An excerpt:
"At a certain point during the 'Planet Hulk' saga, Banner and the Hulk bonded. The Hulk may have been the dominant personality, but Banner was with him all the way. And as we learned when Banner helped the Hulk crush Strange's hands in issue #3 of World War Hulk, Banner shared the Hulk's fury and desire for vengeance against the Illuminati. But it remains to be seen just what Banner thought of the Hulk's untrammeled fury by the end of World War Hulk."
You can find the rest of the interview by yours truly at http://www.comicmonsters.com/features-1039-Greg_Pak_talks_The_Incredible_Hulk.html. Greg Pak's website is http://www.pakbuzz.com. The Incredible Hulk #601 hits store shelves on August 26th.
~G.
7.8.09
5.8.09
My First & Last Word on Glenn Talbot & Other Rulk Guesses
I do want to get one thing off my chest. This is in response to some postings made out there that state the identity of Red Hulk must unequivocally be either Glenn Talbot (Betty's ex-husband and late subordinate to General Ross), or Igor Drenkov/Starsky/Sklar/whatever his last name is this week (a.k.a. the spy who refused to halt the countdown back in Incredible Hulk vol. 1 #1). Regardless of what I say, I know there are people who are going to believe those rationales better than my own. So, a word, if I may.
I just don't think it's "playing fair" if Red Hulk turns out to be someone Loeb has never directly referenced since (his and McGuinness') Hulk #1. It's not the way traditional mysteries work, and it's not the way Loeb's mysteries work in particular. Look at Batman: The Long Halloween--when you get to the end, the clues and characters were there all along to suggest who the "Holiday" killers were; with Batman: Dark Victory, the sequel, the clues and character of "The Hangman" were also there from the beginning. The same holds true with the Batman "Hush" mystery (in fact, he introduced the character who would be Hush in the first issue of the storyline). Even the most famous of Marvel villain mysteries, Roger Stern's oft-maligned Hobgoblin mystery in the Spider-Man titles, ultimately came back to characters introduced in the early part of his run (not to mention that Kingsley's brother was cleverly inserted as a double for Kingsley to avert suspicion!). Looking at the current series the same way, it would stand to reason the identity of the Red Hulk is someone who has already appeared in the series since Loeb began telling his tale.
In other words, it's not Talbot, and it's certainly not Igor. (Oh, I have other reasons for stating it's not them, and you can read some, between the lines, in my previous post.)
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
~G.
I just don't think it's "playing fair" if Red Hulk turns out to be someone Loeb has never directly referenced since (his and McGuinness') Hulk #1. It's not the way traditional mysteries work, and it's not the way Loeb's mysteries work in particular. Look at Batman: The Long Halloween--when you get to the end, the clues and characters were there all along to suggest who the "Holiday" killers were; with Batman: Dark Victory, the sequel, the clues and character of "The Hangman" were also there from the beginning. The same holds true with the Batman "Hush" mystery (in fact, he introduced the character who would be Hush in the first issue of the storyline). Even the most famous of Marvel villain mysteries, Roger Stern's oft-maligned Hobgoblin mystery in the Spider-Man titles, ultimately came back to characters introduced in the early part of his run (not to mention that Kingsley's brother was cleverly inserted as a double for Kingsley to avert suspicion!). Looking at the current series the same way, it would stand to reason the identity of the Red Hulk is someone who has already appeared in the series since Loeb began telling his tale.
In other words, it's not Talbot, and it's certainly not Igor. (Oh, I have other reasons for stating it's not them, and you can read some, between the lines, in my previous post.)
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
~G.
1.8.09
"Who Is The Red Hulk" - The Long Version
Fellas,
About a week ago, on The Incredible Hulk Message Board, I wrote a pretty lengthy, stream-of-consciousness missive on my thoughts--and recent epiphany--regarding recent events in the Hulk monthly book, esp. the identity of the much-maligned "Red Hulk" character. Right after my post, Mike Banks, owner of Samurai Comics in Phoenix, AZ, asked me if he could host a version of those selfsame thoughts on his site. I agreed, and tweaked the article over the next couple of days. The version I gave him was a condensed version of the following, the full enchilada, the one that was TOO LONG to publish anywhere else. You lucky readers'll see the full, unedited version below--about 1,500 words LONGER than the one on the Samurai site (that everyone's linking to). Enjoy, and, as always, your comments, rips and tears, are appreciated.
