Incredible Hulk & The Thing: Hard Knocks (Fantastic Four) Paperback – February 16, 2005

Great story and very interesting art.

The writing is the main disappointment in Hulk v. Thing Hard Knocks. There's not much excitement or tension and hardly any plot. Jae Lee's art differs from his usual atmospheric Milleresque-Sienkiwicz renderings.The art is the high point and saving grace of this work and justifies its purchase. Pretty pictures, petty plot.

Very fast. My son was thrilled that it arrived so quickly. Thank you. I will be buying from this seller in the future.

I love all the Bruce Jones Hulk stuff. This isn't the best but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

With longtime Hulk scribe Bruce Jones' conspiracy arc pretty much over, the title was put on hiatus for four months to make way for this four issue mini-series. Marvel's two biggest and baddest bruisers face off for the first time in a long time in Hard Knocks, as the Hulk and the Thing of the Fantastic Four have a knock down drag out brawl in the desert. During the fights, both recall their first meeting and the sordid history between the two. Jones is an excellent writer who nearly took the Incredible Hulk to the Peter David-level greatness that it had lacked for years, but his story and script are average at best here. Nothing really compelling, just two monstrous beheamoths beating the tar out of each other. And while that's all well and good, the Jones twist that long time readers expect just never comes, and Hard Knocks ends up being pretty run of the mill. What saves the book however is the art by Jae Lee (Inhumans, The Sentry), who gives both the Hulk and the Thing incredibly grotesque looks, yet leaves them all the more iconic. As a bonus, a copy of Marvel's Giant-Size Superstars #1 is included as well, as new readers can see a classic showdown between the two. All in all, fans of Jones' run on the Hulk will want to check this out, but you're better off waiting for the title to come back from hiatus.

Artist Jae Lee dipped his feather in many a Marvel Knights tale back in the early 2000s, and this one, although a relatively minor one, is most definitely worth your pennies.Although his Thing looks a bit too organic and not rock-like enough for my tastes, and his Hulk is far too human-looking, Jae does a wonderful job, as ever, in capturing dark, morbid, melancholic atmospheres, which these monsters and the story woven for them provide in spades.Writer Bruce Jones revisits the monster/man dynamic that makes both main characters so beloved by so many. He touches on the Things's depression and self loathing, the Hulk's rage and childlike denial, and in four strokes he tells us why the Thing went looking for his traditional counterpart, what he was looking for, and how it is Ben Grimm beat the Green Goliath, but failed to dispose of him for good.A bit too straightforward in a couple of passages, but a satisfying, emotional, strong read...... which, as an added bonus, includes a reprint of most possibly the cheekiest Hulk/Thing brawl of all time.Enjoy!

The only reason this series got 1 star from me was because the covers looked great. Which brings me to the first problem. The actual story does not reflect the covers at all! I know covers sell books but these totally misled me. It's like putting pictures of civil war battles on the cover and finding out you're reading Gone With The Wind. The point, the covers sold a fight that never happened. Instead you got a love story. So to speak.Hulk/Thing match ups are a classic in the Marvel Universe and historically have been some of the best rumbles and fight scenes drawn in all comicdom. These stories are like a therapy session, minus the couch, with Hulk and Thing spending 3/4 of the whole set discussing why they can't get along. Sheesh. A great opportunity for a series squandered by the touchy, feely, drama laden, tripe that has been the slow death of the comic book industry. Sometimes you just want to see a good fight, with super powered beings and not have to learn a lesson in empathy and compassion along the way.Save your money!