Hulk

The current state of the Hulk is, for me, a lesson in humility.

As we've all watched the franchise shifts at Marvel, with the mantle of many of their marquee heroes getting passed on to different characters, I've shaken my head not at Marvel, but at each inevitable fandom storm of butt-hurt. I was sure I couldn't be as childish as the angry fans crying foul against Sam Wilson as Captain America, Steve Rogers as a Hydra plant, or Jane Foster as Thor.

After all, I was fine with Amadeus Cho as the new Hulk. Probably if we were talking about a different writer, I would've been more skeptical, but Greg Pak has earned some hefty benefit-of-the-doubt. And it wasn't like it would be forever. The Marvel PR machine can say what it wants. We all know Bruce will be back eventually.

But, then they killed him. Which, of course, doesn't change anything about the conclusion that he'll be back. He will. And we all know it.

But then the preview cover of U.S.Avengers #1 showed up, with good ol' Thunderbolt Ross back as the Red Hulk, even though all of Gerry Duggan's Hulk run had been about trimming the excess Hulks out of the Marvel universe, concluding in a wonderful bloody battle that ended with Ross getting the fake Hulk cured out of him.

And then there was this.

This is powerful.

When Doc Ock and Peter Parker switched minds, they didn't call the series that followed Spider-Man. They called it Superior Spider-Man, signalling not only that this was something new, but that it wouldn't last. With the shifts in the world of Captain America, Marvel signaled its temporary nature with differing titles: Captain America: Sam Wilson and Captain America: Steve Rogers. Even Thor added the adjective "mighty" to its title, which had been there before, but strangely had often not been considered part of the official title like Incredible Hulk and Amazing Spider-Man.

But this is just Hulk. No Rampaging or Incredible or Savage. Just Hulk.

That says something.

I feel, to say the least, mixed about this thing. I applaud Marvel's continued dedication to diversity, and I generally don't even bother humoring the arguments against the stronger focus on women and minorities in the comics.

But at the same time, I do not CARE that Jennifer Walters is a woman. Just as I don't care that Amadeus Cho is of Korean descent.

I just care that it isn't Bruce Banner.

And that's okay. In my noggin, I know that's okay. It was, in part, the similarities between my life and the fictional life of Bruce Banner that helped me relate to the Hulk and that continues to draw me to the character and makes it feel more relevant as the years pass. And I am not the only one in the world who deserves a character with whom I can relate.

By the time this article is posted, we will know who the next American president will be. But as I write it, it is Saturday morning, October 15th and a lying maniac who seeks executive office is bragging about sexual assault on every TV screen and every inch of Facebook. In light of this, it is not absurd to think that women and girls deserve a hero who knows anger.

I know that in my head. I know it.

But it's not Bruce Banner.

I am intrigued. I will be picking up Hulk when it comes out. I will probably do what I can to check out some of Hulk writer Mariko Tamaki's other work before the first issue comes out.

I guess it is not a bad thing that I now have more sympathy for the fans who cried, and continue to cry, foul at the dramatic shifts in their favorite heroes.

But, you know.

Those guys didn't get shot in the face.

I hate Hawkeye.

Hulk Wins

Back in 2010, on another blog that had more to do with comics in general and not just Hulk, I started a weekly column called "HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!!" that was just about the green-sometimes-gray-NEVER-RED goliath. 
Considering the subject of the column, and the fact that it would be helpful in padding my blog with posts while I work of newer material, I've decided to post my favorite of these older columns here at Needs More Hulk. 
This was the first installment, which at the time was titled "Why Hulk Is the Strongest One There Is" and was posted here. I reproduce it here with some gentle editing.
Enjoy.

Versus Debates. They're brutal. They're ugly. Sometimes, if not usually, they're surprisingly complex with the debaters providing extensive evidence to prove who-would-beat-who. They take up a sizable chunk of the Internet discussion on comics, and they are all, all of them, utterly useless.
And I'm not just being dismissive. I'm not just using the geekery of others to somehow de-geek myself. I'm not saying they're useless just because comic book Versus Debates don't cure cancer. I mean. They don't. But that's not the point.



