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The Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus
The Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus, Vol. 4
Peter David’s character-redefining Hulk run comes to its incredible end! Major Matt Talbot sets his sights on capturing the jade giant — and with Hulkbusters and the Ringmaster on his side, he might just succeed! Meanwhile, terror group the Alliance pushes the world to the brink of nuclear war — but why is the Hulk claiming credit?! Then, Onslaught does the impossible — physically separating Bruce Banner from the Hulk! While Banner finds himself reborn, the Hulk faces a harsh truth about his traumatic past — and a health crisis that might kill him! Does Apocalypse have the answer? And what terrible tragedy will bring about the end of an era?
COLLECTING: Incredible Hulk (1968) 436-467, -1; Incredible Hulk Annual '97; Savage Hulk (1996) 1; Cutting Edge (1995) 1; Cable (1993) 34; Onslaught: Marvel Universe (1996) 1; Incredible Hulk: Hercules Unleashed (1996) 1; Heroes Reborn: The Return (1997) 1-4
COLLECTING: Incredible Hulk (1968) 436-467, -1; Incredible Hulk Annual '97; Savage Hulk (1996) 1; Cutting Edge (1995) 1; Cable (1993) 34; Onslaught: Marvel Universe (1996) 1; Incredible Hulk: Hercules Unleashed (1996) 1; Heroes Reborn: The Return (1997) 1-4
1248 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1998
7 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Peter David
3,578 books1,368 followersaka David Peters
Peter Allen David, often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games. His notable comic book work includes an award-winning 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, SpyBoy, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Marvel, and X-Factor.
His Star Trek work included comic books and novels such as the New Frontier book series. His other novels included film adaptations, media tie-ins, and original works, such as the Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life series. His television work includes series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, Ben 10: Alien Force and Nickelodeon's Space Cases, which he co-created with Bill Mumy.
David often jokingly described his occupation as "Writer of Stuff", and he was noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real-world issues with humor and references to popular culture, as well as elements of metafiction and self-reference.
David earned multiple awards for his work, including a 1992 Eisner Award, a 1993 Wizard Fan Award, a 1996 Haxtur Award, a 2007 Julie Award and a 2011 GLAAD Media Award.
Peter Allen David, often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games. His notable comic book work includes an award-winning 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, SpyBoy, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Marvel, and X-Factor.
His Star Trek work included comic books and novels such as the New Frontier book series. His other novels included film adaptations, media tie-ins, and original works, such as the Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life series. His television work includes series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, Ben 10: Alien Force and Nickelodeon's Space Cases, which he co-created with Bill Mumy.
David often jokingly described his occupation as "Writer of Stuff", and he was noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real-world issues with humor and references to popular culture, as well as elements of metafiction and self-reference.
David earned multiple awards for his work, including a 1992 Eisner Award, a 1993 Wizard Fan Award, a 1996 Haxtur Award, a 2007 Julie Award and a 2011 GLAAD Media Award.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 13, 2023
What happened here?
This is not the hulk I was loving the last two Omnibus. This starts off right where the last one left off. But as soon as we get into some fun storylines of Hulk getting kidnapped, soon into it we have Hulk having to stop Onslaught. That's right. For years Hulk was able to avoid those terrible crossovers. He was doing his own thing. But he too gets sucked into the marvel line event that changed everything. And so when Onslaught kills a bunch of major heroes, Bruce banner and Hulk get separated and Bruce disappears with the avengers, fantastic four, and more. Leaving hulk as basically a shell of his former self.
And a good chunk of this book is this hollow version of hulk. Boring, question his existence, fighting for no reason, taking over islands, protecting those people for no reason, and then being moody and grumpy the entire time. None of is registers as the fun storylines we were given the last few years by Peter David. But then after reading through this we get to Heroes Return which is a garbage event for the most part. Hulk's part is important, or semi-important, but not all that interesting. But Bruce and Hulk fuse back together again.
You'd think this would give us fun storylines again. Nope. General Ross returns because comics love to bring back the dead. And in doing so we have some dull storylines where Ross tries to be a decent human being. But a few issues in, well the end of Peter David's run, something horrible happens and the run ends returning Ross back to what he was.
This whole volume felt extremely disjointed. One or two one shots were decent, and I really liked the art at some points towards the end, but this was easily one of the weakest Omnibus I've read in some time. It lacks the good storyline from last few volumes, and the art in the middle is horrendous, big, bulky, and ugly. This is a really disappointing Omnibus for me.
