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 #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.

Hulk News You Need - 10/16/15

THOR INVITES HIS BETTER TO THOR: RAGNAROK

It's been in the rumor mill for a few days and now Deadline is reporting that Mark Ruffalo is in talks with Marvel Studios to appear in Thor: Ragnarok as Bruce Banner/The Hulk.

Along with his supposed potential appearance in the third Thor film, Bruce Banner is heavily rumored to meet Thor somewhere "on a distant planet." This is more fuel for the rumor practically as old as the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself that Marvel Studios is planning something that mirrors Greg Pak's fan-favorite "Planet Hulk" storyline.

TWO THEORIES:

1.  In Avengers: Age of Ultron when Black Widow proposes they run away together, Banner says, "Where could I go where I wouldn't be a threat?

Later, the last person to see Bruce Banner as Bruce Banner (i.e., pre-transformation) before he flies away in the stealth quinjet is Black Widow; the second-to-last person is Thor. Thor blasts into Ultron's base and Banner follows him through the hole in the wall. Soon afterward, Banner frees Black Widow and asks her to go away with him somewhere. 

Taking both of these things into consideration, I wonder if Banner spoke to Thor off-screen, told him about his intention of leaving, expressed his concern that there was nowhere on Earth he could go that would keep people safe from the Hulk, and asked if Thor could both facilitate some transportation as well as keep the whole thing to himself. If that were the case, Thor would know exactly where Banner is and so would know where to go looking for help in Thor: Ragnarok.

2. There are only two Infinity Stones left we haven't seen. One of them is the time gem.

Considering Thor left Earth at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron with the intention of learning what was going on with the Infinity Stones, it's possible if not likely Thor: Ragnarok will give us one of the remaining two stones. If so, it has at least a 50/50 chance of being the time gem.

I would be very surprised if the introduction of the time gem didn't accompany some kind of time travel story, especially since time travel is one of the few big sci-fi elements that's so far been completely unused in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

On the comic book side of things, we know that Amadeus Cho will be the new Hulk in Marvel's Totally Awesome Hulk title. We also know that Marvel's All-new, All-Different comics will prominently feature the Maestro; an evil version of the Hulk from the future.

Put all these things together...Thor vs. Maestro? Maybe? 

Hulk News You Need - 9/16/15

HULK JUST CALLED TO SAY...

Carl Sandberg's That New Carl Smell comic strip featured a Hulk confounded by romance and grammar. Check it out.

PRINCESS HULK

A reddit user recently proved he's at least 50% bad-ass Dad when he made his twin daughters a Hulk Princess birthday cake. Here's hoping the matching Prince cake was Thor.

FUN HULK PANELS IN THE PIPELINE

Yesterday in his column The Pipeline, Augie De Blieck, Jr. posted some random fun panels from his comic collection, including the above panel from Black Panther #15 and a few others featuring Hulk, She-Hulk, and some other characters (as if they mattered). 

Hulk News You Need - 9/10/15

NEW HELLCAT SERIES COMING IN DECEMBER

Hulk's fellow Defender Hellcat will be getting a new ongoing monthly series starting in December. Hellcat! will be written by Kate Leth with art by Brittney Williams. Series editor Will Moss described it as "a superhero version of Trainwreck or Broad City." 

By the way, the above image is from Defenders #7 (the Busiek/Larsen volume) and has nothing at all to do with the new series. But it has Hulk and Hellcat in it, so...yes.

Hulk News You Need - 9/9/15

TWC'S CHRISTOPHER ALLEN GOES BACK IN TIME TO COVER THE BIRTH OF THE INCREDIBLE HULK (AND OTHER CHARACTERS, BUT THEIR NAMES AREN'T IN THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG)

As part of the revival of the group blog Trouble With Comics, Christopher Allen has been firing up his Marvel Unlimited app to re-explore the birth of Marvel's super-hero Silver Age in chronological order in a column called Journey Into Marvelry, starting with Fantastic Four #1.