What I mean to say here is that Versus Debates are more useless than most useless things. For example, I would argue Versus Debates are more useless than, say, this blog which, like Versus debates, is useless in the sense that it can't cure cancer. It's useless in a Dwight-Schrute-tinted glasses kind of way. You can't use my blog to warm your house, fill your belly, impregnate a mate, or profit financially. I don't make any money from it, so few people read it that the comics I review probably don't make any money from it, the last time I received a review copy they were still talking to Tom Cruise about doing Iron Man.

But Versus Debates are even more useless than my blog, mainly because they're not just useless. They're wrong. The whole concept is wrong. The whole idea is wrong. And whatever answers reached at the end of any Versus Debate are inherently, stupidly, wrong.



The reasons for their wrongness are legion. They're wrong because of the vulgar importance they place upon pure fisticuffs. They're wrong because their debates are based on the idea that, if Hero A fights Hero B, the outcome will never vary. They're wrong because their understanding of violence is based on numbers, as if a fistfight were determined by equations. They're wrong because who wins or loses any particular super battle is determined solely by what will best serve the plot. They're wrong because they are debates about hypothetical battles between people who don't exist. They're wrong because often the fictional battles of the fictional people being cast against each other in the Versus Debate have already occurred in the comics, and yet the debaters will VIOLENTLY claim that the writers at the helms of the respective stories are wrong. Thor wouldn't beat Silver Surfer they'll argue, or Spider-Man couldn't beat Firelord. No, of course they couldn't, because neither the victor nor the defeated exist. But even in the context of the cooperative universes which we, as comic book readers of those continuities, have already given our stamps of approval, the debaters refuse to acquiesce. They argue that the make-believe outcome of the make-believe battle between the make-believe people can't be believed.

But more than any other reason, they are wrong because there is one aspect of superhero stories these Versus Debaters never take into account: CHARACTER. Oh, sure, they'll acknowledge it on its thinnest level. They'll recognize the most blatant BS the writers have shoved down their throats. They will recognize, of course, that Batman is a master strategist. But it never goes any further than that. They never ask themselves what this hero or that hero would do, but what they could do. If the handbooks tell them Spider-Man is stronger than Luke Cage, they assume Spider-Man will hit harder than Luke Cage. They never take into account the fact that if Spider-Man ever fought at full-strength, he would have a trail of bodies following him for a thousand miles. Another perfect example is the Hulk vs. Superman debate. The arguments in the Superman camp are usually surprisingly lethal. They argue Superman would melt the Hulk's brain by firing his heat vision into the Hulk's ear. Or he'd grab the Hulk, fly into space, and hurl the green goliath into the Sun. Really? Would Superman throw the Hulk into the Sun? Why the hell would he do that? Is Superman on coke now? He just throws people into the Sun? Sure, I know folks could come up with a hypothetical situation like Superman-possessed-by-demon or Superman-mind-controlled. But that's just a contrived means to the desired end of Superman suddenly and inexplicably hurling people into heavenly bodies for the sake of proving he would beat the Hulk. Superman doesn't do that. He just doesn't. That's a big part of who he is. If it wasn't, there'd have been a Lex-Luthor-shaped crater in the Sea of Tranquility ages ago.



Of course as the preceding example implies, as well as the title of this little rant, what I'm getting at here is the Hulk. The way the Hulk is mistreated in who-would-beat-who discussions doesn't necessarily say anything about the intelligence of the debaters, but it does say something about their understanding of character. The Hulk is, and this is something that has been stated with a certain amount of redundancy, the strongest one there is.

Now, I'm not going to try to impress you with my knowledge of what Earth's Mightiest Mortal is capable of. I won't remind you of the mountains he's held on his shoulders, the Texas-sized asteroids he's beaten to dust, the godlike creatures (some of them being, in fact, gods) he's laid low, his ability to breathe underwater, his ability to breathe in space, the thermonuclear explosions he's survived, the healing factor so ridiculous that his dystopic-future-self - the Maestro - was resurrected after being reduced to nothing but a windswept pile of bones, or the simple fact that there has never been a ceiling to his ever-growing strength and power. It's not impressive and it isn't the point.

