The Incredible Hercules #120
By Van Lente, Pak and Sandoval
PRICE: 2.99
IN STORES: August 20, 2008
Publisher: Marvel Comics

I’ve been hearing quite a lot of buzz surrounding Incredible Hercules lately and with the always beautiful covers courtesy of JR Jr. and the close tie ins to Secret Invasion, my arm was twisted just enough to give it a go.

Issue 120 is out this week, but I went a couple off issues back to get up to speed on the story since I’m a new reader to the series and I’ve honestly never read a single page of anything involving Hercules that didn’t come from either an Avengers, Hulk or crossover comic.

The premise of the recent and current issues written by Greg Pak of World War Hulk fame, with art from one of my new favorites, Khoi Pham has Hercules and the “God Squad” comprised of various Gods and Demigods like Ajak from the Eternals and Snowbird from Alpha Flight on a mission to kill God.  The God and Goddess of all Skrulls to be exact, both of whom have names that when spoken aloud sound like fart or puke noises. Needless to say, this title is a major tie in to the grand scheme of all things Secret Invasion related – I know some titles have made limp wristed attempts to tie in for the sake of boosting sales, but Incredible Hercules gets into gory detail regarding Skrull history, science and religion for anyone whose interested in that sort of thing.

This title reminds me of early Infinity Gauntlet comics I read as a young bot, with all the cosmic weirdness that you don’t really get in a Spider-Man comic, it’s a nice change of pace even though I’m still reading an absolutely mainstream book with a predetermined plotline.

I strongly recommend this title to anyone who is following Secret Invasion in an obsessive sort of way, it definitely ads some dimension to an already exciting epic, and with one more issue left in Hercules’ clash with the Skrull Gods, I’d imagine something big will happen… you know, cause they’re Gods. Bonus points rewarded for some of the best looking monsters seen this side of Ryan Ottley in a long time.