You really have to give Jeph Loeb a lot of credit. He consistently delivers excellent work making him one of the best of the current crop of comic book writers. His work on Batman was among some of the best I have read. His current work with the Red Hulk is always something I look forward to every month. His recent run on Ultimates 3, however, was somewhat disappointing. I didn’t really know what to expect from The Ultimate Hulk Annual since the Ultimate Hulk is such a truly contemptible comic book character.

You see, the problem with the Ultimate Hulk is that the character is too dark and nihilistic to be enjoyable. In fact, the character is a perversion of the classic hero. This I all made worse by the Banner-Betty Ross relationship that transforms Betty into a cold, calculating man-hater. Actually, all this really shows is a lame appeal to a hatred of women in the audience. So, I was not looking all that forward to Ultimate Hulk.

And what do we get? Loeb takes the dark character into the realm of humor and it is a pretty fun read. The plot has Power Princess Zarda barring the Hulk in an ultimate version of IHOP because they won’t serve the Hulk because he isn’t wearing any pants. Yeah, I know….it is all silly but it is silly fun making this one of the cooler Ultimate Universe books to read as a change of pace.