The point is that if any of the Versus Debaters understood character, they would know that there is only one answer to the subject of ANY versus debate. It doesn't even matter who the contestants are. Thor vs. Superman. Hulk vs. Orion. Thanos vs. Darkseid. Dr. Strange vs. Dr. Fate. Spider-Man vs. Wolverine. Obi-wan Kenobi vs. Batman. Liono vs. Tigra. Optimus Prime vs. Howard the Duck. Galactus vs. Glen Danzig. Perry Farrel vs. Harry Potter. Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters vs. Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Power Man and Iron Fist vs. the survivors of Hiroshima.

Doesn't matter. There's only one answer. Ever.



Hulk.

There's something important. Something that has nothing to do with power levels or what tonnage can be lifted about the Hulk that transcends what you can or cannot find in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. And most people don't get it. It makes them mad. It makes them frustrated.

Some friends, who don't read comics all that much, asked my opinion about whether or not a jedi could kill the Hulk. "The lightsaber would cut through him like butter!" they argued, and I pointed out that in Empire Strikes Back, Luke's laser-sword couldn't even get through Darth Vader's arm and that the Hulk's skin - which has withstood bullets, tank shells, missiles, lasers, and Hulk knows what else - was certainly made of sturdier stuff that Darth's bicep. "They could use the force to throw him into space!" they claimed. I explained that the Hulk can breathe in space. "The Hulk's stupid! They could order him to kill himself!" I explained that certain versions of the Hulk are anything but stupid. I told them that even when it comes to the less intelligent versions of the green guy, certain psychic bad guys have a tougher time using their hypno-crap on the Hulk because of his thick skull - see the furry Xemnu's failure to mindhump the Hulk in Marvel Feature #3. In other cases, the Hulk's fractured psyche proved a significant stumbling block to psychic dominance - see Cable's difficulty with the Hulk in Incredible Hulk #444. Not to mention that while jedi might be masters of suggestion, there's a big difference between convincing a clone that he needs to keep window-shopping before he finds the right robots, and convincing a green-skinned force of goddamn nature to take himself out like Hemingway. My karate-kid-esque block to each of the jedi fans' attacks frustrated them. They grew angry and one of them finally broke. He whined about how this was why comics book suck! They don't play by the rules! They just keep making the shit up! As opposed to George Lucas, who culled his material purely from the History Channel.



The thing that was important, the important thing about the Hulk, he didn't get it.

Of course, this reaction is not unique in those unfamiliar to funnybooks. In the cases when I and other disciples of the Hulk proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to some fan of Thor or Wolverine or Superman exactly how the source material we have all agreed to hold sacred proves the Hulk's emerald dominance, they eventually react just like the Star Wars fan mentioned above. Finding themselves soundly defeated in the Versus Debate, they turn to a debate they think they can get some ground in - the quality of the stories, and hence the character himself. If the Hulk just "automatically" heals whatever hurts, can break whatever blocks, can lift whatever needs to be lifted, can live without breath or light or food or water, then isn't the character just a big, stupid fake? Isn't he just a big, dumb brute who beats whatever is in his path without challenge or suspense? And doesn't that make anyone who reads his comics a big, dumb brute for doing so?

There's something important about the Hulk. Something these guys don't get.

My ex-girlfriend, curious about the favorite target of my geek-adoration, read World War Hulk and she didn't get it. She is a voracious reader. She brings shopping bags to the library. She has a different bookmarked tome for every other room in the apartment. And she, understandably, didn't understand the appeal of a hero who simply beat the ever-living crap out of everyone. There was no clever twist to Hulk's photo-finish victory over the crazed Sentry. There was no secret tactic he used to survive Black Bolt's sonic assault or to pound Reed Richards into a giant, bruised rubber band. He endured and he smashed. And when you thought he was about to be met by something he couldn't endure or smash, well. He did. No explanation. No trick. He was just strong. Where's the suspense? Where's the worry that the hero won't win? Where's the surprise?



Do you want to get it? The important thing about the Hulk? Here's the important thing about the Hulk. The important thing has to do with a somewhat vague memory I have of my childhood.

