HULK: GRAY may so far not be a story we've never heard before, but we've certainly never heard it this way before. As with their retellings of the origins of Superman and Daredevil, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale take a tale often told and tweak it just so, making it into something startlingly new. The decision to tell it in flashback from Banner's point of view, as he visits his friend Doctor Leonard Samson to get a bit of much needed therapy, is part of the appeal. We've also heard the tale "straight from the horse's mouth," so to speak, in the past, but with his usual attention to the psychology of his characters, Loeb not only lets us see Bruce's side of the story, he lets us see the emotional impact that story still has on him. It's a fine distinction, one of many which makes this retelling very different from its predecessors.

Another decision that makes this old story new again is the fresh approach to familiar characters. There are definite echoes of the HULK movie here, for example, including one which pokes gentle fun at that movie's preoccupations: when Banner asks Sampson where he should start their therapy session and Sampson suggests he start with his father, Banner replies, "We've sort of done that to death, haven't we?" Amen, brother. But Loeb also lifts the father-daughter tension between the Rosses out of the movie and places it here, where it makes a good bit of sense. True, Betty is back to her early 60's role of girlfriend watching from the sidelines rather than being updated to a research scientist in her own right - Sale even puts her in that snazzy purple number she wears in the original story - but the tension between she and her father brings back memories of Sam Elliott and Jennifer Connelly all over again.

The movie also takes out the pivotal character of Rick Jones (and quite rightly, in my opinion - including Jones would no doubt have added another hour to the damned thing), but since it's impossible to retell the comic book origin of the Hulk without him, Loeb brings him back in the best way possible. No longer the "Daddy-O" spouting jalopy-driving 60's teen that he was, Rick is much more a catalyst here than he was even in his original appearance. In the "traditional" origin story, he's simply a witness to the Hulk's first transformation - here, he's the direct cause of it. It's a brilliantly done moment - and you've got to love any retelling of the origin that refuses to sweep the Hulk's original gray color under the rug. Hell, you've got to love this, period. As much as I love the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby original, HULK: GRAY is the way the Hulk's origin always should have been told all along.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at feedback@cinescape.com.