"Who Is The Red Hulk?"
(Or: No, Really, Who Is The Red Hulk?)
A Review of THE INCREDIBLE HULK #600 (Marvel Comics, $4.99)
By Gary M. Miller
Well, my friends, THE INCREDIBLE HULK #600, the much-maligned but eagerly-anticipated return to the original numbering, arrived on Wednesday. And while the opinions of the issue throughout comic shops and on the Internet has been mediocre at best, there's one thing virtually everyone can agree on: 14 issues into Jeph Loeb's tenure on the book (12 of HULK, one of KING SIZE HULK, and this issue), we still don't have an answer to the question posed above.
Or do we? First, a disclaimer: you're about to read an article penned by a Hulk fan of twenty-odd years, owning virtually every appearance of the Green Goliath ever published. (Supplemented, of course, by the INCREDIBLE HULK COMPLETE COLLECTION DVD, now, sadly, out of print!) I read the issue in question, and suddenly started connecting all the dots. While I won't say writer Jeph Loeb has suddenly turned "Plan Nine From Outer Space" into "Citizen Kane," he's gone a long way toward dispelling my doubts about a clear direction for the "Red Hulk" story.
Without further ado, now's the time to put your patented Spoiler Goggles on--to tell the whole story, I have to disclose all the details of INCREDIBLE HULK #600, as well as bring out the hidden points from the remainder of Loeb's run, and even before...all the way back to INCREDIBLE HULK #1 from 1962!
Of course, I'll begin where INCREDIBLE HULK #600 begins--the ending of WORLD WAR HULK. The majority of the cast as pictured on the first few pages' flashback to those final moments of the crossover are right where artist Ed McGuinness has them. As the Hulk rages, Doc Samson, the (fatally?) wounded Rick Jones, and General "Thunderbolt" Ross are front-and-center. Tony Stark prepares his satellites, noting that he "hasn't measured the effects of the combined rays" and targets the Hulk, enveloping him in a crimson band of radiation, with the others--plus She-Hulk, per Loeb--right in front of him. The result: Banner is human and comatose, and Ross helps S.H.I.E.L.D. agents load him onto a helicopter, bound for the Mojave Desert, where a new Gamma Base stands. Three miles below, Bruce Banner awakens in a chamber, bathed in red light once more.
Since then, we've seen the murder of Emil Blonsky, longtime Hulk villain the Abomination, at the hands of a Hulk-like individual in Russia. The new villain beat Blonsky to a bloody pulp before pulling a S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue giant gun and killing him. A group headed up by S.H.I.E.L.D. director Tony Stark, consisting of Maria Hill, "Thunderbolt" Ross, Leonard "Doc" Samson, and She-Hulk, examined the scene while fighting off Russia's own super-team, the Winter Guard. Ross broke up the fight, having discovered a young survivor, muttering the same word over and over: "Red." Meanwhile, Rick Jones awoke in another area of Russia, shirtless, pants in tatters, wondering "[W]hat've you gotten yourself into this time?"
Over the next few issues, the questions come fast and furious. Ross takes Samson to see Bruce Banner, awake, alert, and more than willing to investigate this new "Red Hulk." With Ross, Samson, and She-Hulk aboard, the Red Hulk attacks the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, and a computer virus set loose on the 'carrier steals all relevant information on the Hulk. The Helicarrier crashes, Iron Man is mortified, and the three missing people after the crash are Ross, Samson, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and old Hulk supporting cast member, Clay Quartermain. Later, Quartermain's corpse is found in the wreckage, as is a gamma radiation-soaked, shredded coat belonging to Samson. Meanwhile, Rick finds his way to Gamma Base and sees Rulk's human self transform...before Rick himself becomes the new, blue-skinned, armored Abomination! Rick falls in battle, but the tremors from their clash free Banner, who changes into the more classic "savage" Hulk and is trounced by Rulk in a battle that spans all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Thor interrupts Rulk from killing Hulk, and is himself defeated and left in space, as the new Abomination rescues Hulk, who realizes Rulk's weakness ("The madder Red Hulk gets...the hotter Red Hulk gets!") and beats him. As the Hulk leaves, Abomination--or "A-Bomb" as he seems to prefer--transforms back to Rick, and tries to warn Hulk of Rulk's identity, but is silenced by Doc Samson, now long-haired once more, with the thunderbolt insignia from his costume now scarring his bare chest. He tells the unconscious Rick it's "not [his] destiny" to be telling such things, and carts him off while Ross taunts the unconscious Rulk for his failures.
