By Jeff Johncox

Transcript Sports Writer

Greg Pak is an action writer.

To pay tribute, I’ll write this next part in the style of the movie trailer guy.

(Movie trailer guy’s voice) In a time when comic books are becoming more and more mainstream, when some books are written as overly-dramatic soap operas, one man dares to stand up to the onslaught of inaction. One man brings back the “Bang” “Bash” and “Slam” to Marvel comics.

OK, so the dramatic and the campy have their place. But Greg Pak has certainly made some noise with an old-style brand of comic book action that made “The Incredible Hulk” one of the most popular titles last year with “Planet Hulk.” The follow-up crossover, “World War Hulk,” is even more action packed, and it’s definitely one of the more exciting reads out there.

Pak has written “Iron Man” before tackling Mean Green, and in the first part of “World War Hulk” he got to do something Marvel fans have been waiting for for over a year: Kick Tony Stark’s butt all over New York City.

“After the events of ‘Civil War’ a lot of fans were itching for Iron Man to get his comeuppance,” Pak said. “And I was very happy for Hulk to give it to him in the pages of ‘World War Hulk No. 1.’

“But at the same time, I loved writing that sequence because it explored a critical fact about Iron Man: He’s a hero. Love him or hate him, everything he does he does to keep the people of the world safe. So he takes on Hulk one-on-one, no matter what the cost to himself, because it’s his sense of responsibility.”

Pak hasn’t had the Hulk stop at Iron Man. Mean Green has taken on most of the Marvel Universe at this point, smacking down any challengers with ease.

“It follows a long tradition of Hulk vs. the Marvel Universe stories,” Pak said. “So it’s firmly embedded in the aesthetics of American superhero comics.”

The best thing Pak has done with Hulk has been to return the character to those old comics roots. Hulk was always a basher. When David Banner turned big and green, emotional reservations were tossed out the window. He was mean, he was angry and he was incredibly strong. While Ang Lee’s “Hulk” film drug along and made you just pity the character, “World War Hulk” is more like the film’s video-game counterpart. In the game, you just took the Hulk on a rampage throughout a major city, causing as much destruction as possible.

“The editors and I were all on the same page with this one,” Pak said. “Variations of the word ‘smash’ came up many times when we were in the planning stages of ‘Planet Hulk’ and ‘World War Hulk.’

“But we always knew that all the action only works if there’s a real emotional story at the heart of the book. So I did my best to build the motivations and development of our characters throughout ‘Planet Hulk’ so every single punch in ‘World War Hulk’ is intensely personal.”