A 1.5 out of 5. I'll bump it to a 2 for some of the ending art.
This is not the hulk I was loving the last two Omnibus. This starts off right where the last one left off. But as soon as we get into some fun storylines of Hulk getting kidnapped, soon into it we have Hulk having to stop Onslaught. That's right. For years Hulk was able to avoid those terrible crossovers. He was doing his own thing. But he too gets sucked into the marvel line event that changed everything. And so when Onslaught kills a bunch of major heroes, Bruce banner and Hulk get separated and Bruce disappears with the avengers, fantastic four, and more. Leaving hulk as basically a shell of his former self.
And a good chunk of this book is this hollow version of hulk. Boring, question his existence, fighting for no reason, taking over islands, protecting those people for no reason, and then being moody and grumpy the entire time. None of is registers as the fun storylines we were given the last few years by Peter David. But then after reading through this we get to Heroes Return which is a garbage event for the most part. Hulk's part is important, or semi-important, but not all that interesting. But Bruce and Hulk fuse back together again.
You'd think this would give us fun storylines again. Nope. General Ross returns because comics love to bring back the dead. And in doing so we have some dull storylines where Ross tries to be a decent human being. But a few issues in, well the end of Peter David's run, something horrible happens and the run ends returning Ross back to what he was.
This whole volume felt extremely disjointed. One or two one shots were decent, and I really liked the art at some points towards the end, but this was easily one of the weakest Omnibus I've read in some time. It lacks the good storyline from last few volumes, and the art in the middle is horrendous, big, bulky, and ugly. This is a really disappointing Omnibus for me.
A 1.5 out of 5. I'll bump it to a 2 for some of the ending art.
July 21, 2023
This was every bit as bad, pointless, and meandering as I remember it being originally.
There was a huge outcry from fandom assembled when Marvel's "Heroes Reborn" project saw THE INCREDIBLE HULK cancelled and Peter David, the longtime writer of the book, out of a job. That outcry resulted in a change of plans, and both The Hulk and Peter David were given a reprieve.
They probably shouldn't have been.
This omnibus collection takes all of the problems that I had reading these issues month-to-month, and makes them all the more obvious by giving me an opportunity to read them all in the span of a few days. If David wasn't completely out of ideas and enthusiasm for The Hulk by this point, you could have fooled me.
This book has more pointless encounters between The Hulk and the military than we'd previously seen in decades. David brings up sub-plots and side-stories like crazy, only to never pay them off at all. Who is the mysterious "Wildman" that shows up during the Heroes Reborn era stories? Why does Janis come back from the future? What did she need The Hulk for? Why does she just disappear, never to be mentioned again until the offhand remark about her death in the last issue? Who is Quarry, and who sent him? The Maestro makes a few half-hearted comeback attempts that go nowhere. Why are there Asgardian Trolls underground in the desert, and why do they have The Destroyer armor? Why does Betty's radiation poisoning and death all take place in the span of one issue? What was the point of the Savage Land excursion, aside from giving Adam Kubert a chance to draw dinosaurs? What was the point of the Apocalypse appearance? Who are the "New World Order"...? This book is a hot fucking mess, and it saddened me to see David go out this way, but...maybe it was time.
Luckily, he made enough Hulk guest-appearances that he got a fifth omnibus dedicated to him, which just HAS to be better than this one.....
There was a huge outcry from fandom assembled when Marvel's "Heroes Reborn" project saw THE INCREDIBLE HULK cancelled and Peter David, the longtime writer of the book, out of a job. That outcry resulted in a change of plans, and both The Hulk and Peter David were given a reprieve.
They probably shouldn't have been.
This omnibus collection takes all of the problems that I had reading these issues month-to-month, and makes them all the more obvious by giving me an opportunity to read them all in the span of a few days. If David wasn't completely out of ideas and enthusiasm for The Hulk by this point, you could have fooled me.