More recently, Allen covered the premiere of your favorite green-sometimes-gray goliath and mine in Incredible Hulk #1; and he invited Yours Truly to tag along. 

Today's entry covers the epic battle of silliness between the Hulk and the humorously forgettable Toad Men in Incredible Hulk #2. 

Check it out, and keeping checking back for more team-ups between me and Chris for subsequent early Hulk appearances.

GENE KANNENBERG, JR. OF COMICS MACHINE REACHES 250 COMICS IN HIS QUEST TO DRAW AND POST AN ABSTRACT COMIC EVERY DAY IN 2015

NMH friend Gene Kannenberg, Jr. - author of 500 Essential Graphic Novels and director of ComicsResearch.org - has been drawing and posting a different "abstract-ish" comic every day for the past 250 days at his tumblr Comics Machine, and he plans to do one every day this year. 

Hulk News You Need - 9/4/15

MARVEL REVEALS THAT AMADEUS CHO WILL BE THE NEW HULK, WHICH WE ALL TOTALLY KNEW ALREADY, THANKS

Surprising exactly zero people, Marvel told Entertainment Weekly today that the new Hulk - star of the title Totally Awesome Hulk - will be Amadeus Cho.

There were only a few, tiny, subtle hints that this was the case. Cho is the creation of Totally Awesome Hulk writer Greg Pak; he was a prominent character in Pak's Incredible Hulk, Incredible Hercules, and Amazing Fantasy; he guest starred in Savage Wolverine (written and drawn by Totally Awesome Hulk artist Frank Cho) alongside the Hulk; he's a teenager; and he's of Asian descent while Marvel hinted the new Hulk would stir the same kind of controversy as the female Thor and the African American Captain America.

I find it interesting that I find this interesting. I'm not peeved at this; I guess mainly because I know eventually Bruce will be back in the saddle again. I think I would be more worried if this were a different writer. I think Pak has earned some faith from us Hulk-nuts and I'm willing to give it a chance.

KICK-ASS UNCLE TRANSFORMS NEPHEW INTO HULK FOR CONVENTION

New Hampshire optician Eric Levine made his nephew Elijah's wheelchair into a Hulk costume for last month's TerrifiCon in Ucasville, Connecticut. He wanted his nephew's costume to have "butt-kicking action," so using foam, PVC tubing, and LED lights; Levine constructed a costume that included two Hulk legs 11-year-old Elijah could move with levers and the words "HULK" and "SMASH" lit up on each leg. 

Levine plans to donate the costume to another local child who uses a wheelchair. He hopes to design the costume that was originally planned for this year's con for next year: an AT-AT walker.

MARVEL DOESN'T WANT YOU LAUGHING AT THE GAG REEL WHEN YOU GET THE BLU-RAY, SO THEY RELEASED IT ALREADY

To promote the October 2nd DVD/Blu-ray release of Avengers: Age of Ultron (don't worry, mine's already pre-ordered), Marvel Studios released a two-minute gag reel which - if past Marvel gag reel previews are any indication - is the entire gag reel, thereby leaving you nothing to laugh at once you buy the thing they want you to buy. The bloopers include Bruce Banner having trouble with hammers and long words.

Hulk News You Need - 9/3/15

Is this going to be a regular thing I do? I don't know. Maybe. I make no commitments. Don't pressure me.

THE HULK WILL NOT KILL EVERYONE IN CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, ACCORDING TO ITALIAN WEBSITE

In an interview with the Italian site BadTaste.it, Mark Ruffalo says the Hulk was in the script for Captain America: Civil War, but that the green goliath was cut from the story. 

Ruffalo says the reasons were related to the Powers That Be at Marvel Studios not wanting it to be revealed just yet where the Hulk went at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. 

