CBR: Pak & Van Lente Unleash "Herc"

[CBR News]

This April, Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente launch, "Herc," the follow-up to "Incredible Hercules." We spoke with the team about the book which finds mythological and mortal worlds colliding on the mean streets of Brooklyn.


Full article here.

[ThunderWolf!!!]

Sounds cool.

[rwe1138]

I'm curious as to who'll be lettering the series, and whether it'll ditch the awesome, but comical, SFX seen in Pak & Van Lente's previous Hercules books.

[Chandler X]

I'm starting to think that the new costume is a Take That to Wonder Woman...

[Leocomix]

Urban Conan? isn't it also what Atlas-Seaboard is doing with one of their barbarian properties?

[andybmcd]

I'm curious as to who'll be lettering the series, and whether it'll ditch the awesome, but comical, SFX seen in Pak & Van Lente's previous Hercules books.

I would think so. This seems to be a much more serious take on Hercules.

[insidemyhead]

If this is as good as Incredible Hercules, then I'll be very, very happy.

I added Incredible Hulks to my pull list for Chaos War and the appearances of the Olympians & Amadeus will keep it there for the foreseeable future. The Herc-Cho pairing will be missed, though.

[Colin7]

I just can't get on board with this. I loved what Pak and Van Lente did on Incredible Hercules, adding their spin to what had been established for many years of continuity in the Marvel U. But to now make Herc 'street level' mortal just seems like such a wretched idea. I like the bawdy, somewhat comic Herc, who loves wine, women and punching a cyclops in his gigantic eye. It worked for him for two thousand years. Now he is going around cutting off thugs' arms and turning them into stone?

No thanks.

[LOKI4EVER]

I think that the idea of hercules as street level without power is not very interesting but we will see when the book will ship and i hope that it will be good.
The only thing that make me very upset is that it look like they use Aares as a vilain and let him in Hades. I really think that the same book with Ares instead of Hercules can be more interesting.

[motteditor]

Yeah, this interview kind of made me less interested in the title. If there are two words to more quickly turn me off a title, they're probably "street heroes" (or villains). That's just absolutely not the area of Marvel I'm interested in, and I find it so incredibly frustrating that it's what so many of the key people at Marvel seem to like since Quesada took over.

The killing also didn't really sit well with me in the preview and it sounds like that'll be a regular part of the title.

I may have to just check out Incredible Hulks, though that seems like it's focusing far more on Hulk rather than the characters I'd be reading for (Cho, Jen...).

[Babylon23]

Really, does everything have to be reduced to street level these days? If I wanted street level I'd collect Daredevil, or Moon Knight, or spider-Man, or any of the multiple street level books Marvel already has. The last thing I want is street level Hercules.

Marvel seems determined to remove the sense of wonder, adventure and excitement from all of their titles. Incredible Hercules was one of the few remaing bright sparks left for me from a company that I'm growing less interested in every day.

I'll check out the first issue based on the strength of Pak and Van Vente's previous work with Herc, but I'm not optimistic that I'll continue reading.

[Byzantine]

I'm exceedingly excited for this series. I mean, dealing with the Herc/Ares relationship in the first arc? Shaking up a new status quo for a character? Brilliant creative team? No Amadeus "Mary-Sue" Cho?

What isn't their to like? It'll be awesome to see Herc in some new context.

[Hypestyle]

what is Hercules' strength level now? Is he simply peak-human or is he super-strong at all? I see photos with him carrying a sword-- doesn't he usually have a mace?

[Spidey616]

Soooooooo looking forward to this!