Of course, there's more, but little is relevant to the question at hand. Rulk fought a Wendigo during his travels to Russia to kill the Abomination, drawing the vengeful ire of a pack of mutant Wendigoes that traveled to Las Vegas, where the Hulk (in gray and green varieties) defeated them with help from Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and Brother Voodoo; and She-Hulk, humiliated by Rulk aboard the Helicarrier, organized a new version of the Lady Liberators in a vain attempt to capture Rulk and learn his identity. Then, Rulk revealed he could absorb energy while he met a time-tossed version of the Defenders alongside his own group called "The Offenders." He killed them all, but the Elders of the Universe who initiated the contest restored the status quo. Rulk, at the end, stated: "I realize now that I've left you even worse off than dead. With a broken heart. Just as you left me, Banner..."
That brings us to INCREDIBLE HULK #600, where we can begin assembling the pieces. Therein, She-Hulk ropes Ben Urich into the mystery of "Who is Rulk?" and Ben in turn involves Peter Parker, the spectacular Spider-Man. They travel with Doc Samson to Gamma Base, which stands revealed as not a S.H.I.E.L.D. installation at all but a front for Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M., longtime foes of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and its insidious leader, with whom the Hulk has had a few dealings: the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, alias M.O.D.O.K.! Banner and the new A-Bomb are both captured there (though we're not sure how Banner came to be captured--he was fine when last we saw him, whether it be in HULK #12 or SKAAR #12). Samson "hulks out," Rulk appears from nowhere and must battle Spider-Man, and finally, Banner becomes the Hulk, only to have Rulk absorb all his gamma energy, leaving him cured before the base erupts in a ball of gamma-green flame. Rulk keeps Samson and the She-Hulk at the center of the explosion while A-Bomb leaps free with Banner, and Spider-Man frees Urich. Later, Rulk finds and threatens Urich if ever he should start to reveal that which he learned at Gamma Base. The mystery, Urich says, is about much more than who Rulk is.
Now, as much as I had reasoned before, INCREDIBLE HULK #600 exploded my theories about Red Hulk, but also, more importantly, it consolidated those theories. It provided the missing pieces of the puzzle, perhaps not as apparent to everybody.
What were our earliest clues to the identity of Red Hulk? Clearly, it was his first major act of violence, that being the brutal murder of the Abomination, Emil Blonsky. Per Doc Samson, it was "premeditated," it was "punishment." Of method, motive, and opportunity, we have to look at the one not covered by the "sudden" gaining of incredible amounts of power. Who had the motive to kill the Abomination? Obviously, the answer is, someone who lost someone or something as direct result of the Abomination's actions, and/or someone who felt partially responsible for his actions or origins in the first place. This fact alone should narrow the playing field. The Abomination was a spy at Desert Base (TALES TO ASTONISH #90, 1967; retold in KING SIZE HULK #1, 2008) when he exposed himself to gamma rays. Chiefly, he has become known in recent Marvel history as the murderer of Bruce Banner's wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Ross Talbot Banner (INCREDIBLE HULK #466, as revealed in INCREDIBLE HULK #468, both 1999). Who loved Betty enough to exact this manner of vengeance upon her killer?
From there, the clues among the first several issues are plainer. In HULK #2, during the siege of the Helicarrier, Samson separated himself from Ross, who was with Clay Quartermain when Iron Man found them. Now, in the same event, someone introduced a virus into the computer systems. I don't think it was Rulk at all. Based upon INCREDIBLE HULK #600, Doc Samson now transforms--I have to guess thanks to M.O.D.O.K.'s fooling with the satellites that took down Hulk during WWH--into a larger, longer-haired version of himself, albeit with a more evil personality, who is in collusion with M.O.D.O.K. and can hide things from his alter ego. It was this Samson, on board the Helicarrier, who left the tattered shirt, and who used the virus at the direction of M.O.D.O.K. (As shown during Bruce Jones' run on the Hulk, Samson is no slouch when it comes to espionage and surveillance.) This same Samson shows up at the end of #6 and makes off with Rick Jones, bringing him back to Gamma Base, where we see him in #600. Meanwhile, his short-haired other self remains ignorant of his other self's activities but is markedly shorter-tempered than usual (see #1).
