On Needing More Hulk

Contrary to the overwhelming evidence, I am not as rabid a Hulk fan as you may believe. 

The above photo comes from some Halloween, when I was some age. A small age. Somewhere between three and a half and 9. I don't know. Who remembers that crap? Who doesn't do the hard work of blocking?

I was not - in spite of what you might reasonably infer from the photo - about to break into an Incredible Hulk interpretive dance. I was, I believe, doing my best impersonation of the stance in which Ben Grimm's love interest Alicia Masters sculpted the Hulk's statue. The statue was unveiled in Incredible Hulk #279, to celebrate the unprecedented (except for the other time it happened) pardoning of the Hulk by an American president. Almost two years later in Incredible Hulk #300, a Hulk with a renewed sense of senselessness would uproot the statue and try to brain Thor with it. But on this happy day, the Hulk was a content member of the larger family of Marvel super-heroes; likely taking the spot of the freshly recovered alcoholic uncle everyone really hopes is staying on the wagon, though no one can hide how nervous they are when someone at the other end of the table cracks open a Molson.                                          

My first issue of Incredible Hulk, in fact the first comic I can remember ever owning or wanting to own, was Incredible Hulk #278. I was attracted to its cover. You saw the back of the Hulk, who was facing down an assemblage of of Marvel's heroes. "Give me amnesty or give me death!" he commanded the heroes. At the time I had no idea what the word "amnesty" meant, so the whole thing came off as fairly bad-ass. More importantly, it instantly reminded me of my place on the playground. The other kids in my class, I thought, were good kids, and so was I. But they didn't treat me like I was a good kid no matter how hard I tried to show them I was worth being a friend. They couldn't see me as anything but a fat kid. At least, that's what I thought. So, like the Hulk I was friendless and angry. That Marvel comic book cover gave me an easily recognizable reflection of my grade school life. I was fully conscious of the parallel at the time. This was nothing dug up with a Peter Gabriel song and a hypnotist twenty years later, after a divorce and a spiritual retreat in Nepal and a motorcycle trip across Europe. I knew it that moment, that day, in that dark, cramped gift shop across the street from St. Peter's Hospital. "That's me, and that's them," I thought. I knew it. I saw it.

It was probably because of the strong connection I felt with the character that, in spite of the fact that I jumped on board only one issue before the Hulk's pardoning, by the next issue I felt that his publicly acknowledged redemption was something for which I had waited eons. Even though I didn't buy my ticket until the eleventh hour, I felt the weight of the entire day.

But still, no, believe it or not, I am not as Hulk-crazy as you think I am or, more precisely, as much as I want you to think I am.

The title of this new blog comes from something I say a lot. If I see a movie or read a book or see a new TV show and someone asks me "How was it?" I will almost always give them brief, nonspecific impressions, and will often end my remarks with something like. "Well. It could've used more Hulk." And to be clear, I don't just mean Avengers: Age of Ultron or Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. They could be talking about Mad Max or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Schindler's List.

"Totally needed more Hulk. It was good, don't get me wrong. But it needed more Hulk."

And I am not trying to do something Whedonesque. I am not using "Hulk" to mean "good." I mean it literally. I mean that the Hulk wasn't in it and therefore the movie/book/TV show is lesser for it. I mean it literally except that I don't mean it at all. I don't really think The Hobbit could've used more Hulk. Or Batman Begins. I don't think the Harry Potter series would've made more sense if a young, Hufflepuff Bruce Banner attended Hogwart's. I don't think Rushmore needed more Hulk. Or Inherent Vice. Or Punch Drunk Love. Or Jurassic World. Or whatever three-hour Levis commercial Zack Snyder is working on next.

But the Hulk is how the people in my life know me. It is how they relate to me. It is how they connect.

See, I don't feel really comfortable being myself all the time. Being yourself can be tricky. When I go to work and my co-workers are talking about their fantasy sports leagues and the reality shows about little people divas, it can be challenging to find a way in. When they're excited about the upcoming Kanye concert or the Knicks game and they ask me what I'm up to, I can't help but strongly suspect that when I tell them I found a used copy of the Vladimir Nabokov novel Bend Sinister at the closing sale of a used bookstore, that even though I've never heard of the novel I'm excited precisely because I know nothing about it, in fact know nothing about any Nabokov novels beyond Lolita, that just the sound of the title Bend Sinister is delicious to me and makes it that much more alluring though I suppose judging a book by its title is just as precarious as judging it by its cover, I don't think the response is going to be positive. I don't think the co-worker I once heard proudly proclaim, "All I'm saying is that you can't prove to me dinosaurs really existed," or the one who argued with me for over a half hour about whether or not chickens have hair, or the one who described Kid Rock's shift from rock/rap to country as "pretty deep," will respond to my reading appetite with anything like, "Yes! And allow me to continue this conversation with you because I am interested and feel this will lead to a deeper understanding of one another!' I think they will probably walk away as quickly as they can to find someone who will talk to them about whatever stuff the crazy famous people are doing with their butts and their sex tapes.

So I say, "Needs more Hulk" or "Could've used more Hulk" or just generally say something I know they would expect to hear from their favorite catch-phrase-machine on Big Bang Theory, so they can laugh, shake their heads at that crazy Mick with all his geeky references, and they leave. They leave, satisfied that I am a predictable and trustworthy actor in their lives. I will not one day prove to them that I am more than an overgrown geek with Funko bobbleheads of all the Guardians of the Galaxy villains on his cubicle wall. They know my role and I will never step out of it, at least not while I'm still a part of their days. I am reliable. Reliably weird, perhaps, but still reliable. I am steady. I am safe.

This is by design. I am not admitting to a fault. It is not a fault. It is a defense. American sitcom wisdom tells us to always be ourselves, but we all know this is a lie. I choose to be someone different in different settings. Do you think flag-burning is a fun, courageous, and valid form of expression? Well, next July 4th, go hang out with a motorcycle club filled with Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan veterans and "Be Yourself, No Matter What." See how that works out for you, Ricky Schroder.

Wow. I'm tempted to say this post got off the rails, but I'm not really convinced it was ever on the rails to begin with.

So, let's try this.

I had a blog called Superheroes, etc. I wanted a fresh start.

This is my new blog. It's called "Needs More Hulk," but it is not specifically a Hulk fan blog. Although occasionally I will geek out over the Hulk because that's just something I do. In fact, my next post will likely be a review of World War Hulk. I will write about comics, movies, TV, video games, books, music, whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe I should've lead with that.