Writer Al Ewing Provides Commentary on Immortal Hulk #1

In the recently concluded Avengers: No Surrender, an alien being known as the Challenger returned the Marvel Universe's mightiest monster, the Hulk, to the world of the living to use as pawn against Earth's Mightiest Heroes . . . or so he thought. The truth of the matter is that Bruce Banner and his ghastly alter ego would have returned regardless because the Hulk is not just incredible... he's immortal.

This June, No Surrender co-writer Al Ewing joins with artist Joe Bennett to examine what the Hulk's inability to stay dead means for Banner, his gamma powered other half, and the world around them in the new horror themed series, Immortal Hulk.

Today, CBR presents an exclusive first look at Immortal Hulk #1 with pages that offer a shocking and violent glimpse at the title character's new status quo. As an added bonus, Ewing follows along and offers commentary on the sequence being presented, while adding further insight into his plans for the series.

CBR: Al, you kick off this sequence with a page that suggests we're sitting with somebody that is not necessarily a bad guy. It seems to me that this is a very scared and desperate person. Was that what your intention?

Al Ewing: Here's the thing - my particular idea for a long while now has been that anything an author says about their own work is essentially meaningless. If you're asking me to interpret the text for you - I'm not going to do it. That, as the reader, is your job. And while I'm generally happy to chat, when it comes to this character, you're all very much on your own with yourselves.

What I will say is entirely intentional is that mirror - the one we see his eyes staring back at us in. Mirrors and reflections play an important role in this series, as we'll see. And that header caption is probably the most important line in the issue.

Here we get our first glimpse of Banner and the world he inhabits. Him being in the gas station with his pulled down baseball hat suggests he's a person on the run and trying to stay hidden from the world around him. I'm reminded of classic television show with hunted and peripatetic heroes like The Fugitive or The Incredible Hulk series from the late '70s and early '80s.

When we begin, Banner is walking the world, on the run, not wanting to be found. That was a conscious choice - since this was a new #1, we wanted to start off in a familiar place, with that kind of classic Hulk TV show feel. Banner's entire thing in these first few pages is not being noticed, not wanting to be seen. But he's always watching - you see as soon as someone comes in, he's got his eyes on her. What's he running from? What's he looking for? Why is he living this way? These are all questions we'll be answering as the series goes on and we get deeper into Banner's psyche.

On this page, Banner appears to be keeping track of the activities of his alter ego via tabloid style publications. What can you tell us about that? Will this series occasionally be about the weird, underground news that may seem common place in Marvel Universe New York, but is a little creepier and mythic in other places?

That's going to be a thread in there - when we start, Banner's resurrection isn't publicly known, it's a secret the Avengers and the government are keeping. But there are sightings. Over the course of the first arc, we're going to see those sightings travel from trash tabloids like the Inquisitor - no relation to any real world publications, of course - to city papers, to national news. And as it gets more difficult for him to keep his head down, and more difficult for the authorities to ignore him... well, things ramp up.

I'd definitely agree that the Hulk carries a very different weight in places like Arizona, where we start off, compared to places like New York City, where super-people and their attendant weirdness are more of a daily occurrence. People remember the Hulk there. They remember the time he destroyed their town, the neighboring town, the time he fought the army ten miles away and they had to evacuate. We're going to see the kind of reaction people like that have - the kind of primal fear that comes over them - when they hear that the Hulk might be alive.

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This whole sequence is a showcase of Joe Bennett's stellar art skills, but I think these pages with the robber, the gas station clerk, and the young girl really showcases his "acting" ability as well. What's it like writing these emotional beats for Joe? How much direction do you give him?

Joe is absolutely wonderful, and he keeps getting better with every issue. I gave him a lot of direction on the emotional side - going deep into what the characters were feeling, what the mood was - it's really good knowing I can get into fairly difficult-to-render emotional spaces and Joe will give me something back that conveys them perfectly to the reader.

Of course, I always do an extra lettering pass between the artist and the letterer, so sometimes I'll see what Joe's done and it'll inspire me to tweak what was there into something more interesting, dialogue-wise.

To me, this page really establishes the different horrific tone of Immortal Hulk. Banner's green eyes indicate he's about to transform into the Hulk and stop the robber, but he's gunned down instead. Was that sort of your intent for this page, to sort of say this isn't necessarily the superhero book you're expecting?

Yeah, that flash of green is a promise, and it's one we immediately break. With issue #1, we're deliberately looking in at Banner from the outside, a little bit - readers are going to be introduced to the Hulk the same way a regular citizen of the Marvel Universe would be. You might go into this thinking you know about the Hulk, but new reader or old... there will come a moment when you look into the eyes of this Hulk and you'll feel that moment of fear. Because you don't know him at all.

Speaking of tone, this pages seems to hammer home the consequences of violent actions in Immortal Hulk. What was it like writing this page? Is this indicative of a tone we'll see in the book?

Writing this whole sequence - I wanted it to be fairly queasy and unpleasant. I suppose I wanted the first horror we see to be a depressingly everyday one. Is it indicative of a frequent tone - yes and no. While there are going to be grisly moments going forward, I definitely don't want to do the same kind of grisly twice if I can help it.

But on the other hand, the consequences of violence, of wrongs done, that is an ongoing theme in the book. The things we don't believe ourselves capable of - the shadow in ourselves, the versions of ourselves we don't want to see in the mirror - that's definitely a theme. So all of this is going to echo.