THE LATE HERB TRIMPE TO BE HONORED WITH IDW'S HERB TRIMPE: THE INCREDIBLE HULK ARTIST'S EDITION

13thDimension has an exclusive first look at an artist's edition of the late, great Herb Trimpe's work on Incredible Hulk. The post includes scans of a dozen pages from the book. There's no word on when the book will be published beyond, "later this year."

Thanks to Gene Kannenberg, Jr. for the heads up!

MARVEL REVEALS MORE PICTURES IN ORDER TO PRETEND NEW HULK ISN'T AMADEUS CHO

In order to detract from the fact that the star of the new Marvel title Totally Awesome Hulk will pretty much definitely be Amadeus Cho, Marvel has released new teaser cover art to pretend it could be Thor, or Iron Fist, or some guy with hair. But it's Amadeus Cho, guys. I mean, it's pretty much a done deal.

A Humble Suggestion RE: The Fantastic Four

So apparently Fantastic Four is so bad, some people think it shot Cecil.

I haven't read a ton of reviews, but so far my favorite swipe came from the Rolling Stone review: "Everyone pretends to be excited about Reed's invention, a teleporter which can transport a monkey to another dimension. Since this movie has no dimension at all, everyone is envious of the monkey."

A Facebook friend asked why it was apparently impossible to make a good Fantastic Four film. My smart-ass answer, of course, was the name of this blog. "Needs more Hulk." But after a while, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, for once my douchey fanboy catch phrase actually had a damn point.

Back when Kurt Cobain was still alive, a gallon of gas cost less than a diner entree, and a single issue of a comic book cost less than a gallon of gas; Walt Simonson and Arthur Adams brought together a brief but utterly memorable kinda-sorta replacement Fantastic Four team comprised of Hulk, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, and Wolverine. I say "kinda-sorta" because they didn't really replace the FF. A skrull disguised as Sue Storm fooled them into thinking the rest of the FF was dead. 

Now, with this many Fox failures at an FF film franchise, I don't think it takes an industry insider to predict that it's only a matter of time before the Baxter Building's most annoying tenants come under the umbrella of Marvel Studios. But what do they do in the meantime (besides making, apparently, the only good super-hero movies without the letter X in the title)?

Well, 3/4th of the replacement FF's roster are greenlit for Marvel movies. Wolverine is the exception, though he could be replaced. Maybe with the Punisher (who actually made a humorous cameo in the replacement FF storyline because there just weren't enough guest stars). Cobble that team together and call it Four Fantastic Guys or The Fantabulous Four or go the GB route and call them The REAL Fantastic Four. Or to hell with it, just call it Fantastic Four (What? Sue Us if You Want; Yours Sucked). 

Hell, maybe go ahead and use Wolverine. Just make him not a mutant. And call him Knife-Punch Man or something.

By the way, if any of the makers of the Lego Marvel Super-Heroes video game are reading this, the fact that I didn't unlock any achievements when I assembled Ghost Rider, Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine together on the Latveria level is effin' BS, man. My congressman: it is who I am calling.

Excelsior!

World War Hulk, a review

The most thumbed collection on my toilet is World War Hulk.