I know I'm maybe somewhere around 6 or 7 or 8, and I know my parents promised to bring me somewhere. It may actually be the comic shop, but I'm not sure. It might be a movie. It might be an amusement park. I don't know. Regardless, the promise is broken. Something comes up. They can't take me, and I am in my bedroom, belly down on my bed, throwing a goddamn fit. I am crying, I am sobbing, I am punching my pillow as hard as I can and then stuffing my face in the pillow to muffle the wet, pathetic scream. This goes on for hours. Occasionally I jump up and perform a silent, red-faced tantrum dance. I punch at nothing. I glare daggers at the closed bedroom door as if I'm about to burst through it and tell those lying bastards what they can go do with their broken promise. Inevitably, I will belly-flop back onto the bed. This goes on until the afternoon sun is gone and the sky outside my window is a darkening blue. My face is still damp, but my breathing is even. There are no tears, only the occasional snuffle to remind me of the storm I just endured. I feel tired. The offense that triggered my tantrum feels far away. The sting is not as sharp. The pillows and sheets I had been pounding and tossing around I now gather to me, under and over me, and before I succumb to the sweet sleep I have angrily earned, something occurs to me. Earlier, the world had not been right. The world was wrong. I had been promised something and it was not given. In response, I cried and wailed as I never had before. I screamed the wrongness of it as loudly as I could. Regardless, the world did not change. My anger changed nothing. That seems new to me. Horribly new.

Now here's another story. In Incredible Hulk #126, the Hulk fought a creature called the Night-Crawler in a distant dimension (not the blue elf from the X-Men, different guy). I forget why, but it has something to do with Dr. Strange and the very beginnings of what would later become The Defenders. The Hulk is in this other dimension fighting the Night-Crawler, and he doesn't want to be there. He doesn't like it. He probably only has the barest sliver of an idea of why he's there in the first place. Night-Crawler unleashes a sonic barrage from his crazy helmet and the Hulk responds with one of those earth-shattering claps of his (which, depending on who's writing, either creates a sonic boom or is just really windy), and the resulting clash between the Hulk's completely venereal disease free clap and Night-Crawler's wall of sound is a shockwave that rips Night-Crawler's dimension apart.



Are you getting it now? Maybe? Put Superman in that situation. He'd probably come up with some nifty combination of his different super powers to find a way out of Night-Crawler's dimension. Reed Richards or Iron Man would probably figure out some superhero-correct science answer to get back home. Someone more cunning like Batman might figure a way to trick Night-Crawler into sending him back.

The Hulk, on the other hand, found himself in a world he didn't want to be in. He didn't make any equations. He didn't solve any riddles. He didn't find any time-travel treadmills. He just grabbed hold of the world in which he was prisoner, and he motherfucking DESTROYED it.



This is the Hulk. The Hulk is not a bench-pressable tonnage listed on a fan-site. He is not a list of stats on your Heroclix. He isn't his secret button combos in Marvel Vs. Capcom.

The Hulk is the impossible personified. The Hulk destroys what cannot be destroyed, endures what cannot be endured, and defeats what cannot be defeated. The Hulk smashes whatever and whoever is in his way whether they ride lightning or lift mountains or eat planets or flood the whole world with fire because that's what he does. That's who he is. His precise powers are tools, if he didn't have them he would have other tools, and no matter what they were he would use them to pound anything in his way into the dust. His complete and utter dominance over every other superhero and supervillain is not something to brag about, or for fans of other heroes to feel shame for. It isn't a contest. It's hardwired into his character. Arguing that the Hulk cannot defeat everyone and everything in his way would be like arguing that Batman doesn't wear dark colors or that Spider-Man has no sense of humor. If you dig past the anger, the strength, the repressed memories, the fractured psyche, and everything else what you get to is that the Hulk's primary function is this - when the Hulk has his red-faced tantrums, when the Hulk pounds his fists and screams into the pillow, the world does change. The Hulk is the Impossible even in a world defined by impossibility. The Hulk is Hell freezing over. The Hulk is the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Who wins?



Hulk wins. Dumb ass.

Need More Hulk

Happy Halloween, Nineteen eighty...something...

