Hulk, Vol. 3: Hulk No More

Still loving Ed McGuinness' art, still marveling at how pointless the stories are, still in awe of how Jeph Loeb's writing ability has gone completely down the shitpipe.
We still don't know who The Red Hulk is at this point, and while a lot of characters make noise about trying to discover his identity, no one really does much about it in this volume. Instead, HULK, VOL. 3: HULK NO MORE focuses on a totally pointless, gloriously rendered fight between The Defenders (Hulk, The Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, and The Sub-Mariner) and The Offenders (Red Hulk, Terrax The Tamer, Baron Mordo, and Tiger Shark), illustrated with gusto by the ever-reliable Ed McGuinness. The battle comes courtesy of The Grandmaster and his brother, The Collector, who offer The Defenders their lost loves in return for victory against The Offenders, who are fighting just to be dicks. And fight they do! Across Atlantis, The Microverse, Zenn-La, and The Dark Dimension, with guest appearances by Galactus, Dormammu, and The Psycho Man. (All of them get punched by Rulk.) In the end, asses are kicked, and nothing much is accomplished.

 Next up comes another pointless story featuring M.O.D.O.K reactivating A.I.M.; Pointless, but any story that has Ed McGuinness drawing M.O.D.O.K. is all right by me. Spider-Man, Doc Samson, Ben Urich, A-Bomb, and She-Hulk also appear.

 The book is rounded out by yet another pointless fight, as the de-powered Bruce Banner is attacked by Ares at the behest of Norman Osborn. Stupid, but again...I'm buying this dreck for the art. Shakespeare this ain't.

 HULK, VOL. 3: HULK NO MORE collects HULK #'s 10-13 and INCREDIBLE HULK #600, and features all covers and variants, a beautiful sketch gallery, and a handful of Mini-Marvel stories by Audrey Loeb and Chris Giarusso. This book has garnered some terrible reviews online, and I agree with everything that most of those reviewers have said....I'm buying this for the art, and I'm having fun with it, in that regard, but it's truly a masterpiece of bad writing. I used to consider Loeb a real talent, but, sadly, that doesn't seem to be true anymore. Your mileage will, undoubtedly, vary, but I got a kick out of this volume.