World War Hulk is, for many reasons, the perfect bathroom book in my home. Upon finding themselves in that gutteral need and wanting some reading material to pass the time, some people might prefer to just bring whatever book they’re progressing through at that particular moment, but I find that dangerous. If I bring whatever book I’m intensely caring about with me to my throne in the restroom, then my time on the seat will likely be longer than makes sense. Rather than the mental white noise I seek while on the toilet, the book will actually engage me and demand my attention. I will lose myself in the words and/or art and before you know it a half hour will have passed with my world eroding beyond the door. But World War Hulk offers the perfect prescription. I have already read the book, so all that is there for me are the massive clashes between the Hulk, his otherworldly allies, and the cringing pantheon of Marvel’s heroes. It’s a book of punches like meteor strikes and shockwaves that end worlds. There’s no need for me to read through the dialogue that lets me know why the Hulk and his Warbound are facing off with the Avengers. I can just skip ahead and enjoy the blood and flying rubble as a gladiator-clad Hulk smashes the earth-bound Greek god of war into the pavement with one irresistible fist. And if that were the only reason why it was perfect for the restroom, that might be enough, but on top of everything else it is the Hulk. It is the Hulk in a story that – while not particularly complex or nuanced – is unique to the Marvel Universe and to superhero comics in general in that it is a revenge story and the revenge is that of a superhero on a world of superheroes. It is my childhood hero finally delivering on the promise every Hulk fan infers the moment he recognizes the green goliath as his favorite: an apocalyptic war between the Hulk and the rest of Marvel’s super-people, a war that the Hulk will rightly win, and a war that will not only cement Hulk as the Alpha Male of Marvel but one that will redeem him. When the heroes fall to him, it won’t just be because he’s the strongest one there is. It will be because they deserve it. And so every time I bring World War Hulk with me to the toilet I am entertained without investment, and yet I am emotionally uplifted. When it’s all done and my business completed, I hear the same thing I heard right after the Hulk slammed Tony Stark and his Hulkbuster suit from head-to-toe of Avengers tower, the same thing I heard after watching Hulk pound Reed Richards into a limp human rubber band, and the same thing I heard after watching Hulk and his alien companions rip the combined New and Mighty Avengers a whole gaggle of New and Mighty new buttholes: I heard the flush of a toilet.

While the rest of the Marvel Universe was bickering over whether or not it was okay to turn all of its costumed heroes into indentured servants, the Hulk was fighting for his life on the planet Sakaar. He had been tricked into a space vessel by four members of the Illuminati – a group of super-heroes who had been secretly influencing events behind the scenes in the MU for years and who decided the Hulk was too much of a liability to remain on Earth – and sent spinning into the void. The Hulk found himself on Sakaar where he was first a gladiator, then a commander of a rebel army, and finally the king. He had a queen who was pregnant with his son and he finally had the peace he wanted. But the spaceship that brought Hulk to Sakaar exploded, rocking Sakaar and killing millions including Caiera, the Hulk’s queen. Convinced the explosion was from a bomb the Illuminati planted on the shuttle meant for him, the Hulk gathered together the last remnants of his people and his loyal Warbound – former gladiators who had fought at Hulk’s side both in the arena and on the battlefield – to return to Earth and claim vengeance. After a quick stop on the Moon to beat up and imprison Black Bolt – one of the four who exiled Hulk – the massive stone ship carrying the Hulk and his invading army arrived in New York City with an ultimatum that the rest of the Illuminati – Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, and Doctor Strange – appear before Hulk, or else he’d crack their world in half over his knee. The heroes of Marvel, fugitive and Uncle Tom alike, hurried to evacuate the city in preparation for the battle.

The action of World War Hulk is big. It’s huge. When the heroes clash, there is a cinematic grandeur to it. Every time a green fist connects you feel shockwaves, you hear windows all across Manhattan exploding. The fisticuffs are not as drawn out as they used to be. Any old-school comic book fistfight has more punches thrown than any tussle in World War Hulk, but the difference is you feel the ground shake in this one. The sheer, unbelievable, godly power of the combatants hits your face like hurricane wind.

John Romita, Jr.’s art is wonderful, and while I usually enjoy his work, his success here surprised me. When the series was first released, he was touted as a “fan-favorite” Hulk artist in Marvel ads. The reality is that before World War Hulk, Romita’s work on the green guy wasn’t particularly extensive. He penciled a few issues toward the end of the Paul Jenkins run of Incredible Hulk. But most of his work on the title was during Bruce Jones’s tenure as writer, which was anything but a “fan favorite.” The run alienated many old school Hulk fans for – among other things – going multiple issues without even featuring the actual Hulk, opting instead to focus on Bruce Banner. Romita’s work was good during the run, but considering that run featured so little of the Hulk, tapping Romita for a Hulk series in which Bruce Banner hardly shows up (only twice in five issues) seemed strange. But as usual when it comes to things like this, I was happy to be proven wrong.

