I’ve been off the Hercules bandwagon for a long time now. Ever since ‘Assault on New Olympus’, I’ve been sorta turned off by the exploits of him and Cho. Which is a shame because the stories leading up to that mini-event were some of the best comic books Marvel was dishing out. So it’s nice to be excited for anything Herc again because I’ve missed seeing exciting action and also hilarious, slapstick comedy. That and it looks like Lente/Pak are going to bring almost everything together from previous storylines to give us an exciting ‘conclusion’.

Reading this issue makes me realize that I must’ve missed a lot about Cho and Hercules. The previous mini definitely brought something to the table because certain aspects of this issue confused the hell out of me. Why is Herc a madman in the beginning and what does it have to do with Cho and Thor? Even if the beginning is slightly confusing, the rest of the comic is a bit fun to read. I just liked how Pak/Lente brings up how returning heroes are common place and makes the heroes and civilians cop out to it. Other then that there isn’t much humor you would find from the two writers, as this is the most serious issue done by the two for the character in a long time. By the way…..the death in the beginning? Didn’t have much impact for me because you haven’t seen this character in YEARS.

Khoi Pham returns to do this event and I gotta say, this is a huge improvement from the last time he worked with these characters. It’s John Romita Jr-lite, as everything is a bit sketchy but has a great amount of detail to it. The splash pages are really the highlights of this issue in terms of art. Pham squeezes a ton characters in each of these pages and it’s amazing to see how clearly he can make each character look even if they’re simple in design. There are some moments where faces look a bit off, or the coloring is a bit too orange in some places. But overall this is a really good looking book and if anything else it makes the issue a bit more tolerable.

I didn’t get a chance to talk about the back up……so I just did. Seriously, it was nothing really memorible about it. The art by Brown is a real treat but the overall writing of it just didn’t seem much of a thought. Kinda explains this first issue as a whole in a way. While the main story in here is written well and it’s taken seriously; if you haven’t read the previous issues you will get lost really fast. Even as a dedicated reader (for the most part) to these characters, even I gotta admit something felt ‘missing’ with this. But the art is a pure treat in this and if anything else, it will keep me going for the next issue at least.