So, the Hulk is dead. For now.

I tried very much to be the silent, mature, stoic comic book reader rather than the angry fanboy. Circumstance conspired against me.

I will say, I was relatively chill about the whole thing. Considering. Made one little angry post about Brian Michael Bendis that he'll likely never see and certainly never care about. That's it. I considered doing much more. I considered burning all my comics; all my single issues and all my trade paperbacks. Then, when I calmed down enough to see the undeniable Stupid of that scenario, I considered burning all the comics I owned written by Brian Michael Bendis (the first tpb for Powers and the first two trades for his run on Uncanny X-Men) as well as my Hawkeye trades. Oh yeah, that's right I forgot. I considered burning all the Hawkeye cards in my Legendary deck-building game.

In the end, the most drastic action I took was selling my three-star Hawkeye fighter off my Marvel Contest of Champions app.

That's right. I am Mick. Hear me roar.

The biggest reason was not one of the nerdier, fanboyish reasons you would understandably expect. It wasn't just because they'd killed Bruce Banner. It wasn't because they'd killed him so abruptly, with no glory; no futile but powerful last stand like Human Torch, no politically charged assassination like Captain America, no mutual fisticuffs of destruction like Superman and Doomsday. Shot in the face. With an arrow. It wasn't because I thought he would be dead forever, because I know he'll be back eventually. It wasn't because I knew that with the presence of the "Totally Awesome" Hulk and the impending return of the Red Hulk in this horribly named and likely short lived U.S.Avengers along, now, with Hulk's cousin taking over his name for her own series, that while he was assured to return, that all of this would just delay that return.

It was mainly because his "death" came a week before I was going in for surgery to have cancerous tumors removed from my kidney.

And no, the fictional death of a fictional character had nothing to do with the surgery to correct my very real medical condition.

But, and I somehow doubt my experience is unique here, cancer made death huge in my life. In spite of the fact that every doctor, every medical professional, every person with a right to know anything about the subject was telling me that there was almost no chance that either the cancer or the surgery to uninstall it would kill me, death was huge in my life. I mean, it's cancer. A word most people are afraid to even whisper. Like effing "Voldemort." I am still surprised some times, now that the surgery is over, that I saw the other side of it. And when that's where your mind is, it is difficult for the abrupt and violent death of a beloved character, a character who has meant so much to you he has practically become a totem, to seem like anything but an omen. "You're going to die, Mick." That's what the universe was telling me. That's what I thought.

Well, no, that's what I thought. That's what I felt. I knew it was BS, but there's knowing and then there's knowing, and it was tough for me to get to the latter.

But the worst didn't happen. I'm still here.

So the Hulk is dead. The Hulk is ridiculous. The Hulk is practically naked. Many people will tell you the Hulk is no fun. Just a few weeks ago a colleague at the group blog where I contribute, Trouble With Comics, wrote about how he never understood the Hulk's appeal and I don't blame him for that. I totally get why a lot of people don't enjoy his comics.

The truth is the quality, or lack thereof, of the Hulk's comics mean very little to me. I want his comics to be good. I want his appearances in other media to be good. But nothing changes what he means to me, what he meant to me as a child, or the ways in which my connection with the character have evolved. Laugh at me all you want, but the experiences I've gathered in my 42 years find me in a place where the figure of the Hulk is just as relevant to me as he ever was, if not moreso.

So let Hulkbuster Iron Man sucker punch his way to victory in Avengers: Age of Ultron (as I am fully expecting Thor to do in Thor: Ragnarok since it's his movie), or kill him, or put him on a ridiculous cartoon with the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. and yeah, you'll get a passive aggressive text or two from me, but in the end.

The Hulk is dead. Just means the title of this blog is more accurate than it ever was.

Book Burn 2016 #8: New Suicide Squad, Vol. 2: Monsters

BY SEAN RYAN AND PHILLIPE BRIONES, ET AL.

Deadshot, Black Manta, and Captain Boomerang infiltrate a breakaway sect of the League of Assassins calling itself simply The League. While they gain the League's trust; Harley Quinn, Reverse-Flash, and Parasite wait in the desert as back up. Gaining the League's trust doesn't turn out to be the problem; the problem is stopping Black Manta from going to the other side.

