Comic Review: Planet Hulk #1- Captain Pony-Tail & His Pet T-Rex

Writer: Sam Humphries
Artist: Marc Laming
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Released: 20th May 2015



I’ve often wondered, and reading Planet Hulk #1 has made me think about it again, that the only thing that makes a comic book hero an actual ‘hero’ is that he fights against dictators.

The hero stands up for ‘democracy, and freedom.’ That is what he does, and that is why he is a hero. The unquestioned assumption of course being that democracy equates to freedom.

So what happens when a democracy becomes compromised? What happens when obscenely wealthy people purchase the democracy, and propagandise the people through their media manipulation machines, thus making the democracy a sham, an empty charade where the people are not as ‘free’ as they might think that they are?

What happens when change is impossible, when the political parties represent not the people that vote for them, but the people who fund them? What happens when a democracy becomes nothing more than a dictatorship of the wealthy, and people go along with it in the hope that they can at least make a decent living out of the corrupt situation that they have found themselves living in?

Where are the comic book heroes to be found in such a situation? Where are the comic book heroes in 2015? What do they do, what do they say, and do they even deserve to be labelled as 'heroes?' Let's jump into the larger than life world of comic books, and see what the heroes of today are getting up to.

Heroes in Marvel comics of 2015 come in many different shapes and sizes, but they all do one of two things:

1- They fight against fictional bullies and dictators (whilst ignoring real ones like the western backed gangster family in control of Saudi Arabia) and pretend that democracy in the west is not broken.
2- They become ‘social justice warriors,’ and fight for all of the politically correct ‘freedoms’ that are pushed by the mainstream media, the same media that is ran and controlled by the people who run and control the sham democracy.

I think it's safe to say that Marvel comic books of 2015 focus mainly on evil dictators, and social justice warrior issues. The writers are almost 100% feminist neo-liberal in their world-views and frequently pat themselves on the back for having stories that deal with issues related to race, sex or gender. Their idea of controversial is what would have been controversial thirty years ago, not what is actually controversial today.

Why am I bringing all of this up in a review of Planet Hulk #1? It's because that backdrop informs what I am now going to say about this particular comic book.

Planet Hulk #1 has a simple story, and reads like any other mainstream comic book that you will find in your comic book shop today. It doesn’t have as many zombies or third-wave feminist empowered young girls as most of the other junk books on the shelves, but its overarching assumptions are very familiar.

The book’s villain is an evil, world controlling dictator. This dictator (Doctor Doom) sits on a thrown and orders people to do his bidding. People follow his orders (just as they would do in a democracy btw) and the world is a horrible place that needs the help of some comic book heroes. Captain America is one of these heroes, and as we begin this story he is a pony-tailed gladiator who rides around on a T-Rex. He works for said evil dictator in order to help his friend, Bucky. The book is about fighting, and if you like fighting you’ll like the book.

Oh, I almost forgot. You also get a backstory about how a place called ‘Greenland’ got to be radiated, and thus turned into a big monster play-park. The story might be fun, but only for those under the age of about ten years old. This add-on story is about monsters, and more fighting. So again, if you like fighting, you'll like this bit as well, and if you like monsters fighting then this will really make your day.

Here’s how I read Planet Hulk #1. Captain America is a US marine, a man who is fighting not for a great cause, but because he wants to help his buddy. I’ve read interviews with real soldiers, and when they are asked what they were fighting for their answer is normally the same. They were fighting to help their friends, not America, not democracy, not freedom, they are fighting for their friends, and their friends are fighting for them. Their objective is to get home safely, and if they have to murder people to do so, well, they’ll do it, a lot.

Don’t ask the soldiers why they are occupying a foreign country, and don’t question why they would agree to do such a thing in the first place. You don’t question the troops, and you certainly don’t criticise the troops. They are heroes, just like Captain America. What they actually do is not important. You thank them for your freedom, and you don’t question anything that they do.

Do you see the problem here?

