Title: The Totally Awesome Hulk, Volume 1: Cho Time
Author: Greg Pak, Frank Cho (Artist), Mike Choi (Artist)
Genres: Comic
Pages: 152
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Availability: July 26th, 2016
Summary: There’s a brand-new Hulk in town, and his name is Amadeus Cho! Get ready for gamma-fueled entertainment as the kid genius decides he’s gonna be the best Hulk ever -and just possibly brings the entire world crashing down into chaos! Cho is taking on the biggest monsters in the Marvel Universe, but can he handle the danger posed by Lady Hellbender? What will She-Hulk and Spider-Man make of this very different Green Goliath? And what exactly happened to Bruce Banner? With monster mayhem in the Mighty Marvel Manner, all from the wild and crazy minds of Planet Hulk writer Greg Pak and superstar artist Frank Cho, this is better than incredible, it’s totally awesome! [Image and summary via Goodreads]
Review: I’ll be honest. I went into this knowing next to nothing about the Hulk (or much about superheroes in general) save for what I’d seen in the movie theater. I picked up The Totally Awesome Hulk, Volume 1 purely because it was Korean Hulk! What! Yes.
I spent a lot of the volume trying to figure out how Amadeus Cho fit into the whole superhero world, where he came from, who he was previously, and trying to reconcile it to the hormonal, green monster he was in the story. I think some of the disorientation was certainly due to my total ignorance on superhero lore.
Despite the cluelessness that I brought to the table, I still managed to thoroughly enjoy reading Amadeus as the Hulk. I especially loved his interactions with his genius sister, who helped keep him grounded with snark and remote controlled robot advice. It’s definitely an action packed, mostly light-hearted adventure.
I’m looking forward to reading more of Amadeus Cho as Hulk. I want to learn more about who he is (and was), and I’d recommend it to just about anyone — even if you’re totally clueless about superhero stuff, like me. It’s not hard to dive into, regardless of your background.
I’m loving the trend of more PoC in superhero comics, and hope to see more and more of that. Also on my list is the Superman comics starring Kenan Kong by Gene Luen Yang and more of Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel. Dipping my toe into superhero comics is going swimmingly so far.
Recommendation: Buy it now!