non-fans a quick back-story, this should be a quick intro to the current Versus TCG set, Marvel Universe. Some time ago the Hulk went on another rampage through New York killing a lot of people. Members of the Illuminati; Iron Man, Professor X, Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner, Mr. Fantastic and Black Bolt decided that the Hulk’s rampages had to be stopped once and for all. They decided to shoot Hulk into space strapped to a nuke set to explode. Fate had other plans for our green machine and landed him on a planet called, Sakaar.

On this world Hulk went through a very “Gladiator-like” existence. He rose from the arena as a slave to become a gladiator to rebel against the King until he became the King. Upon this world he was looked at as a savior and considered the Worldbreaker. Take a look at the multitude of cards in this new Versus set and you will see this growth represented in the Hulk. There is also an unaffiliated card in the set for Skaar, his son though very premature and baseless, especially after reading this first issue.

(Click Images to View)



Hulk takes a wife and a queen, Caiera, whom loves him greatly and is the only one to see him in his Bruce Banner persona, still accepting him. While on this world it is the Old Strong, Caiera’s people, who teaches the Hulk/Bruce to have a more symbiotic relationship, to control his anger and harness it. These two elope and Caiera is with child when the nuke that brought Hulk to Sakaar explodes and takes everything away from the Hulk. Hulk departs to wreak his havoc and revenge with his Warbound on the Illuminati and Earth, believing his son to be dead.



Now that you have the picture of how Skaar came to be, let me explain who the Old Strong is. The Oldstrong are the native race of the planet Sakaar, they have the ability to transform their bodies into stone and draw powers from the planet to increase their own strength and resiliency. The Oldstrong also have some mystic powers as well. Hiroim, one of Hulk’s Warbound, displayed so by diffusing some of Dr. Strange’s most powerful spells.



Now that you have the full picture, you pretty much have the full story of Issue #1. Seriously, the first 6 pages are really dedicated to how Skaar rose from the primordial-lava-soup that was left in the wake of the explosion which killed his mom. In very dramatic and great writing Greg Pak uses Caiera’s voice as spoken in a ghostly backdrop to her son on how he came to be, seemingly noting at some genetic memory the Oldstrong may have. We see Skaar rise and fight the planets bug like creatures and make a pet of one. Ron Garney does a good job on the pencils, but the colors are not well defined leaving a drab look to the panels, but I am suspecting that is exactly what they were going for, trying to present the planet as this dead world, now.



Skaar’s aging process is quick as are his mother’s people. The process doesn’t really come across well in the series. One moment he is the infant child, I would love to use the word bastard because he looks like one, but Hulk was as honorable a green machine as any man and he married the boy’s mothers before leaving. In no time he is a young adolescent man that the people are able to identify with it seems right away. They know he is the Son of Hulk and Caiera and worship him as a savior. This first issue doesn’t really explain how that happens as we are missing a lot of time in between his younger years and his teen years. That was a joke because his aging process is very rapid, so the question is how all this came so quickly and how the people knew who he was. I really don’t know. At first he very much resembles the look of his mother’s people except for the eyes which are very Hulk. I see no episodes of “Maury” planned if father and son ever reunite.



By issues end he looks like a very young man and though he says nothing you can tell he is not his fathers rampaging self. The fruit has fallen far from the tree in that respect. His speed and agility also question how much of his mother’s power he is drawing from. I am interested in the series just to see how far his power limits go. Caiera battled Hulk to a standstill using the Shadow Strength and we all know how strong Hulk is. There is no real indication in the series as this point that he has the Hulk’s concept of strength though we can suspect. If he does he may very well be the newest “Strongest One There Is.” While I wasn’t exactly taken off my seat by this issue I wasn’t disappointed either. I was expecting more from Greg Pak than I probably should have and while he didn’t completely deliver on my wants and needs I can’t say it was a bad first outing.



Skaar is apparently battling the new warlord of the planet Sakaar, Bone Axeman for rule of the planet. How quick do these rulers rise on Sakaar? Either way it was a great read. Enjoy the scans but go pick up the issue I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Vote for Darkseid Revenge also join me for Comic Book Discussion on TCGplayer.