In many of my favorite moments, Romita’s choices for what he shows what he doesn’t are perfect. For example, in the second chapter when the standoff between the Warbound and the Avengers finally breaks, Ares swings an axe at Hulk; the Hulk sidesteps it, slams Ares into the ground, turns menacingly toward the rest of the Avengers, and when we turn the page we get a two-page splash of the clash between all the combatants including the Hulk charging literally headfirst into the doomed Doc Samson. Though we only get static snapshots, the dance is as clear to see as if it were on a movie screen.

Later, after the Avengers are trounced, the inevitable Hulk/Thing battle comes. Ben Grimm is so utterly, heroically outmatched. He seems so futile and even out of place with his Li’l Orphan Annie eyes and his cartoon forehead. There is a great character moment at the beginning of the fight. Grimm belts out his clobberin’ catch phrase and cracks Hulk across the jaw. The Hulk’s response speaks volumes. He smirks, looks at Grimm and says simply “Hmp.” In that look is so much. In that look is the entire history of their rivalry. There is a grudging respect Hulk gives no one else in this war. No matter how hard they might fight him, the Hulk has no respect for Stark, Richards, Strange, or Black Bolt; only hatred. Grimm holds a minor, but unique position in the larger conflict. While he is Richards’s protector, he had nothing to do with Hulk’s banishment and the Hulk knows this. Still, as an ally of Richards and a rival of Hulk since the dawn of Marvel, Ben Grimm is a soldier who couldn’t sit this one out. That’s all there in that look. But also there’s the joy of the fight to come; the fight and the outcome as inevitable as it is devastating. Because of all this, and the simple fact that Grimm is one of the few combatants in this war who can survive more than five seconds against the Hulk, the fight with Grimm may very well be the only fight in World War Hulk that the Hulk genuinely enjoys. Rather than spend space he doesn’t have on the kind of long, earth-shaking battle these two usually wage, Romita gives us a double page splash of the battle with a handful of panels of green blood and orange rock flying around, and along the bottom are quick shots of members of the Fantastic Four and the Warbound, each shot representing a different, crashing moment of the battle that we can’t see, not bringing us back until Grimm is seconds away from passing out.

Then there’s that moment in chapter 3 when, finally breaking free of Doctor Strange’s psychic trap, the Hulk emerges from the Warbound to rip Thunderbolt Ross’s military forces to pieces. It’s the kind of fight that used to be a dime-a-dozen back in the days of Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema, but it’s exactly the kind of Hulk fight we haven’t seen in years. There is something deliciously rhythmic about the battle. For four pages we get almost no dialogue at all; not until Ross enters the fray himself. We just get the Hulk at his army-stompin’ best, tearing through tanks and helicopters like Godzilla. Towards the end of the fight, there is a tiny detail I love. In one panel we see the Hulk turn his head toward soldiers who have just started firing at him. There are no motion lines. We only know Hulk is turning his head because of the green blood spraying from his face as his head whips around.

Even more than he did in Planet Hulk – the story that made him a true Hulk fan favorite almost instantly - Greg Pak proves with World War Hulk that he understands the Hulk in a way that most writers just don’t. Pak has a better understanding of the Hulk’s relationship with the rest of the Marvel Universe than most writers before or since. Moments like his reunion with Rick Jones, the aforementioned battle with Ben Grimm, his confrontations with Thunderbolt Ross and Doctor Strange show us that. And as a Hulk fan himself, Pak understands the gravity of this conflict. After he’s finally captured all four Illuminati members who banished him and made them listen to Hulk-sympathizers angry at the four for past transgressions (including Bill Foster’s nephew who blames Stark and Richards for his uncle’s death), the Hulk says to them “Don’t like it, do you? It’s not fair. Not the whole story. You have excuses. Explanations. You’re innocent. These people don’t know what really happened. They don’t know what’s in your heart. Now you know how it feels.” As a Hulk fan like me and the rest of us rowdy, geeky Hulk-nuts, Pak knows how much those words mean, he knows how long we’ve waited for them. Through every imprisonment, every attempt at a “cure,” every exile, every false accusation, we’ve been waiting for the Hulk to get this moment. It’d be like seeing Peter Parker save his Uncle Ben.

