The Totally Awesome Hulk, Vol. 3: Big Apple Showdown

The Totally Awesome Hulk

by Greg Pak (Writer), Luke Ross (Artist)

The adventures of Amadeus Cho, a.k.a. the Totally Awesome Hulk, continue as a classic Hulk villain returns - but not like you remember him!

Collecting: The Totally Awesome Hulk 13-18

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy, Fiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published July 4, 2017

About the author

Greg Pak is an award-winning Korean American comic book writer and filmmaker currently writing "Lawful" for BOOM and "Sam Wilson: Captain America" (with Evan Narcisse) for Marvel. Pak wrote the "Princess Who Saved Herself" children's book and the “Code Monkey Save World” graphic novel based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton and co-wrote (with Fred Van Lente) the acclaimed “Make Comics Like the Pros” how-to book. Pak's other work includes "Planet Hulk," "Darth Vader," "Mech Cadet Yu," "Ronin Island," "Action Comics," and "Magneto Testament."

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for anything at our library about Shang Chi the Master of Kung Fu. There is nothing there. I was looking at our ILL files and there wasn’t anything there either. The only thing to come up was this one volume. So, I got it. Shang Chi is in this comic, but he has few lines and he doesn’t show up until the 3rd issue. We see a few scenes, but nothing else. You would think Marvel would release a new run when they announced the movie going forward. I was disappointed how little we got to know him here.

I didn’t know there was more than one hulk. There is some teenage hulk that is Asian in this story and he is the Hulk. There is also Silk spider, must be from the spider-man universe and Ms Marvel is in this. There is also an Agent of Shield in this story. They are all Asian, so it’s an Asian story line.

I very much enjoyed the first 3 chapters, but then some alien race invaded NYC and it gets stupid. They transport a portion of NYC 67 million light years into space where the aliens wants to eat the humans. I was all on board until the story went off the rails.

I started out with a four for this story and ended up with a 3 star choice with this book. I’m very exctied to meet Shang Chi and I am disappointed in this. I like the whole Asian team thing, that is awesome, but the villain was ridiculous. The movie can’t get here quick enough.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the first 2 issues, Amadeus teams up with Jeremy Lin to provide their best imitation of Space Jam. It's a dumpster fire of story with terrible splotchy coloring that ruins the art. Then Amadeus teams up with the other Asian American characters in the MCU to raise money for charity and then go out for a night on the town in Midtown Manhattan. Strange thing is, I've had that exact same night (Korean barbecue and karaoke in Midtown) minus the aliens that show up at the end. The aliens kidnap everyone hanging out in Herald Square to use as a food source. It was actually a pretty good idea to have all these heroes get together. The problem is Pak has turned Amadeus into such a jerk that even I don't want to hang out with him anymore.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book collects two three-part stories. I didn't like the first one but I loved the second one. I guess that averages out to three stars...

[Subham · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a disappointing volume ngl.

So the volume picks up with Hulk teaming up with Jeremy lin, some basketball players and when they get attacked by some machines they have to tam up to stop this threat basketball-fighting style.. umm yeah idk maybe it was cool at the time but reading now, its weird. The threat has no motivatio, its just there.. because plot. Umm yeah disappointing.

And then we have Asian hero team up season vs some Seknarf-nine people and they abduct them because? Umm eat them and also transport them light years away.. yeah that was weird and how they defeat them was even more weirder but highlighting some other heroes.. mostly legacy ones was great but it felt too baity and yeah boring, I would have prefered Hulk smash the threats. One of the problems of this volumes was vague threats and the writer not being able to define them and it makes for a boring read, Amadeus gets some good moments and Maddie sort of does but its mostly cameos all over and thats why not the greatest after an excellent first two volumes.

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

So after first two volumes being pretty entertaining I was excited to read this one. Sadly, this does not live up to the last two.

I really did think they nailed Hulk, Cho, with his friends here. They're young, high spirited, superheroes. They work well together, pushing themselves up and trying to make sure everyone is happy. But the main two stories here is a famous Basketball player playing ball with Cho and then the other part is a attack on New York. Haven't read one like that before...

Overall the plotting is just meh in this one. Was kind of bored the whole way through. But I still like Cho. A 2 out of 5.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure about Big Apple Showdown at first - the 'special guest star Jeremy Lin of the NBA' story initially seemed forced, but rebounded (see what I did there? nothing but net!) and turned out okay. The Cho family feud, though, is still more than a little annoying and needs to be resolved ASAP.

The impromptu group 'Protectors' in the second half of the volume is where things really start to shine. Cho teams with Ms. Marvel, Silk, Shang-Chi, SHIELD agent Jake Oh, and Jimmy Woo (who I will always think of as Nick Fury's new recruit from SHIELD, but that's like so 50 years ago) after a charity event / family BBQ dinner / karaoke extravaganza to battle an intergalactic villain and his henchmen. The story was heartwarming (nothing like seeing New Yorkers banding together), and the supper dialogue between our heroes - before the big action - was actually pretty interesting.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Read as single issues]
It's Totally Awesome Team-Up time in this volume, as Amadeus links up with Jeremy Lin (yes, the real one) to fight off basketball robots, before forming a new team of Asian American heroes to defend New York from an alien invasion.

You know all those 'people' that yell about diversity being forced? This is a prime example of why they're wrong. There's a very logical reason for this group of characters to interact, and they're great fun together. The differences in opinion and backgrounds makes the conflict with the aliens almost secondary, and Pak's scenario for the invasion itself is solid.

The artwork is also great. German Peralta pops up for the basketball story, while Mahmud Asrar pencils the four issue Protectors story, so the art is always in good hands. I especially like Asrar's artwork, which always feels like it has a lot of weight behind it.

Totally Awesome Hulk? Totally Awesome Team-Ups? Totally Awesome Art? Totally Awesome Success.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pak continues his wonderful run with Amadeus Cho as the all-new, totally awesome Hulk. Great stuff. I particularly enjoyed the chapters guest-starring Ms. Marvel and Shang-Chi, both being particular favorites of mine. Let your hair down, kick back and enjoy.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah, it's been downhill since the previous volume and I completely lost interest on this one.

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've always found it rather cringeworthy any time a real life person guest stars in a comic book, and this was no exception. Amadeus Cho is walking by a park where some kids are playing basketball and Jeremy Lin just randomly shows up. He and Cho/Hulk end up hanging out and eventually team up against a rogue AI created by the Mad Thinker. The only way to defeat it is to basically play a game of basketball with a small robot shaped like a beer keg (it's even named Kegger) that contains code that will take down the AI. They need to get it into a small opening in the structure the AI is currently housed in, and they essentially pass the "ball" to each other while robots under the AI's control play defense and try to guard the "basket" from getting scored on. I wish I was joking but I'm not. It's hard to believe that this story came from the same writer who gave us "Planet Hulk".

The next story involves a small group of Asian-American heroes (Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Shang Chi, Silk, SHIELD agent Jake Oh, and Atlas leader Jimmy Woo) showing up for a fundraiser to collect bone marrow from Asian donors. They hang out for an evening and discuss how Asian heroes have been historically treated, and it's easily the best issue in the volume, but that is a very low bar to clear. At the very end of the issue, aliens show up and transport a small chunk of midtown Manhattan into space. They announce that they are going to eat all of the people in their new food colony, and the heroes all have to work together with the other captives to stop them. They recruit and electrician and an engineer out of the crowd to help figure out how the aliens' power and captivity field work. It's an utterly forgettable and tedious story.

I'm baffled by Greg Pak's decision to make Amadeus Cho less and less likeable with each volume. There are numerous instances in this volume of Hulk telegraphing pretty loudly that he's about to do something rash, another character (often his sister) who has a fuller understanding of the situation loudly admonishing him NOT to do the stupid thing he's about to do, he does the stupid and impulsive thing anyway, and then everyone has to clean up Hulk's mess after he just made the situation worse. This happens so often it gets tiresome, and being told over and over that a character is one of the smartest in the Marvel universe doesn't mean much when they continually act like an idiot. Some of the other heroes who team up with Hulk even comment on how he seems to do nothing but make situations worse. Given how this series has been trending, it's not hard to understand why this book was canceled after the next volume.

1.5 STARS

[João Pedro Vale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eu tenho muito a sensação q essa run podia ter sido muito melhor se não tivesse a necessidade constante de fazer crossover com um milhão de personagens e de eventos

[James Elkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoy Amadeus Cho. I kinda enjoy Totally Awesome Hulk. I'd enjoy it more if Amadeus got angry more often.

This collection contained a gimmicky guest appearance by Jeremy Lin (issues #13 & 14) playing Basketball and stopping aliens...by playing basketball with the Hulk....I think...I've forgotten the salient details and that probably ealls you more about that story than if I could tell you more about it. The rest of this collection is all of Marvel's Asian heroes getting together for dinner...and stopping aliens....who want Human Burgers made of New Yorkers. They're the Protectors, not the Asian Avengers. There's a little bit of angry Chulk...but not enough to write home about.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally Awesome Hulk Vol 3 keeps up the delightful ratio of action to comedy, and Hulk is an overall better character for it!
We begin with Amadeus teaming up with pro NBA player Jeremy Lin to play a game of basketball against a bunch of aliens, which partially continues into a battle against QUASI-MODO (QUASI-MOtivational Destruct Organism). As if that wasn't ridiculous enough, a section of New York gets transported to orbit around an alien homeworld, with the humans as food supply. Too bad the newly branded "Protectors" (Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Silk, Shang-Chi, Jake Oh Agent of SHIELD, and Jimmy Woo Head of Atlas) are there as well. Let the alien beatdown commence!
I've really been enjoying this title so far. Looking forward to seeing where they take it in the future. High Recommend.

[Nate Deprey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best thing I've read by Pak. The first two issues are a fun, throwback style team up between the new Hulk and basketball star Jeremy Lin. It has the feel of the Rick Barry/Dr. Jay Converse ads from the late 1970s but there is a mutual appreciation between the characters that elevated what might otherwise have been a throwaway story. That sense of appreciation is taken to another level in this collection's main story line. What we are given is an impromptu, all Asian American superhero team featuring Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Silk and Shang-Chi! That would have been enough but what Pak ends up telling is a post 9/11, New Yorkers pulling together story for the ages. Words can't express how much I loved reading this collection.

[Adan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very fun couple of stories. First, Amadeus teams up with Jeremy Lin (yes, that Jeremy Lin) to take on a criminal AI with the power of basketball. Then, he teams up with a bunch of other Asian-American heroes, including Ms Marvel, Silk, SHIELD Agent Jake Oh, Jimmy Woo, and Shang-Chi (is he American? last I heard, he was a Chinese national), to talk at a bone marrow registry event (they need more donors of Asian descent in real life too), go out for galbi and karaoke, and then fight some aliens. My favorite part was Shang-Chi and Jimmy Woo fighting for the bill (like, with kung fu and sci-fi guns), and Silk saying, “Mad Asian-dad action up in this piece.”

The only real bad thing I can say is that there wasn’t enough Maddy here. I miss her.

[Ronald · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm getting a little tired of this series it started out so Awesome! But now Amadeus is as bad a person as Tony Stark in the MCU. He just does whatever will make something worse. Then the whole famous "real" person is in the comic and has an adventure with Hulk lite. Then the Hulk teams up with a bunch of much more popular Marvel Comic characters and has a very dark and disappointing adventure. Will Amadeus's sister ever forgive him? Will he ever make a good choice in life even while being a "genius"? Will Marvel ever let smart people ever be anything other than nerds or evil asses?

Disappointed.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huh. That was weird. But kind of good. Not sure how I feel about an all asian group of heroes just ending up together, but there is no reason why it wouldn't happen. The Protectors story worked better than it should have - probably because by the time that story happened, I cared about the characters. The basketball story was just odd and seemed very un-Marvel but it basically worked. I didn't appreciate Amadeus fight with his sister, I would have liked to have had a better in clue in this book for why it was happening. But all in all a fun read.

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Public library copy.

This book read like any other Amadeus Cho as the Hulk book. I'm all for diversity but when any publisher seems to make a mandate on grouping a bunch of different ethnicities above telling a good, memorable story....well, this is what you get. Quite frankly, I'm tired of these shoehorned attempts at diversifying comics. An all-black Avengers book wasn't any better than the regular title and Kamala Khan has been best written in the hands of G. Willow Wilson (same with Miles Morales is best written in the capable hands of Bendis.)

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume opens with a story about Amadeus Cho working with Jeremy Lin to fight off some baddies. It was funny, but I wasn't all to into that. Following that story, Amadeus teamed up with all of the major Asian-American superheroes from Marvel as they fight against a bunch of aliens that steal away a chunk of Manhattan and threaten to eat everyone on it. This was a bit more my speed but also kinda wacky.

I will say that I really enjoyed the whole Asian-Americanness of this set of issues, but as far as superhero comics go it wasn't my favorite.

[Beelzefuzz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 2.5. It had moments in the second story, but overall this was awful. Pak took the main conceit of Space Jam (basketball in space with aliens!) and split it into two stories. (1. Hulk does basketball robots. 2. Hulk does space with aliens) and both fluctuated between lackluster and Totally Awful Hulk stories.

[Joshua Williams · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is the worst thing ive read in a looooong time. random basketball cameos, a really dumb team-up, and a general lack of direction left me wondering how this series could possibly keep going, but i have to see how we get from the good hulk runs to what is supposed to be one of the best comics on the shelf right now in immortal hulk so here goes nothing...

[Chelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only thought this was ok, but I'm rounding up because it ending strong. I thought that the first half (everything with Jeremy Lin) was a little ridiculous, but when Amadeus teams up with the other Asian superheroes in NYC, the story finds its rhythm.

[Kris Ritchie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frankly, the issues with Jeremy Lin seemed like promotional material you would expect fro ma cereal box in the '90s. The rest of the volume, for some reason, makes the book a team-title even though this should center on the Hulk.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume set out to let us know that there ARE Asian and other POC superheroes! And you can’t even be mad about it because they have been underserved for so long, they deserve this kind of representation.

[Sebastian Song · Rating 3 out of 5]

The showdown turns out to be an above average Alien invasion that triumph over a karaoke session. It's hard to be involved with the new Hulk as he's both intelligent and unwise.

[Jessia · Rating 4 out of 5]

the scene when everyone was fighting over the check asian-style was *100 emoji*

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah, this one was pretty stupid.

[Amanja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would've been 4 stars but the first two issues of the volume are so bad. Are there people who are impressed by a basketball player being drawn into a comic book? Cause I'm not.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the Ms. Marvel I read recently ("Damage Per Second"), this book really goes out of its way to make the subtext into the text.

Why doesn't it work as well here? Because that's kind of always been Ms. Marvel. It's targeted at a younger audience and doesn't have any baggage to predispose the reader.

But Hulk, well, there are expectations. And not just, e.g., from the four decades of previous Hulk comics. Just looking at Greg Pak's earlier run and even volumes 1 and 2 of this series and it leaves the reader expecting something other than the cheery good messages here. Cho has some pathos. Hulk has some psychodrama. That's kind of the way it appears to be.

This could have made a very good limited series for school libraries but it doesn't feel strong as a part of an ongoing STORY.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably my favorite that I've read from Totally Awesome Hulk so far - I loved the Jeremy Lin cameo and it really reminded me of a lot of old comics that had celebrities guest star. I also loved the Protectors storyline, and how different Asian American characters are all represented. It's so nice to see them interacting with each other and being fully developed, but also being able to bond over their shared experiences. That really only comes through with #ownvoices, and I'm so glad that Pak did that here.