So it’s finally here. World War Hulk wrapped up this week and with it comes a mess of emotions. On one hand, it’s over which is sort of a bad thing. I really enjoyed the smash-fest. On the other hand, it didn’t end quite like I personally would have wanted it to. If you haven’t read it yet and are trying to avoid spoilers, skip this review and read something else on the site that doesn’t contain the words war or Hulk.

The comic starts off by telling us that, despite nearly killing a number of heroes, Hulk doesn’t want anyone to die. The Illuminati explain to Hulk that this is his last chance to give up and that he won’t really like what comes next, which would be Sentry. Sentry shows up seconds later to confront the Hulk and after a couple of words, the two begin their epic battle which pretty much takes them all over New York destroying whatever buildings and various other objects that get in their way. After watching Sentry’s display of force against the Hulk, Reed and Tony realize that his abilities are causing him to lose control of his sanity. Sentry himself begins to realize this fact as well after unleashing the full force of power: the million exploding suns. Seconds before killing not only the Hulk but quite possibly every living thing on Earth, Hulk manages to show Sentry exactly what kind of damage he’s doing as both he and Sentry revert back to their human forms. At this point, Sentry passes out from overexerting his powers leaving Bruce face to face with the surviving heroes as well as the warbound.

Miek, one of Hulk’s friends from Sakaar, explains that he basically caused the entire war by planting the bomb on Hulk’s ship that brought him to the planet. For more on this, see the Planet Hulk story that happened right before WWH began. After hearing that one of his own men caused everything, Banner gets a little pissed off, returns to his Hulk form and kills Miek. He then tells Tony Stark that he’ll never forgive them for what they did to him and that they should just kill him before anything else happens. Tony complies and blasts him with a laser from one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. satellites orbiting the earth.

After the dust clears, we’re left with a lifeless Bruce Banner who is then taken by S.H.I.E.L.D. into a subterranean base in the Mojave desert. His eyes finally close and we’re left with one last shot of the planet Sakaar before the issue comes to a close. While the planet was said to be completely drained of all life after the explosion of Hulk’s ship, we see that there’s one person who survived the blast: Hulk’s son. Enter Skaar, Son of Hulk.

Overall, it was a rather disappointing finish to such an awesome story. I disliked the fact that Sentry didn’t really have much of an effect on the actual outcome of the story. However, I really liked the idea of trying to kill one monster (Hulk) with another. (the out of control Sentry) It just didn’t have nearly as much of an impact as I originally thought that it would on the main heroes or even Marvel universe as a whole. I suppose Pak’s writing would be at fault here but, to be honest, he couldn’t possibly satisfy everyone while writing the ending to this story. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Hulk’s body now that it’s being contained by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Possibly a World War Hulk 2? Who knows.

While I’m a huge fan of Romita Jr., his artwork seemed a little bit rushed in this one and you really couldn’t make out much of what was going on during a lot of the battle as it was mostly just flashes and explosions. I think his art in issues one through four were much more impressive. That being said, there’s still a number of great shots in this comic.

So, I was right about a couple of things when I made my predictions a little while ago. I knew I was going to be disappointed, which I was. However, it was not nearly as disappointing as I thought that it would be. I mean, it sure as hell wasn’t Civil War #7.

With WWH out of the way, we make our way towards the upcoming Secret Invasion. Will it be better than what we saw in World War Hulk? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Be sure to check back for another Comic Haul coming up later on this evening featuring reviews of Captain Marvel, Thor and Black Adam!

What did you think of World War Hulk #5? Leave a comment and let me know!