Complete Marvel Reading Order News and Reviews

by Charlie Brooks, CMRO Contributing Writer

World War Hulk Aftersmash: Warbound

Issue #5

Written by Greg Pak, Art by Leonard Kirk

Published: June 2008

Following in the wake of World War Hulk, the Warbound miniseries, part of the “Aftersmash” of the event, got better with every issue. Unfortunately, Warbound #5 is a bump in that road, providing some uneven pacing and leaving several loose ends. It isn’t enough to drag down what is an otherwise good series, though, and that’s what’s important.

There is a lot going on in Warbound #5, and it would probably have helped to have another issue to wrap it all up. The story opens with SHIELD robots trying to kill Hiroim, since they’ve received intelligence from Kate that he’s the one powering the dome. At the same time, the dome has to stay standing because the Leader has done something funky with the radiation causing people to die if they are not exposed. Kate and the Warbound deal with the robots just fine, but the Leader is still one step ahead of them, bringing us to another big fight.

While there is a lot of action here, it happens sequentially instead of all at once, allowing the reader to figure out what’s going on before we jump into the next big fight scene. There are a couple of flaws in Greg Pak’s writing this time around, though. Specifically, he falls into the trap of needing to tell the reader exactly what’s going on at every point, which leads to some odd scenes such as when the Leader manages to take control of Kate’s mind enough to force her to do his bidding yet not enough to get her to stop talking to the Warbound about what’s going on. If the issue had been a little bit less busy, it probably wouldn’t have needed all the exposition.

Ultimately, the Leader’s plot is foiled and he teleports away, leaving the issue of how long he has left to live up in the air. He does get a parting shot before leaving, managing to kill Hiroim. However, upon Hiroim’s death the Old Power passes over to Kate. How this works is anybody’s guess – the nearest I can figure out is that it goes back to when they almost kissed a few issues earlier and we saw some energy crackling between them. This is an area where explanation could have helped, but we don’t get enough because of all the exposition and action earlier. The issue ends with the Warbound continuing to fight the leader’s monsters. The humans they swore to protect are safe, but Gammaworld itself still stands, giving the Warbound a new battle to fight.

Despite the flaws in the wrap-up, this is still a very good miniseries. It has a lot of good character development and does something interesting with Kate Waynesboro, who hadn’t been used since the 1980s. The ending is a bit rushed with lots of loose ends, and I suspect that Marvel might have hoped sales would be good enough to justify something longer. The bad news is that this didn’t happen, but the good news is that the Warbound got a lot more action when Pak returned to The Incredible Hulk down the line, so this is not the end of their adventures.

Warbound #5 is not the greatest of endings. It is, however, good enough, and manages to cap off what is a very good if not spectacular miniseries.