When the Power Pack, a group of super-powered siblings, discover what happens to Dr. Bruce Banner when he becomes angry, they must decide if they will stand by him since it may mean fighting every other hero in the universe.
Marvel continues to do a great job of writing stories for young audiences, something that may pay dividends for them if they can get a new generation of readers hooked on comics. I don't see DC doing as much of that.
The Pack has three encounters with the Hulk here, in sort of a hazy continuity that doesn't hurt things all that much. He helps them take down the Absorbing man, Mr. Zzzax, and the Abomination, using a a Hulk that seems to be the dumb, happy Hulk, but with a stronger tie to Banner than I'm used to seeing. In the latter case, the Hulk is of course blamed for all the damage, leading to an all-star slugfest with the Avengers, the FF, and even the X-Men showing up to shut him down. In the end, the Pack learns that no matter how friendly he may be, the Hulk is still not safe to hang around with.
This was an interesting use of the Pack--they're clearly not Hulk-class in strength, so we see them mostly reacting to events rather than participating. They help with the fights, but not to the degree that we saw in their team up with Spider-Man. I do like the idea of a child-like Hulk interacting with child heroes, and how they deal with the villains--who clearly feel the kids are not worth opponents--is always interesting.
There's a few fun moments in this--such as a rather unhappy Dum Dum Doogan, jokes about the grossness of the Hydra concept, and a nod to 1950s Superman comics, to name a few--that make it worth reading for an adult audience, but obviously this is more loving tribute to the old days than anything else. If you like the old days, these are definitely comics for you. (Library, 12/07)
Trebby's Take: Worth the read for long-time Marvel fans.
The first few issues of this comic were really sweet but the last one, featuring the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four beating up on Hulk over a complete misunderstanding left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm going to try and purposely forget it exists over the next few days.
Besides that, I enjoyed seeing how Bruce / Hulk interacted with the Power Pack and seemed intent on trying to get them out of harm's way even though they clearly feel they can handle themselves and probably could.
Each of the Pack have endearing personalities and realistic behavior as siblings and while I hadn't really heard of them previously I probably will read more comics involving them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.