Spinning out of the aftermath of Age of Ultron, Galactus has crossed into the Ultimates Universe - and hes hungry! I was looking forward to this comic as its been a while since I read a Galactus-centred book, so its disappointing that even in his own series, he barely shows up. Instead, the bulk of the comic features Rick Jones, a herald of the Watchers (kind of like the Ultimates version of the Silver Surfer), as he tries to get a burger then gets teleported out into space to witness a battle between the Chitauri and the Kree. If youre not a fan of Rick Jones (which is almost everyone), youre unlikely to be swayed by the annoying chatterbox who blathers his way through this mediocre comic, complaining like a twenty-something Bart Simpson to the stoic personality-vacuum of the Watcher. The entire time I was reading this I kept waiting for Galactus to show up this is his comic, right? That is him on the cover, so where is he? Then Gah-Lak-Tus shows up. This is the Ultimates version of Galactus, appearing as a swarm of planet-devouring robots who, when viewed from afar, appear in the shape on Galactus helmet. Ok still not the real Galactus though. And THEN, in the final few pages of the comic, space seems to tear open, a pair of giant hands opens up the rift even farther, and out steps Galactus FINALLY! Gah-Lak-Tus moves its attention to Galactus and the two fuse together to become an even more powerful, super Galactus. This is definitely the best part of the comic and really shouldve been the start of the issue rather than the end. What will double Galactus do now? Well have to wait until Hunger #2 to find out. Hunger #1 really annoyed me in that it barely lived up to its promise of a Galactus comic. At the end of Age of Ultron we see Galactus has entered the Ultimates Universe and yet weve got to see that appearance once again in this book why not just take the cue from Galactus first appearance in Age of Ultron and go from there instead of repeating it? The Rick Jones/Watcher stuff might be relevant later on but reads instead like filler like weve been waiting for the main act to appear and instead we get the warm-up band for most of the show with the headliner showing up for 5 minutes before disappearing. Moreover, theres no real sense of a story here. Galactus shows up fine, but why? Rick Jones is involved fine, but why? Theres been talk recently about the Ultimates Universe coming to an end and maybe thats what Galactus is here to do, ending the UU by devouring it? Thats a cool idea but if thats so, it wouldve been better if wed had some indication that that was the storyline. Instead we get nothing. The double-Galactus idea is good and Leonard Kirks art isnt bad though its far from being consistently good throughout. Hopefully now that the table-setting is taken care of, the series can now get going with Galactus in the spotlight as expected, but this first issue is something of a wet firework.
Hunger #1 by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Leonard Kirk is out now