New Suicide Squad has been meh from the beginning and this volume includes more meh. Black Manta's conflicting loyalties between the Squad and the League are the most interesting, engaging part of the story. Everything else is fairly forgettable. Harley feels guilty in an unconvincing way, someone dies because someone has to die, and everyone forgets about Parasite. Because he's barely in it. And I have no idea why he was in it at all. I could've been in it instead. It's possible I was. I'm not sure.

Book Burn 2016 #7: Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War

BY GEOFF JOHNS AND DAVE GIBBONS, ET AL..

Fyi, The Sinestro Corps War is collected in two volumes, each reprinting issues of Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, and some event-specific one-shot. I'm not going to bother reviewing both volumes separately since I don't really know how many new things I'd have to say with a second review. Like, "this second volume is similar to the first volume except that it is, you know...later."

A couple of days ago I wrote about how a friend loaned me a stack of Green Lantern trades in order to educate me about why there are now yellow lanterns and red lanterns and purple lanterns and mauve lanterns and the rest of it. After reading Green Lantern: Rebirth, I should have read Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns and Green Lantern: Wanted: Hal Jordan, and then finally the two volumes of  Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War. But, for some damn reason, rather than taking the three seconds I would've needed to find out the correct order, I just read all the trades in the order in which they were stacked. It wasn't until I was halfway through Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns that I realized my reading order was dumb.

I'm almost ashamed to admit I enjoyed The Sinestro Corps War. I came close to telling my aforementioned friend to not bother loaning me the trades, particularly because they all lead to the Blackest Night event, and there are very few people I know whose opinion of Blackest Night doesn't sound similar to the roar of a flushing toilet. And I also remember that it was this event in particular that lead to Alan Moore's remarks about DC scrounging through his old ideas like raccoons rooting through garbage.

But I liked it. What can I say?

Another friend of mine has said he's never liked Marvel's space mythology compared to DC's. I forget exactly what his reasons were, but reading this event made me consider a possible reason for that: because Marvel has never been as consistent with its space mythology as DC, and as a result Marvel's big space opera events don't really mean anything. The "change" they effect is arbitrary.

The Sinestro Corps War is a big, glowy space epic that apparently does change just about everything in DC's cosmos. I mean, it really is just one huge, long, battle between guys who glow green and guys who glow yellow, but, it's fun. And pretty. My single complaint is the constant abrupt slaughter of heroes that became such a trademark of DC during and after Infinite Crisis. I mean, I guess in a big cosmic space war it at least makes sense, but it's tough to not wonder - if Green Lanterns are so easy to snuff - how the hell Earth's four Green Lanterns have stayed alive for so damn long.

The fact that I liked Sinestro Corps War as much as I did makes me consider if it points to an inherent weakness in books like Sinestro and Red Lanterns. I stopped reading those books because, in part, the armies of glowy guys with the same damn look and powers just bored me. Like having a series with an army of Supermen in every issue. But the Red Lanterns and Yellow Lanterns and Avocado Lanterns and everyone in between are much more fun to watch when they're fighting each other. On their own, to hell with 'em. But once all the crayons start beating on each other, it's fun time.

Book Burn 2016 #6: Deathtrap by Ira Levin

A good friend who has already introduced me to wonderful writers (including Martin Amis), was recently talking to me about how much she enjoyed the work of Ira Levin. The next time I saw her, she had the novels The Boys from Brazil and Rosemary's Baby ready to loan me; along with the play Deathtrap.

Deathtrap is a darkly humorous play about a one-note playwright, an up-and-coming wanna-be protege, the playwright's wealthy wife, and a ridiculous psychic next door, Approached by a young writer with an amazing script, the washed up playwright jokes to his wife about the idea of murdering the young man and stealing his script to revive his career. From there, the plot twists and turns in hilarious and bloody ways that keeps guess about what the hell is really going on.  Anyone who has ever written with the hopes of doing so professionally, along with anyone involved in theater, or anyone who can read English, would adore this play.

