For the past few years, whenever someone would ask me about an under the radar book that people should check out, Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak on Hercules always sprang to mind. Curiously, when Marvel spun off the Red Hulk into the adjectiveless Hulk series, they renamed The Incredible Hulk to The Incredible Herc and let Van Lente and Pak run with the focus on what’s historically been a B-List character. Like many of those well done series about B-Listers, Herc developed a following and for a while, many of you were enjoying it and heartily recommended people also check it out.
Sadly, later this month after working on the character since 2007 , the underdog story of Herc will come to an end. Culminating in a final issue featuring Elektra, Van Lente and Pak are joined by fantastic artist David Hahn to tell one last tale of Hercules. The tales of the de-powered and now street level Hercules comes to a close with a faceoff against the Russian Mob and the Kingpin.
We celebrate the end of Van Lente and Pak’s run with an exclusive preview of the last issue. So let’s enjoy some final moments with Hercules and give it to Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak for nearly 4 years with The Incredible Herc!
Herc #10 is in stores on November 30, 2011, features a variant cover by Michael Avon Oeming, and sells for $3.99
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This is one of the series that got me back into buying monthly big time when it started. Sad to see it coming to an end.
*sniffle* I’ll miss you HERC! This is a fun and entertaining ride like Endigo this is got me back into buying comics again.
man one of my favorites, herc will be missed
Congrats on a great run guys. Incredible Herc was truly something special.
Gotta say, ya never shoulda got rid of Cho. I’m sure you know that at this point, but Herc and Cho, under your guiding hands, made for A++ quality comics and kept a Hercules book alive longer than it ever should have lived. The series never recovered from his absence.
When Herc and Cho get back together, I’ll be there.
It’s a shame that this thing ends on such a whimper. I even dropped this particular book months ago because it was pretty boring. They should have ended this run with Chaos War. That was a great mini-event that brought everything together with a classy ending. That’s how I’ll remember this run ending and not how this book suddenly just dropped.
I also ended up dropping the book a few issues into the current volume, and considering that the title is getting canceled, we weren’t the only ones. And you’re right, it’s best to look at Chaos War as the finale. Street level Herc was a different flavor, and after the fun fantasy/sci-fi explosion that is Incredible Herc through Chaos War, it wasn’t a flavor of Hercules I was really interested in.
I only picked up 7 and 8 because of the Spider Island tie-in, but what I saw was kind of interesting. It would’ve been cool to see him try to duke it out, powerless, against Anansi the Trickster. That character seemed a lot to me like Gaiman’s interpretation of Anansi from American Gods and Anansi Boys.
I loved this comic once, then Fear Itself tie-ins happened. Sad day.
Goodbye Herc…*sniff*…it was nice having you back for a while. Come back again…soon?
Sucks to see this go!! this and Alpha Flight gone, the only two comics I pick up these days both going. What’s Greg pak and Fred doing after there books are gone?
This is the comic that got me to pick up individual issues (i’d collected in trades mostly).
I’m so sad to see it go, it really was a great book I just hope Herc can get another book soon.