No. No, that’s wrong. It would be like Uncle Ben still dying, and Peter Parker shooting Uncle Ben’s killer in the face.

The Hulk of WWH is familiar but different. He’s a Hulk who has matured, who understands his duality, and who ironically has used his state of constant warfare to make a kind of passionate peace with Bruce Banner. It isn’t just Hulk, after all, who wants the Illuminati brought to justice. When the Hulk shatters Doctor Strange’s hands, it’s Bruce who lures the good doctor into a position where he can do it.

The Hulk of WWH is a harkening back to the legendary run of Peter David. It was David who first pointed out in the storyline “Countdown” that to think of the Hulk as something Bruce Banner occasionally turned into was a mistake. The gamma bomb transformed Banner. The mystery wasn’t, as Phil Sterns (a.k.a. the too-rarely used villain Madman) said, wasn’t the question of why Banner turned into Hulk. The mystery was why the Hulk ever turned back into Banner. Here, David laid the groundwork for the merged version of the Hulk (or what Paul Jenkins would later name the “Professor” Hulk). This is echoed in the fourth chapter when Rick Jones reminds Hulk “You are Banner.” The Hulk responds, “No. Banner is me.” This is not some obtuse claim of superiority over Banner. The Hulk is what Banner, for better or worse, turned into. It is who he is.

The maturity of the Hulk in WWH comes through in startling ways. When She-Hulk assures the Avengers things will be fine as long as they don’t throw the first punch, the Hulk surprises her by doing it for them. Later, we see a Hulk who seems either mired in despair or just utterly apathetic in regards to the death and destruction around him. When Miek threatens to murder Rick Jones, and moments later when a demonified Doctor Strange slaps Hiroim around at the Hulk’s feet, the Hulk hardly seems to care, regarding each situation with distant interest. It is only when Strange takes one of Hiroim’s arms that the Hulk seems to finally wake up.

One of the most interesting questions I have about World War Hulk – a question part of me would love to ask Greg Pak, but another part would never want to ask him because the uncertainty adds to my enjoyment of the story – is whether or not the Hulk knows more than he’s saying. His justification for his assault on Earth is his apparent belief that the explosion of the ship that brought him to Sakaar was a purposeful attack on the part of the Illuminati. We learn at the end of the story that it was an alien terrorist group who caused the explosion to protest the Hulk’s ascendance to Sakaar’s throne, and that Hulk’s Warbound ally Miek knew the group had done it and allowed it to occur. The thing is, when Doctor Strange enters the Hulk’s mind, giving us the first chance to see the Hulk and any one of the four who banished him the chance to speak about what happened, I get the impression that the Hulk knows damn well that the explosion wasn’t from an Illuminati-planted bomb. When Strange explains to Bruce that, yes, he voted to exile him, but that he did not try to kill him, maybe it’s just part of Banner’s ruse - his luring of Strange closer so he can transform into Hulk and shatter Strange’s hands - but I get the sense that Banner knows. He knows the explosion of the ship wasn’t a purposeful act on the part of the Illuminati, but he doesn’t care, because he needs someone to smash. And after all, if they hadn’t banished him, it never would’ve happened anyway, so who cares if they meant it or not?