This book has more pointless encounters between The Hulk and the military than we'd previously seen in decades. David brings up sub-plots and side-stories like crazy, only to never pay them off at all. Who is the mysterious "Wildman" that shows up during the Heroes Reborn era stories? Why does Janis come back from the future? What did she need The Hulk for? Why does she just disappear, never to be mentioned again until the offhand remark about her death in the last issue? Who is Quarry, and who sent him? The Maestro makes a few half-hearted comeback attempts that go nowhere. Why are there Asgardian Trolls underground in the desert, and why do they have The Destroyer armor? Why does Betty's radiation poisoning and death all take place in the span of one issue? What was the point of the Savage Land excursion, aside from giving Adam Kubert a chance to draw dinosaurs? What was the point of the Apocalypse appearance? Who are the "New World Order"...? This book is a hot fucking mess, and it saddened me to see David go out this way, but...maybe it was time.
Luckily, he made enough Hulk guest-appearances that he got a fifth omnibus dedicated to him, which just HAS to be better than this one.....
October 19, 2025
Starts slow with some strangely written and drawn pre-Onslaught issues, but the final stretch is magnificent. The last issue is a formal stunner, to end David’s historic run. This also features some of Adam Kuberts best work, his most imaginative layouts and ideas.
September 11, 2023
this was a tough read. what a downgrade from the last 3 volumes, they may have had their flaws but hoo boy this is ROUGH. just know, i'm being generous giving this 2 stars.
i won't go too in depth, but i'll give some broad strokes. the book starts out continuing the... odd and not great direction that the previous volume ended on. its not terrible during these opening issues, but it feels aimless while also dragging the book... somewhere? theres some okay-ish stuff in these opening issues, but it doesnt make up for its flaws.
then, the very same thing that ruined peter david's x-factor run returns to ruin his hulk. big marvel events being forced in. any possible direction peter david wanted to take the book came to a screeching halt the second onslaught happened. hulk gets splint into 2, hulk and banner during the event and banner, along with every hero that isnt a mutant or spider-man dies to save the world from onslaught in a really dumb way. the actual reason is so marvel could reboot their books that werent selling as well as x-men or spider-man. but for some reason they wanted to have the hulk in both their main universe and their "heroes reborn" universe, so that reboot got to keep bruce banner and make him hulk again, and the actual hulk got to stay behind... this is when the book goes from "not good" to "dumpster fire". the majority of this book, easily half of it or more are these stories of a hulk no longer tied to banner or his life. so for almost 20 issues we just get these stories about a hulk without anything driving him, just a mindless wandering with no other characters around besides whoever hulk fights that week, and also rick jones time-displaced granddaughter. thats yet another dropped plot element by the way, the book tries to go one direction by bringing her back, and then forgets her entirely, she leaves the story and is literally never seen or acknowledged again, not just in this omnibus, but in any future marvel book. honestly i'm struggling to even remember much of what happens during this era, it's a lot of just "things happening because... there needs to be something happening?" hulk takes over a town for a couple issues and that sounds like it should be interesting, but it doesnt really go anywhere and then just... ends. i was so tempted to drop this book entirely because its just... terrible during these parts.
eventually though, things do begin to improve around the last quarter of the book. it's still not that good of course, but compared to the garbage that takes up half the book, i'll take it. basically the big reboot marvel tried didnt work out and peter david got to write the 4 issue mini where everyone comes back to the main universe, revealing it was all a pocket dimension franklin made. its.... fine. it has some decent moments, some good concepts. and with banner back with the hulk, things did improve on the main title as well. again, it's still kinda weak but an improvement is an improvement. bruce banner in hell, a heart to heart with thunderbolt ross, maestro returning (kind of), bruce reunites with betty, the book remembers samson, rick and marlo exist, (but still forgets ricks granddaughter, seriously she's still just around out there whats up with that), a lot of the humor, and great character moments are once again prevalent after being absent in the post-onslaught era, it's short-lived but it's decent, even if it does come to a rather abrupt end. but, it does end. the final 3 issues do sort of bring everything in david's run to a rather bittersweet conclusion that ties everything up pretty well
if you read the previous 3 omnis and loved them, i highly suggest reading up to issue 442 and then skipping all the way to issue 460, trust me, it'll be like you didnt even miss anything and everything inbetween can just be skipped and ignored.
i won't go too in depth, but i'll give some broad strokes. the book starts out continuing the... odd and not great direction that the previous volume ended on. its not terrible during these opening issues, but it feels aimless while also dragging the book... somewhere? theres some okay-ish stuff in these opening issues, but it doesnt make up for its flaws.
