Hulk #25

   Following the astounding conclusion of World War Hulks the still new character of the Marvel universe finally seems to branch off from the inner ties of Bruce Banner into his own solo work in issue #25 of Hulk. After the shocking reveal of his identity as Thunderbolt Ross in issue 23 and the climactic battle between him and the green Hulk, what does the Red Hulk do now, let's find out. 
 
   The issue starts off wit some serious action going down in California where some odd creature with cyborg skin grafts are running amuck. A truck is thrown and takes down one off the createns and guess who threw the thing, that's right, none other than big Red himself. Flashback 3 days earlier at where the previous issue left off, Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner make a visit to the Red Hulk. The Red Hulk snarkingly makes a comment and Steve decides their's no room in the hero cmmunity for someone with that kind of attitude. After that,Red decides to throw a tantrum, in which leads the facility operaters to turn off the gravity in his cell and put him trew what only can be described as one heck of an LSD trip. Finally, the red Hulk broken and beatin, decides to listen to the Steve, and power down. They trank him andhe later wakes up in a labratory. Bruce tells him that they've removed his power to absorb gamma energies, bu it was for his own good statingthat it could have killed him. He then debreifs him on the operation Scorched Earth. A plan hatched by the Leader and MODOK should any thing not go their way, tey could destry the planet. Bruce and steve decid to send him after the cyborg freaks out in california. Flashforward, Red's mowing them down left to right as they constantly try to infect them. Iron-man then shows up unaware that Red is on his side, and a fight insues between the two. As the fight rages on, Iron-man is flocked by the machine driven mutants and forced to withdraw from his armor, leaving the Red Hulk to handle the monsters. 
 
  A good issue, it gets a 3.5 in my book. Jeff Parker has grabbed the reigns and started driving the story in a good direction so I'm pleased with that. Gabriel Hardman's art is exceptoal but t feels like a downgrade from Ed Mcguinness' awesome artwork. Overall, it's a good read, so I say pick it up and enjoy. As always, nice readings.