Chaos War #5 brings an end to one of the most entertaining epic stories that Marvel has been putting out in its multiple incarnations: The Incredible Hercules story. Starting out as a spin-off-series-of-a-tie-in-to World War Hulk,
Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente crafted a long running story that not only
combined mythology with contemporary superhero lore, but was rich with
characterization and was genuinely funny (Exhibit A). With Chaos War, Pak and Van Lente crafted a story that we haven’t really seen since Infinity Gauntlet: a story with  an incredibly EPIC scope. Sure, Annihilation alot of other recent crossover events were pretty big in terms of characters getting involved, but none really match Chaos War
with its immense universe spanning implications or playing fields. Just
look at the first double page spread of this issue: Hercules and Lord
Chaos are standing on the entire universe duking it out while Earth, the
ultimate prize, floats like a balloon in between them. The success of
this series is not only attributed to Pak and Van Lente, but also to
artist Khoi Pham, who expertly gave this book the big epic look with the
universe spanning battles and mind warping settings. This issue wrapped
up most-if-not-all of the Marvel Hercules epic up to this point, and
while this isn’t the end of Hercules and Amadeus Cho’s adventures, this
was a truly fitting finale to a truly great story.