then, the very same thing that ruined peter david's x-factor run returns to ruin his hulk. big marvel events being forced in. any possible direction peter david wanted to take the book came to a screeching halt the second onslaught happened. hulk gets splint into 2, hulk and banner during the event and banner, along with every hero that isnt a mutant or spider-man dies to save the world from onslaught in a really dumb way. the actual reason is so marvel could reboot their books that werent selling as well as x-men or spider-man. but for some reason they wanted to have the hulk in both their main universe and their "heroes reborn" universe, so that reboot got to keep bruce banner and make him hulk again, and the actual hulk got to stay behind... this is when the book goes from "not good" to "dumpster fire". the majority of this book, easily half of it or more are these stories of a hulk no longer tied to banner or his life. so for almost 20 issues we just get these stories about a hulk without anything driving him, just a mindless wandering with no other characters around besides whoever hulk fights that week, and also rick jones time-displaced granddaughter. thats yet another dropped plot element by the way, the book tries to go one direction by bringing her back, and then forgets her entirely, she leaves the story and is literally never seen or acknowledged again, not just in this omnibus, but in any future marvel book. honestly i'm struggling to even remember much of what happens during this era, it's a lot of just "things happening because... there needs to be something happening?" hulk takes over a town for a couple issues and that sounds like it should be interesting, but it doesnt really go anywhere and then just... ends. i was so tempted to drop this book entirely because its just... terrible during these parts.
eventually though, things do begin to improve around the last quarter of the book. it's still not that good of course, but compared to the garbage that takes up half the book, i'll take it. basically the big reboot marvel tried didnt work out and peter david got to write the 4 issue mini where everyone comes back to the main universe, revealing it was all a pocket dimension franklin made. its.... fine. it has some decent moments, some good concepts. and with banner back with the hulk, things did improve on the main title as well. again, it's still kinda weak but an improvement is an improvement. bruce banner in hell, a heart to heart with thunderbolt ross, maestro returning (kind of), bruce reunites with betty, the book remembers samson, rick and marlo exist, (but still forgets ricks granddaughter, seriously she's still just around out there whats up with that), a lot of the humor, and great character moments are once again prevalent after being absent in the post-onslaught era, it's short-lived but it's decent, even if it does come to a rather abrupt end. but, it does end. the final 3 issues do sort of bring everything in david's run to a rather bittersweet conclusion that ties everything up pretty well
if you read the previous 3 omnis and loved them, i highly suggest reading up to issue 442 and then skipping all the way to issue 460, trust me, it'll be like you didnt even miss anything and everything inbetween can just be skipped and ignored.
November 22, 2022
Easily my favorite volume of the series so far! Peter David made Hulk more than a force of nature in this, he made him into something everyone should be afraid of. At the same time though, he made Hulk more of a vulnerable character than he's ever been and you can see him struggle with that vulnerability even if not a weakness a villain can exploit.
One of my teenage pet peeves was not being able to finish mini-series that I start and I finally am able to finish "Heroes Return", it's one of those unfinished business things I get to check off my list now.
I simply can not wait for volume 5 and the Maestro omnibus after that. A complete Peter David Hulk run on the shelf will be one of the best set of books I have on it.
One of my teenage pet peeves was not being able to finish mini-series that I start and I finally am able to finish "Heroes Return", it's one of those unfinished business things I get to check off my list now.
I simply can not wait for volume 5 and the Maestro omnibus after that. A complete Peter David Hulk run on the shelf will be one of the best set of books I have on it.
May 13, 2023
Peter David's 12 year run comes to an end with a somber and introspective conclusion. David's storytelling is still captivating in this volume, just as it has been since he started. This run is character defining and will likely be forever remembered as the Incredible Hulk's most captivating series of long running stories. It has been one hell of a ride, but one that I'm glad I took. If you're ever interested in reading any Incredible Hulk stories, this and the other omnibus collections are your definitive way to learn and grow with one of Marvel's most endearing and popular characters.
April 29, 2023
Damn a gut punch of an ending to this incredible (pardon the pun) run. This volume is a bit bogged down by the events occurring at the time but they don’t hinder the book too much and it helps that hulk is integral to the plots of both. The events are also sandwiched between just more top class stuff which helps.
January 8, 2026
Unfortunately you can definitely feel the editorial team playing a part in this volume especially in the first 2/3. That last 1/3 when Peter David is able to start recovering from the crossover and event definitely picks up but unfortunately isn’t enough to carry the whole book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews