After last week’s successful impulse buy of Punisher: The List (rocking book, with a second printing on the way–check it out), I decided to pick up a few more older new books with my weekly pull to play catch up with those sometimes-forgotten, but always on my mind corners of the comic universe. (I stuck with Marvel this week, apparently still content forgetting the corners of their distinguished competition.) So I grabbed the no-longer-recent 50th issue of X-Factor to see what Peter David, Jaime Madrox, and friends were up to since I dropped the book more than a year ago.

Turns out X-Factor Investigations relocated, not just to another town, but to another time! And this issue was the conclusion of what seems to have been an epic journey to the future that saw the Multiple Man, with an all-growsed-up Layla Miller, at his side battling an evil tricked-out uber-dupe, a senile and sinister old Doctor Doom, and a part-cyborg Cyclops who has been hacked for villainy by the bad Doctor. Helping Madrox and Layla in this future imperfect are Ruby, Cyclops’ future daughter (with Emma Frost?) and Trevor Fitzroy, whom I remember was a key villain in not-appearing-in-this-comic Bishop’s oh-so-90’s time-travelling origin story. I was hoping to see my old favorite X-Man Longshot in this issue, as he appears on the cover, but he was only name-dropped. How the heck did he get pulled into this?

Other things of note in this loaded anniversary issue: Strong Guy got a make-over; Darwin, an interesting-albeit-retrofitted-into-X-continuity character from Ed Brubaker’s Uncanny X-Men run, is now Jaime’s right hand man; Siryn has distanced herself from Jaime and the team…probably because of that mysterious baby business that I heard about but never got details on a few issues prior; and Rictor and Shatterstar are a couple. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, it’s an interesting new take on the characters, and downright hillarious that Shatterstar, the poster boy for what passed as a bad ass in 90’s comics, is now the human vibrator’s bottom.

I was sad to see the Layla Miller mystery (the mystery of Layla Miller, I should say) wrapped up so neatly in this issue, as she was my favorite character in the book and the series’ primary plot driver. But I also appreciated the parallels drawn between Layla and Valeria Richards (Reed and Sue’s daughter), who guests in the backup story in this issue, reminding me that some of the fun of Layla Miller will live on. The back-up bit sets the tone for X-Factor from 51 on as a factor in the greater Marvel Universe, and I’m caught up enough now to know I want to read more. Welcome back to the pull, X-F!

But now the bad news: Coming off the pull to make room for X-Factor could be either Amazing Spider-Man or Batman and Robin (maybe even both).

ASM  #611 really needed to kick it up a notch after the last few issues, but it was only cute this week–and entirely inconsequential, with a whacky guest spot from Mister Inconsequential himself, Deadpool. Mildly amusing, slightly juvenile, and mostly chaotic are not descriptions I’m willing to pay for at $2.99 a pop, especially after the snore-fest clone saga retread I had to sit through for the three previous issues. The writing was clever, but the art was not my style, and the story itself was wholly forgetable. I’ll consider the upcoming Gauntlet arc, which looks to maybe, possibly be a return to focused, relevant storytelling in this series, but I’m starting to realize this whole weekly Spider-Man thing is requires an awful lot of filler. This series may be better suited for the trades…and even then, only the good ones.

Chaos for the sake of chaos tends to reign in Grant Morrison’s comics, as well, but those books are rarely just cute or juvenile. There’s always depth to his stories and a bigger picture unfolding that makes it hard to step away without feeling like I’d be missing out on the payoff. Unfortunately, this is a visual medium and Phil Tan’s inconsistent and entirely sub-Quitely artwork makes it so much easier to get over that concern. There are moments of greatness in every issue of Batman and Robin…but, again, $2.99 is a lot to pay for only a one or two cool or intriguing moments. As with ASM, I can just as easily flip through the issues on the shelf and catch up with the details online.

One book I will not be dropping anytime soon, if ever, is The Walking Dead, which continues to keep me hooked like a roamer jonesing for some brain meat. Regarding this week’s #67, I  knew this guy was trouble from the start:

Back to catching up…

The main reason I do it is to get back up to speed on characters or series scheduled for big things, like a new creative team, a destined-to-be-hyped change to the status quo, or a crossover event. One “event” I’ve been hearing about that I’m looking forward to is the apparent culmination of Greg Pak and Jeph Loeb’s collective run on the Hulk–Fall of the Hulks–more for the Pak, less for the Loeb. 

I’m hesitant to give any more money to the steaming pile of comic that Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness have been producing in Hulk, with the neverending battle royale between Green Hulk, Red Hulk, Blue Abomination, Yellow Stars, and Purple Horseshoes, and all the other muscle-bound, rampaging colors of the rainbow. But if this upcoming storyline is meant to wrap it up, tie up the sloppy, frayed ends, and refocus the Hulk story, then it deserves our support. Loeb and McGuiness’s Hulk is a fun looking comic, and there have been plenty of outrageous moments that appeal to me on a base, childish level (Red Hulk punching out the Watcher a while back comes to mind)…but the series has been a constant, cheesy, unfullfilling tease about the identity of Red Hulk, and now Red She Hulk, with so little substance that it seems to be plotted by a child. The book is absolutely candy. Unfortunately, it is the kind of candy that makes your teeth hurt, without ever satisfying the craving.

And that is why I chose to play catch-up with the other Hulk–Incredible Hulk, written by Pak and illustrated by Ariel Olivetti.

Where McGuiness’s art is fun in a chunky cartoon-on-paper sort of way, Olivetti’s work is Norman Rockwell doing superheroes. And Pak’s writing, which has been the true guiding voice behind the Hulk since the Jade Giant was rocketted into space by the Illuminati two years ago, is more grounded than Loeb’s top-that silliness, and with a far more sensible and sophisticated vision for the character that seems to reward loyal long-time readers. Loeb’s Red Hulk storyline seems designed to punish the faithful, who sit through issue after issue of mindless fisticuffs and zero payoff. If you’re a Hulk loyalist following both books, you know that Pak and Olivetti are making great comics, while Loeb and McGuiness are just taking your money.

And to think, the three issues of Incredible Hulk that I picked up this week, issues 601-603, don’t even feature the Hulk! The storyline is all about Bruce Banner, currently unable to transform into his gamma-powered alter ego, training his son, Skaar (conceived during Pak’s Planet Hulk epic and born in the periphery of World War Hulk), to be able to kill him when he does inevitably change again. The book looks great, is fast paced, and has sold me on a character i thought was a bad joke when I first heard of him.

Skaar, Son of Hulk seemed like a dumb money-grabbing idea designed to drag out Planet Hulk even though the Hulk and the alien planet had been destroyed. But somehow, Pak has convinced me that Hulk Jr is a viable character. And with this latest edition to Marvel’s second-generation roster, I can see a big picture plan, where, like in DC, the new generation of characters is establishing itself, so the old guard heroes can finally evolve beyond their origins and usual tropes.