Somewhat overshadowed by its delayed counterpart, this week also sees the launch of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness's new Hulk series.

The Hulk is off on a rampage again, but this time he's acting oddly and killing the bad guys.  Doc Samson and the She-Hulk head up the team that's chasing him. And that's the basic format.  By the way, the strong implication is that the red Hulk is a different character altogether, rather than a new version of Banner.

Loeb has written some truly awful comics in the last few months, and so it's nice to report that this a step up.  It's a book of two halves.  The first is actually quite decent, as a bunch of characters stand around discussing how the Abomination met his unfortunate end.  Despite some inherent implausibilities - how much can you read into a few footprints, really? -   it's quite well put together, and Ed McGuinness is clearly enjoying himself drawing huge overmuscled characters.

The second half is not so good, as the characters get into an utterly gratuitous fight with the Winter Guard for no reason beyond filling up the rest of the pages.  This is not atrocious, like some of Loeb's recent work, but it's certainly uninspired.

Even so, that's half a good comic and half a mediocre one.  I'd say it still evens out to somewhere a little above average.  It's better than I was expecting.

But there's something missing.  It's a new series, and I tend to expect that a new title will start by setting out its stall and defining the concept.  This issue doesn't do that.  It takes it as read that we all know the Hulk is a big strong guy who goes around smashing things, which is fair enough.  But there's no particular angle on the concept, beyond "Why is the Hulk acting so weird?"  It comes across as a gimmick premise for a one-off story, but not as a take on the character which could provide the direction for an ongoing series.

Still, it's only the first issue, and I suppose Loeb and McGuinness have the length of their first storyline to define the direction of the series.  As a start to the "red Hulk" story, it's fine.  It's not a landmark of any sort, but it's perfectly adequate.  And it's quite nice to see Loeb back on some sort of form. 

Rating: B-

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