I don’t have to spell it out, do I? You have a culture being created, being celebrated in comic books like Planet Hulk #1, where questioning is something that you just don’t do. But then look at the comic book again and look at the villains. Who are they?

Who are the villains in Planet Hulk #1?

It’s not Doom. He’s the face of it, but look at what he actually does. All he is doing is sitting in a chair. He’s not killing anybody. He’s not forcing people to do anything. All he is doing is giving orders, and people are obeying him.

Doom has an army of ‘Thors’ who fly around subjugating the local population on his behalf. This army of Thors rain death and destruction from the sky, targeting civilians as they do so, indiscriminately using violence to sucessfully complete their missions.

The Thors are the villains, the SOLDIERS. Doom is a politician, the president, and the man who gives orders, but he doesn’t do the actual killing himself, that is what his order following Thor/Soldiers are doing.

The villain in this book is not Doctor Doom. The villains are the people who follow his orders, the Thors, the SOLDIERS.

How do comic book readers read this book, and then look at their own soldiers as heroes? The Thors are soldiers, but they are not heroes. Soldiers are never heroes, because people who follow orders are not acting under moral law. They are voluntarily giving away their moral responsibilities, and acting in an immoral way that is inconsistent with the actions of a good, moral person. This is what soldiers do. It’s what soldiers always do. It’s a part of the job. You cannot be an order following soldier and also be a good moral person, the two things are completely incompatible. People might not like to hear this truth, but truth is what it is, and it needs to be said.

After acknowledging that order following soldiers are not heroes, the book then uses the ultimate order following soldier (Captain America) and attempts to portray him as the hero of the narrative. It’s already contradictory, that a man who follows orders is a hero, but then look at what he is actually doing in this book.  He is also working for Doctor Doom, accepting a mission where he is to murder somebody, just on the say so of Doom. His rationale of course being that he is doing it for his friend, the same rationale I discussed previously in this review.

What is this comic book saying?

To me, it’s saying two things. Firstly, that it’s bad to be an order following Thor/soldier, but if you are doing what you are doing in order to help your buddy (remember, the cry of all soldiers) then, well, that’s okay, you a good moral person now.

I guess that if you are following orders to help your buddies then morality no longer counts? You are not a villain anymore. You are Captain America now.

Tell that to the Nuremberg trials of 1945/6 and see if they’ll buy it. They won’t, and do you know why they won’t? They won’t buy it because it’s BS. You are always morally responsible for the results of your actions, no friendships, no orders, and no excuses. If you do evil things, the only person responsible is YOU.

Do you see the insanity, the self-delusion, and the practised ignorance of reality that is on display here in this (very typical) comic book? It’s quite incredibly really, and that’s what you have going on in most mainstream comic books in 2015. An acknowledgement that following orders is probably not a good thing, but this idea that if you are doing it to help your friends then that’s perfectly okay, and even admirable.

It’s madness, pure madness, encouraged in comic books, like Planet Hulk #1, by Sam Humphries, and on display in countless other Marvel, DC and independent comic books that are on the market today.

Is the world mad, or is it just asleep? They understand that western democracies are broken, don’t they? They understand that following orders is what the Nazi’s did, and that is why we call them ‘evil’ don’t they?

They have to understand, and yet they (I’m talking about the writers and readers of contemporary comic books here) are ignoring these two issues.

I’ll read other reviews of this book and they’ll talk about the plot, the art, the characters. I know they will. The deeper issues will not be discussed. My review will be the weird, ignored one. I know that is going to happen, because that is what always happens. And so I put out this review for one reason only, for the sake of my own conscience. I saw what was going on, and whilst others remained silent, I refused to say ‘cool,’ and ignore what was going on. I’m the bad guy who told the comic book reading world that their emperor is not wearing any clothes. Somebody had to do it, sorry, but it had to be done.


Rating: 4/10 (Get it if you want to see a pony-tailed Captain America riding a T-Rex)