Hulk: The Dogs of War Omnibus

The Incredible Hulk (1999) (Collected Editions) #2-3

by Paul Jenkins, Sean McKeever, Fabian Nicieza

Paul Jenkins, one of the most cerebral writers in comics, gets deep into the head of Bruce Banner - and finds the monster within! But you've never seen a Hulk more hellish than the one that dwells deep inside the grief-stricken, guilt-ridden and seriously ill Banner. Afflicted and unbalanced, the Hulk is hounded worse than ever before when General Ryker lets slip his gamma-powered Dogs of War - their bite is every bit as bad as their bark! And the Hulk's tortured soul is pushed even further to its limits when the person dearest to him is killed...by one of his oldest and deadliest foes! Plus, Hulk smashes in startling stories from Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello and more incredible creators! COLLECTING: INCREDIBLE HULK (2000) 12-33, ANNUAL 2000-2001; HULK (1999) 1/2; SENTRY/HULK 1; HULK SMASH 1-2; STARTLING STORIES: BANNER 1-4

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Sequential Art

832 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2019

About the author

Paul Jenkins is a British comic book writer. He has had much success crossing over into the American comic book market. Primarily working for Marvel Comics, he has had a big part shaping the characters of the company over the past decade.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a curious idea for massive omnibus. It's supposed to be Paul Jenkins's and Ron Garney's run on Hulk. Jenkins presents a cerebral look at the Hulk's psyche, giving Bruce Banner ALS and coming up for a way for all the previous incarnations of the Hulk to manifest themselves. After the first arc, Garney leaves the book. John Romita Jr. and Kyle Holtz become semi-regular artists along with a bunch of fill-in artists. Paul Jenkins leaves part way through the next arc leaving guest writers to half-ass finish his story. By the end everything gets reset for Bruce Jones run. There's also a bunch of random Hulk related one-shots and miniseries, the best of which was Hulk Smash by Garth Ennis and John McCrea. It was by far the best story in this huge hodgepodge of a collection.

[Rhett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The titular "Dogs of War" storyline is great. The artwork by Ron Garney and John Romita Jr. elevates the very good storytelling by Paul Jenkins. It's an underrated run based on the fan consensus on the internet, and I would have to agree. The other stories in here range from forgettable to good. The stand out for me being the two issue series, "Hulk Smash".

This is a worthy continuation of Peter David's run more than the previous short run by John Byrne. I was much more interested in the direction of the story and the exploration of Bruce Banner's psyche. The Devil Hulk is a very cunning and sadistic version of Bruce Banner's darkest alternate personality. Seeing Joe Fixit and Professor Hulk back is also fun. I never get sick of those versions of the character. This collection is very much recommended.

[Richard Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a way bigger collection than I thought it was gonna be. It also collects the Past Perfect TPB so I skipped those issues having read them recently already. It also had an annual collected that I got as a kid, so that was fun to read again, despite its odd incentuous intent to it.
But this went into exactly the sort of stuff I wanted to read about with Hulk lately. The Devil Hulk's first appearance, Bruce's multiple personalities and handling his different Hulk personas, how Samson and Angela Lipscombe help, and Shulkie trying to help. There was even some shock surprises too like Banner getting ALS and dealing with that.
The extra issues are fun and interesting little things to add. Azzarello's "Banner" is an interesting early interpretation of Banner dealing with the Hulk early on and the art is goofy in parts.

Still, is one of the best Hulk collections I feel.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a huge Hulk fan, but there are some nice angles with the character. PAD had the soap opera, PAK had the space/family epic, Ewing had the horror story. Waid/Aaron had some sci-fi angles.

Paul Jenkins took a more "cerebral" angle with a lot of the action taking place in the psyche of Banner/Hulk. At times, it's a little bit too much. But it's still a relatively solid run by Paul Jenkins.

[Carl · Rating 1 out of 5]

rubbish