Beauty and the Beast is the First of two hulk stories in Incredible Hulk #5, The Hordes of General Fang! has its own review Here.

At first reading the story, I thought that they wanted to do the same kind of thing they did last month, tell us a tale of character development, and then give us the action in the 2nd one, a format that I thought worked good last month. That may even be exactly what they tried to do, and thought they did. But personally I think it fell flat.

Story

The story begins with General “Thunderbolt” Ross showing video’s of the hulk to Dr. Bruce Banner as he wants his top scientific mind helping with the capture of the hulk.. a scene that I find to be quite ironic.

unknown to our usual cast they are being watched by a man named Tyrannus, ruler of a subterranean empire. He devises  a plan that involves using Betty Ross as protection during his invasion of the surface world.

the story continues with Banter tracking down the woman, and then needing to turn into the hulk to continue. however I can not help but say, that the story as a whole feels weak.  there are points when I can’t help but feel that the action’s and the dialog and intention’s just don’t match up. As well as points in the story where I just felt like I had missed something.

Art

This story I just did not see the same feeling and heart that I feel some of the Kirby’s other works did.  it had a few good panels, and a few that I really liked, but overall, I felt the artwork fell short of my exception’s.

Part of the arts downfall, could be tied to the story; as its part of the story telling device used.  There where points when I felt things were needed, and others where I feel we had more panels than were needed to express an idea.

Characters & Development

If there was the character or world development that I thought and hoped for as I was reading the story. I could have forgiven much of its shortcomings.  Instead, I feel that they told a story that offered great development, but then nullified it all out at the end.

This would have been a great development for Betty Ross, it would have let her see the hulk as not a monster, but a hero, and could have changed the direction of the hulk, Betty , and even Rick from here on out.  it had great potential.

Instead, she seems to have forgotten everything that happened underground, a bit of convent amnesia.  Up to now, I could forgive her passing out and not seeing the hulk for the hero, and so on, but she was awake in much of this story, witnessed the hulk helping her. and then forgets.  maybe I will just forget that I read it.