Book Burn 2016 #5: Green Lantern: Rebirth

BY GEOFF JOHNS AND ETHAN VAN SCIVER, ET AL.

When I started getting ready to launch It Takes A Villain, my column about comics told from super-villains' point-of-view, the Green Lantern mythos presented a particular problem. While gathering the names of villain-led titles, I found two titles that seemed likely candidates from DC's New 52: Sinestro and Red Lanterns. Now, I knew enough about DC's continuity to know that Sinestro is a villain, but I really didn't know anything about the Red Lanterns. I read a few issues of Red Lanterns, and still couldn't tell whether or not they were super-villains. They were dicks, that was for sure. And it confused the hell out of me that someone thought it a great selling point to fill a comic with super-powered guys who constantly vomit blood. And all they really seemed to do was beat the crap out of each other on some desolate planet while their leader had a lot of angry thoughts about dead people. But were they villains? What the hell were they? Was it worth reading more of this strange, bloody-vomit-drenched comic or did they just not fit in It Takes A Villain?

A friend was kind enough to loan me a pile of his Green Lantern trades so I could learn more about DC's cosmic rainbow of confusion, the first of which is Green Lantern: Rebirth, the comic that brought Hal Jordan back as the company's premiere Green Lantern and whose huge retcon redeemed Jordan of his past actions.

It's a good comic, but it's also indicative of one of the many things I find frustrating about DC. So much of Green Lantern: Rebirth's drama hinges on history I don't know. And it seems particularly silly for a comic book company to make its stories so heavily continuity-dependent when that company tends to rewrite that continuity every few years.

Book Burn 2016 #4: The Martian by Andy Weir

A good friend recommended The Martian just before I started seeing advertisements for the movie.

It's a good, suspenseful novel with a likable narrator. It was clearly written with a movie adaptation in mind, and sometimes that bothers me just a little bit but not enough to spoil the experience.

I would hate to put together a dresser or any kind of furniture with Mark Watney. He would probably end up figuring out a way to use fake wood and plastic into a universal translator or a water reclaimer. And I'd just be sitting there, moping, like, "Dude, I just want somewhere to put my Hulk statue."

Book Burn 2016 #3: Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection, Vol. 1

BY CHRISTOPHER PRIEST AND MARK TEXERIA, ET AL.

Dude. I was so thrilled when I learned Marvel was finally collecting Christopher Priest's Black Panther run. Unless I'm very mistaken, until these collections, Marvel had reprinted only the first twelve issues of Priest's 62 issue run (in two trades: Black Panther, Vol. 1: The Client and Black Panther, Vol. 2: Enemy of the State), and I owned them both. I was glad to have them but there was so much more from Priest's run that deserved reprinting. As days go by and more stories surface about Black Panther's involvement in the film Captain America: Civil War as well as 2018's Black Panther, it's clear to me that at least one of the reasons Marvel chose to finally give this run the treatment it deserves is that Priest's interpretation of the ruler of Wakanda will prove key source material for the Black Panther of the films.

Priest's Black Panther wasn't always perfect. His Pulp-Fiction-esque storytelling style can be confusing and there are times you end up wondering why - in spite of how enjoyable a character he is - narrator Everett K. Ross seems to be much more of a focus than the guy whose name is on the cover of the comic,

But even now, over a decade later, I find Priest's approach to superheroics refreshing. He invests heavily in all of his flawed, rich characters. Black Panther is clearly a bad-ass, but Priest is modest with his hero. Panther doesn't win every fight and he never comes off as the Best There Is At What He Does. Black Panther was often criticized for a lack of action, but I never had a problem with more political intrigue and less fisticuffs. And when things devolve into fisticuffs, Priest is serious about it. Fights between Panther and villains like Kraven the Hunter and Killmonger are fierce, brutal, and absent the usual super-hero banter.

The second volume of this collection is already out and in my shelf. The third volume is scheduled to be released in April. I would be very surprised if those other two volumes don't make their way onto this list by the end of the year.

Book Burn 2016 #2: Planet Hulk: Warzones! and Future Imperfect: Warzones!

Planet Hulk: Warzones! by Sam Humphries and Marc Lanning, et al.

