Despite Marvel's role as the top publisher in comics, when it some to offering stand-alone runs or storylines one can point to and say "This is a great intro to this character; go read it," the publisher can't be as easily categorized as an industry leader. Where DC Comics, Image and other publishers have built a library of "evergreen" collections that can be read in a vacuum from the rest of their respective universes, most Marvel tales all but require a working knowledge of the company's history in order to be fully appreciated.
That's partially by design, of course; Marvel's main innovation in the '60s was to have every series be part of a single, ongoing narrative, albeit with dialogue and editors' notes to help new readers get caught up. With DC, it was the opposite; each issue was designed to be a self-contained story (although there were exceptions, such as the years when Alfred was the supervillain The Outsider). As the decades rolled on and the targeted audience for comics changed, so too did the way they were presented.
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If the audience for Marvel is one of lifelong readers, then why bother crafting stories designed to be accessible to newer audiences? It's a singular philosophy that's yielded both interesting stories and a self-defeating mindset. Of course, over seven decades-plus of storytelling there have been exceptions to this rule. Perhaps the most prominent, of the modern era at least, is 2006's "Planet Hulk."
Published as The Incredible Hulk (Vol. 2) #92 to #105 (with an interlude published in Giant-Size Hulk #1), written by Greg Pak, drawn by Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti and Jeffrey Huet, colored by Chris Sotomayor and lettered by Randy Gentile and Joe Caramagna, the story saw a new status quo emerge for Marvel's Jade Giant. Along the way, it also gave him his own slice of Cosmic Marvel to play off of, and a great new supporting cast. But what makes the story work so well is how it starts.
There was a small prelude in Incredible Hulk# 88-91, Fantastic Four #533-535 and the New Avengers: Illuminati one-shot involving the Hulk rampaging through Vegas, the Illuminati--a shadow organization of Namor, Tony Stark, Professor X, Reed Richards, Dr. Strange and Black Bolt formed after the Kree-Skrull War to direct superhuman events undetected--deciding he's too dangerous to remain on Earth and tricking him into heading to space aboard a spaceship they've programmed to head to an isolated planet (done right around the time Civil War was kicking off so as to avoid either Team Cap or Team Iron Man having a big, green trump card).
But really -- and Marvel Unlimited subtly reinforces this by not including the Prelude in its "Planet Hulk" category--the best place for the reader to start is where the Hulk finds himself in #92. Confused, angry and betrayed, the Hulk is told in no uncertain terms that he's being exiled for humanity's protection and it's a devastating opening. Given that, prior to this, Reed had testified in support of Bruce Banner when he was put on trial by the federal government and he and Tony were longtime friends and teammates, it's hard not to dial in to the Hulk's rage and anger at what's happening to him.
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Planet Hulk - The Hulk Doesn't Kneel
From there, the story goes full throttle and doesn't slow down. The Hulk's ship is sucked through a wormhole and lands on the distant planet of Sakaar. Weakened by the wormhole, Hulk is captured by soldiers of the planet's dictator, the Red King, fitted with an obedience disk and forced to fight in gladiator battles. To ensure his own survival, Hulk and other slaves -- Miek, one of the planet's bug-like natives, a single Brood who survived her hive's destruction, aristocrat Elloe Kaifi, her bodyguard Lavin Skee, outcast priest Hiroim the Shamed and Korg of Krona (who Pak & Pagulayan reveal was one of the stone beings Thor fought in his very first appearance) -- form an alliance and become Warbound to each other, pledging to win three fights and win their freedom.
Unfortunately, Skee dies in their next fight, but the Hulk does so well that he becomes a popular hero among the people of Sakaar. Seeing this, the Red King's right-hand woman, Caiera the Oldstrong, arranges for them to fight a subdued Silver Surfer. This marks a turning point that sees the Hulk and his Warbound not only earn their freedom but also wind up joining a rebellion to overthrow the Red King, while the Hulk goes from a forced exile to finding a new family and purpose on Sakaar as well as a new love interest in Caiera.
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What makes this event work is how singular it is. Almost everyone has a basic conception of who the Hulk is -- they did in 2006, and it's even truer now in a post-MCU Avengers world -- so it's easy for them to dive into a story and be just as thrown for a loop as the Green Goliath is. Not only that, Pak, Pagulayan and co. put the story into an easy-to-follow template: that of the Hero Leading A Popular Uprising.
Taking the path trod by movies like Spartacus and, well,Gladiator, the story provides a familiar outline for readers to wrap their heads around then populates it with a whole lot of interesting material. There's a lot of real-world parallels: the red-skinned Sakaarians (who aren't really given a species name outside of that) are colonialist aggressors; the natives like Miek are subjugated, enslaved and mistreated; Korg and Brood are refugees, cut off from everything they've ever known.
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With resonant subtext like that, and a whole layer of cool "Conan the Barbarian But With Aliens" action on top of it, it's no wonder Planet Hulk has had such a rich cross-medium shelf life. It's been incorporated into both The Super Hero Squad and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., inspired elements of Taika Watiti's upcoming Thor: Ragnarok, and was made into a direct-to-video animated film by Lionsgate and Marvel Animation in 2010.
It also paved the way for a bunch of exciting changes to Hulk's status quo in the 616. The most obvious is "World War Hulk," in which Hulk and the Warbound invade Earth in retaliation for the death of Caiera after the ship that brought Hulk to Sakaar explodes. But there's also the introduction of Hulk's twin sons, the barbarian-esque Skaar and the supervillain Hiro-Kala. Indirectly, there's also Amadeus Cho to be thankful for -- created by Pak and Takashi Miyazawa, six months before "Planet Hulk," he reappears in a Gary Frank-drawn backup during the story where he hacks into a secure Baxter Building phone line and informs Reed that Hulk isn't where they thought they sent him. Cho later appears during "World War Hulk" and, during the post-Secret Wars timeskip of 2015, winds up transferring the Hulk from Banner to himself, and is currently a member of the new Champions.
The bottom line is, between offering a great gateway story to the Strongest There Is to introducing a great group of characters in its own right, "Planet Hulk" isn't just one of the best stories Marvel's published in the 21st century -- it's also one of the most important.