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Skaar, Son of Hulk Presents: The Savage World of Sakaar
Posted 08 Oct 2008
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Carlo Pagulayan, Timothy Truman, Timothy Green II, Gabriel Hardman (interior); Ron Garney & Paul Mounts (cover)
Letters: VC's Joe Caramagna
Ink: Jason Paz, Timothy Truman, Timothy Green II, Gabriel Hardman
Colors: Jana Schirmer, Chris Sotomayor, Brad Anderson, Elizabeth Breitweiser
Publisher: Marvel
5.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Adam McGovern
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All through the cold war, Americans both left and right clung to an
apocalypse-or-utopia expectation that now seems a strangely comforting
scenario of closure either way – a cleaner break than the prospect of
grinding, indefinite barbarism from non-state zealots and superpower
tyrants that we seem to be facing now. Greg Pak’s stories of
far-off planet Sakaar read like the logical conclusion of the current
trend, seen in the funhouse mirror of pulp culture in a way that,
characteristically, shows more of us than we may think.
“Pak’s folkloric imagination and
sci-fi/fantasy vocabulary are formidable and endlessly
surprising.”
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Sakaar is the site of Pak’s popular “Planet Hulk”
arc, in which the superbrute was reimagined as the warlord of a
distant world. After a catastrophic end to the civilization he’d
fought hard to forge, he returned to Earth in the equally-huge
“World War Hulk” event to wreak vengeance on the
terrestrial heroes he held responsible (long story, but a good one).
Meanwhile, his fearsome comrades spun off into their own miniseries,
Warbound, which explored their intricately imagined and
thoroughly alien customs and values in the context of our own world;
and now the Hulk’s offspring, left behind on Sakaar unbeknownst
to the anti-hero himself, is holding forth in Skaar, Son of
Hulk, which gives further fascinating looks at the history and
societies Pak has invented.
It’s popular enough to have already spawned this oversized
special, which fits indispensably between the recent third and
forthcoming fourth issue of Skaar’s series. Through the primal
and perfect forum of the campfire, we learn much more about Sakaar and
its peoples in a round of backstories, very much the caliber of
fables, from the followers of Skaar’s fledgling revolt against
his planet’s overlords. Sakaar is a world of Conan-esque crudity
and hardship but inconceivably advanced technology, with a mix of
scientific accomplishment and ominous superstition; it has clearly
been populated much longer than Earth, and the shadow of our own
fundamentalist presidents with missiles and jihadists with
rocket-launchers falls long and darkly into the decayed society Pak
and his artist collaborators depict.
The Son of Hulk, like Hulk himself, is described by some as a
world-healer and others as a world-breaker, with equal enthusiasm;
this loudly and clearly echoes the anxious desire for rapid and
radical transformation, or the relief of an anarchistic collapse, that
is sounded from many in our own overwhelmed century.
Pak has a flawless ear for the unadorned eloquence of peasant
speech and warrior philosophy, and, as keen an observer of how wonder
can decline into mysticism as he is, he sees the ways that desperation
can morph events into myth just as clearly; a nightmare verso of the
Jesus story is playing out in the way that Skaar draws people to his
side, and how his personal sacrifices are interpreted as holy gifts.
At the same time, Pak’s characterization of a brutal protagonist
is quite subtle in the mysterious way that Skaar seems to be appearing
to different constituencies the way they need to see him –
capable of tenderness for the seer who is his would-be father figure;
unrelentingly ruthless for the warrior princess who had been skeptical
of his mettle – an inherently diplomatic, even merciful trait,
in the context of a world caught in a kind of perpetual prehistory and
scraping toward survival.
Pak’s folkloric imagination and sci-fi/fantasy vocabulary are
formidable, endlessly surprising, and more than a match for his
sources (which are at least as much Burroughs as Howard, in fact). The
ornate atmosphere and brutal elegance of all the artists brings the
setting and cast to life with infernal intensity. I hope we’re
not heading for this kind of social future, but if this be the future
of mainstream comics, lead on.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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