Another moment that piques my curiosity is the battle with the Avengers. When the talking finally stops, the Hulk grabs She-Hulk’s face and slams her into the pavement, creating a crater that She-Hulk presumably stays in for the rest of the battle. Could it be – especially considering the Incredible Hulk tie-in issue to WWH that suggested the Hulk’s violence was much more calculated than most people assumed – that the Hulk specifically did that to keep She-Hulk safe during the rest of the battle? Sure, he, you know, hits her pretty damn hard. But he also knows there’s more fight to come. Is it possible he hit her that way just so she would remain safe in the crater, so none of the Warbound could hurt her purposely or otherwise?

World War Hulk has its weaknesses, even when regarded purely as Hulk-fan-porn. Chief among them is the handling of the Sentry. While it’s difficult, as a lifelong Hulk fan, to complain about Hulk’s victory over the Sentry, the outcome of Sentry’s involvement seems so utterly convenient. From the beginning of the series, he’s seen as the only single hero capable of defeating the Hulk. He resists urgings throughout the series from Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Sue Richards, and even the President to overcome his agoraphobia in order to join the battle. Finally, he leaves his living room and attacks the Hulk in the final chapter, but almost as soon as the fight begins, he’s lost his marbles. Because the Hulk is, in Sentry’s words, “the only one I can hit…like THIS,” the Sentry unleashes in a way he apparently never has before, threatening the world with his power. It seems too convenient a way for the Hulk to shift from villain to hero in the eyes of the other heroes he’s been fighting, especially since to those of us cheering him on, he’s been the hero every step of the way.

Coming up with an ending to World War Hulk couldn’t have been easy because of the demands of the Marvel universe. Hulk had to win, but so did the heroes he was fighting. Somehow, even though he was trying to do anything but, the Hulk had to save the world. At the same time, WWH needed to lead into the nonsense Jeph Loeb had planned for what came after. So it’s tough to fault Pak for the convenience with which he used Sentry. If he could’ve found a way to involve the schizophrenic hero more heavily earlier on, it might have helped protect the story’s integrity.

I’m also not sure I love how Pak worked the Hulk’s vocabulary into other characters’ dialogue. For example, as the Fantastic Four prepares for his assault, Storm tells Reed, “And now the Hulk’s smashed the Avengers.” It’s a minor complaint.

World War Hulk will be remembered in no one’s top 100 graphic novels of all time. But it’s the closest a Hulk fan can get to the fulfillment of the wish he’s harbored for years.

But more than that, World War Hulk was something of an answer to a particular interpretation of the Hulk I sometimes consider. I see the Hulk as kind of a proto-super-hero. Sure, he’s not even close to being the first super-hero. I don’t mean it chronologically. But in many ways, the Hulk is much closer to the mythic heroes of antiquity upon which super-heroes were based. It’s been said many times that the idea of Superman was conceived as a hybrid of Heracles and Samson, but one of Superman’s defining qualities is a righteous morality that neither of those ancient heroes shared. And that dogged dedication to morality is one of the things that separates the Hulk from the larger community of super-heroes. Even when he isn’t swearing vengeance on the Earth, the Hulk, for the most part, doesn’t fight for the world or for humanity or for peace, justice, or fair hiring policies. The Hulk fights for himself, for his own freedom to exist. To not be hounded. To not be cured. To be left alone.

World War Hulk came hot on the heels of Civil War, a crossover event that was about as high-minded as a Big Two crossover event could be. It brought the Marvel Universe just a teeny, tiny bit closer to the real world, by tackling issues of personal freedom along with addressing the pretty obvious question of why the hell anyone would allow all these costumed psychos to run around, unchecked, anonymously beating justice into the rest of the world. Clad in gladiator garb that looked it could have very well been lifted from the wardrobe of Heracles, the Hulk – the world’s proto-super-hero – returned home not to narratively explore political and social issues, but to punish rebel hero and government stooge alike for trying to turn the pugilist porn of super-hero comics into pseudo-intellectual horsecrap. He reminded us what this whole thing is really all about. He smashed and he smashed and he smashed and he smashed and he howled victory at the void while gripping more bloody capes than in the final scenes of 300. That’s World War Hulk.