Good finale to a great series. Except it wasn’t really a finale, was it?

In Incredible Hercules #141, we see the end of the Assault on New Olympus story, which was billed as the culmination to one of the major threats facing the dynamic duo of Hercules and Amadeus Cho. There is some finality in that sense, as the threat of Hera and her reality-screwing machine Continuum™ is dealt with once and for all. I definitely enjoyed the ending to this story more than I did the story itself, as it finally coveyed a sense of epicness that I feel Pak and Van Lente were trying to fish for. I feel that the writers were trying to artificially inflate this arc to epic proportions by filling it up to the brim with supporting Avenger characters, which is a move that I found completely unnecessary. The genius of Incredible Hercules is that it contemporizes the ancient Greek characters and stories in a witty and interesting manner, so when the title strays away from this base as it has during the majority of Assault on New Olympus, alot of luster is lost. With this issue, however, the excess fat is trimmed away and we get back to what made this title great: the stories of the modern-day Greek gods, as well as the interactions between Hercules, Amadeus, and the increasingly dubious Athena. This final battle of this arc has Hercules battling a Titan, and really, what is more epic than that? I had more fun watching this fight and its startling aftermath than I have had reading the past 5 issues or so, so my faith has been completely reaffirmed that Pak and Van Lente have a great handle on the story.

Which brings me to my next point: even though this issue is the final Incredible Hercules issue, this story is far from done. In fact, after reading the last few pages of this issue, which consisted of an incredibly suprising dialog between Athena and Hercules, I am more interested than ever to what the hell happened and where the story is going to go from here. We already know that the immediate stories are going to focus squarely on Amadeus, so I’ll be curious to see how he gets to the the bottom of what is really going on with Athena (read the issue and you’ll see what I mean). As for Hercules’ fate, you would have to be the most gullable person in the world to think that what happened is set in stone and final. This is especially true if you are a regular reader of the series and remember issue #129, where Hades was portrayed as a casino where the dead gamble for their lives back. It’s quite obvious how Pak and Van Lente view the finality of death within this series, so save your tears, because this story isn’t over by a longshot.