Even if don't read comics, there's a good chance you've heard of the original Planet Hulk storyline (and if not, you can read my review), There was a direct-to-DVD animated feature based on the story, and ever since it became clear that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was here to stay there have been rumors that the story would get a live action adaptation.

But in spite of the name and the setting, Hulk isn't really the main character in Planet Hulk: Warzones! Instead, a rugged and scarred gladiator Steve Rogers takes center stage. The many strange, crazy realms of Battleworld include Greenland: a land ruled by tribes of green, red, and gray hulks. Rogers and his warbound partner Devil Dinosaur are offered the opportunity to free themselves from bondage and to save the life of Rogers's old partner Bucky if they will infiltrate the savage Greenland and assassinate the Red King. Doc Green - an intelligent and certainly more Machiavellian version of the Hulk - leads them through Greenland to the Red King's doorstep.

Planet Hulk: Warzones! surprised me. I expected it to be fun, and it is, but there are some unexpected layers to the story. Doc Green presents the idea of being Hulk as more than a physical condition to Rogers, but a philosophy; a conscious way of being. At the same time, Sam Humphries digs into the unexpected parallels and similarities between Hulk and Captain America. Toward the end of the series, I kept thinking of Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones's Marvel Boy, when they merged the two characters into one monosyllabic flag-clad brute. And at the same time, Humphries integrates bits and pieces of the original Planet Hulk story in clever ways.

Future Imperfect: Warzones! by Peter David and Greg Land, et al.

Like Planet Hulk: Warzones!, this was a Secret Wars mini based on a past Hulk story.

It also happened to be a series with a super-villain protagonist, so I reviewed it as part of my column It Takes A Villain over at Trouble With Comics. Rather than reviewing it here, I think a link to the column would suffice.

Book Burn 2016 #1: Lord of the Rings

Distraction is an enemy. Possibly my fiercest and most resilient.

I have habits I like. I have habits I hate. Most of the habits I hate - like binge-watching shows on Netflix or playing video games - are, like many things in life, just fine in moderation.

Sometimes I forget that I love to read, and instead I play Fallout 4 for days or just keeping slamming the "Play Next Episode" button for West Wing or Supernatural or whatever series I'm letting my inner completist go crazy on that week.

Reading, to me, is like a nutritious, filling, healthy gourmet meal. Video games and TV shows (with some notable exceptions) are junk food. And that's fine. But I need more real food than garbage.

This year, I wanted to combat my tendency toward distraction and one of my tactics was to keep a "Book Burn 2016" list. The list is on a legal pad. The pad is snapped to a clipboard and hung on my home office wall.

Now, I don't think reading is something to brag about. But, I have to admit that while I don't think reading is something to brag about, my feelings don't always agree. I figure if stroking my ego helps battle this distraction, then I'll stroke like, well, like I do it professionally.

So, I'm going to review every single graphic novel, prose novel, nonfiction book, short story collection, poetry book, or play I read this year.

I was originally going to do this as one long post at the end of 2016. Like, I would just keep adding to the post and saving it as a draft until the end of the year. Yesterday, a good friend asked why the hell I would do something like that. Who would want to read a post that long of Hulk knows how many reviews?

So, I'm not going to do that. I'll review them one-by-one. And many, like today's, will hardly even be reviews. Just a couple paragraphs. A few thoughts. A couple jokes. And a picture. Because pretty.




The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

A few years ago I decided to start a tradition of making Lord of the Rings the first thing I read every year. On one hand because these were the books that made me realize I wanted to be a writer. On another, because I just wanted a tradition. I don't have many; at least not deliberate ones. You could say I have a "tradition" of losing socks and scissors, but that's not something I really schedule.

I don't have a precise count, but at this point I must have read Lord of the Rings beginning-to-end 6 or 7 times. Every time I get excited as the Fellowship approaches the gates of Moria, easily my favorite part of the trilogy. Every time I tear up at Sam's final quote. Every time I tell myself I won't skip the songs this time and I get maybe a third of the way through Fellowship before I say, "Fuck this, I'm skipping the songs." Every time I see something I didn't see in a previous reading. This time I realized that Sauron is, actually, the bad guy.