Broken Frontier

Ever since Greg Pak debuted his smash hit Planet Hulk storyline, followed by the mega-event World War Hulk, and Jeph Loeb's top-selling Hulk run, the Hulk franchise has experienced a resurgence, with a plethora of popular spinoff characters joining the "Hulk Family", including the All-New She-Hulk, Skaar, Son of Hulk, and the Hulk's mysterious new nemesis, the Red Hulk.

With so much going on in the Hulk's world, it was inevitable that it would all come to an explosive head, and that's just what is promised in "Fall of The Hulks", a multipart crossover encompassing the length and breadth of the Hulk universe. Fan favorite Jeff Parker is also playing a role in this event, with the recently released "Fall of The Hulks Alpha" one-shot, and the upcoming "Fall of the Hulks: Red Hulk" miniseries.

Broken Frontier spoke to Parker about his role and what's in store for Marvel's Jolly Green Giant.  

BROKEN FRONTIER: Tell us, what is Fall of the Hulks?

JEFF PARKER: It is the next big stage in Hulk history. The Hulk 'family' has grown lately, and like the theory of the universe expanding and contracting, so the world of Bruce Banner and the people around him is about to do the same- in explosive fashion. 
 
BF: How did you get involved with it?
 
JP: I've actually been a regular occasional contributer to the Hulk books. Plus I tend to yell Bah! and Smash! a lot, which probably made the office think to bring me in on this.

BF: What kind of coordination and research did you have to do to participate in this storyline?
 
JP: I live in a constant email loop with Greg Pak and Jeph Loeb, and we all read each other's work along the way. I was already reading their monthly comics, so that was easy.

BF: What have you particularly enjoyed about what they've been doing with the Hulk family?
 
JP: I'm enjoying the relationship between Bruce Banner and Skaar, and Bruce' proactive character in general. And I'm liking how Red Hulk is showing more depth and purpose. His arrival really mirrors when the first Hulk appeared- he wasn't a very nice guy and really brought a sense of menace- even to Rick Jones. Speaking of Rick, I also really dig the creation of A-Bomb.

BF: The Fall of the Hulks: Alpha one-shot you wrote centered around a secret group of Marvel's smartest super-villains. Was it difficult to intersperse the secret activities of another group throughout Marvel history, given that Brian Bendis has done something similar with the Illuminati?
 
JP: Not really, because there' s more than enough Marvel history to go around. The trick was making their involvement/interference intuitive. I didn't want to throw away anything other creators had done, but rather build on it, add new dimensions. One of my favorite bits was suggesting that the Wakandans were responsible from bringing the meteors of Vibranium to Earth, I liked making that not be an accident.

BF: Is that hinting that there was something special about the Wakandan people to begin with? Maybe potential for a future story?

JP: At least that they were always smart, it's not just an accident of natural resources that explain their success as a people.

BF: You're also writing the Fall of the Hulks: Red Hulk miniseries. Obviously from the title we can see it will focus on the Red Hulk, but more specifically, what will people following the overall storyline be getting in this mini?
 
JP: This will be the part of the story where we reveal things that weren't being told early on in Hulk, but were happening. You get to go back behind the curtain with this mini, and come away with a better understanding of who Red is as a character.

BF: Do you have a lot of leeway with that, or are you mostly working with what Jeph already established?
 
JP: Both, if that explains it!

BF: It seemed like in the initial announcements, this storyline was going to be called "World War Hulks." Is that a separate storyline now? Why the change?
 
JP: Yes. When we all saw how big the story was getting, we recognized there was a natural place for the story to bend in a new -- some might say -- startling direction.  We can't reveal exactly how FALL ends -- but it introduces something to the Marvel Universe that hasn't been done before and kickstarts World War Hulks, in a very different direction than WORLD WAR HULK. 

We had an embarrassment of riches, two really diverse and still powerful stories that went back to back.