Remember the retinal scanner that identified both Doc Samson and General Ross at the entrance to Gamma Base in HULK #1? It appears again in HULK #3 during the fight between Rulk and A-Bomb, positively identifying Rulk but unable to complete its statement before Rulk pulverizes it. At the very least, this means Rulk's human self is a member of the Base staff; at most, it means that Rulk is one of these two men!
Also, during the battle, the Base's defenses are activated, resulting in the emergence of several "Harpy" robots which Rulk destroys. This is one clever hint at this to come, as it serves as a reminder of the past, since the original Harpy was Betty Ross Talbot, off a nervous breakdown (INCREDIBLE HULK #168, 1973). What isn't so easy to recall is who initiated Betty's transformation into the Harpy: none other than M.O.D.O.K., then on a crusade to defeat the Hulk (spanning #167-169).
He reasoned that the Hulk's power could put a stop to his plans in the future, so it was best to deal with him sooner than later. How? "All I would have to do is bombard human subjects with larger doses of gamma rays than Bruce Banner received, until I create a creature stronger than the Hulk! However, to survive that much radiation, the successful subject must have a conditioned tolerance to gamma rays--he must be someone who has spent years living or working around gamma experiments--and--the second condition--it must be someone whose mind I could easily control, so that I would not risk being turned upon like Dr. Frankenstein!" The Harpy's appearance, then, was the first sideways hint of M.O.D.O.K.'s involvement.
During Rulk's first battle with the Hulk, then, comes the strongest hint as to his identity, as we see Rulk's worldview as shaped by Banner and his monstrous other self: "I'm going to choke the life out of you. Ending years of ruining other people's lives! [...] You wanted to be left alone when you went to war with the entire planet? Trashed half of New York City? [...] But you've never had a friend like me." And, most importantly: "Don't pass out on me yet. I'm not interested in that milksop Banner." Plus: "They might just give me a medal for doing this." And: "For years, all I've wanted was to destroy you."
The dialogue clues that flesh out Rulk continue in his battle with Thor in #5: "I've actually studied you, Thor. I don't mind telling you that your battle skills are legendary. But, like Attila, and Genghis, and even the green Hulk--there is always a battle where one man falls and the other doesn't." Another clue in #6, in battle with Hulk: "You will never understand what it takes to be in battle." Of course, you can add the made-up braggadocio between Rulk and the Wendigo in KING-SIZE HULK #1 which brings things into, perhaps, even clearer focus: "Where I come from, we don't tolerate mistakes. Unfortunately for you--that means I'm going to have to make an example out of you. Otherwise, it'll be seen as a sign of weakness. And that's something THIS Hulk will never show anybody." After these quotes, I was confident that the Red Hulk was a military man, committed to showing strength at any cost, scoffing at weakness. And, hey, where have I heard the word "milksop" in conjunction with the Hulk before--?
Oh, yes! "Thunderbolt" Ross used the word to describe Bruce Banner in his very first appearance, way back in INCREDIBLE HULK #1! But all those clues don't make sense when you consider that General Ross was seen on-panel alongside Rulk in HULK #6. What's more, Ross was in the next room in the Helicarrier when one attacked Tony Stark in #2...
And so, a lot of old time Hulk fans out there have taken to casting Red Hulk as Colonel Glenn Talbot--Betty's late ex-husband and General Ross' right-hand man...who was killed nearly 30 years ago (INCREDIBLE HULK #260, 1981) and whose name or likeness haven't even been shown in the whole of Loeb's run. So where's the fun in the mystery when most casual fans reading the book wouldn't know who Talbot is? To say nothing of Red Hulk's human identity talking to Rick Jones at the end of #2. (Human Rulk: "I thought you were dead." Rick: "You thought wrong. What a shock.") Would Rick underplay the scene as much as he obviously did here if he saw Talbot, who as far as he knew, had been dead for years?
So, even still, Ross would seem to be among the least likely suspects. That is, until you take into consideration INCREDIBLE HULK #600. I remembered a line from when Bruce Banner was in captivity by what we then thought were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (KING-SIZE HULK): "I wonder how many S.H.I.E.L.D. Life Model Decoys would descend on me if I got a paper cut." Then, in #600, Doc Samson: "Those aren't S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Gamma Base is not U.S. military....They're upgraded Life Model Decoys. L.M.D. Human skin. Organs. All on an adamantium frame."
Bingo! Those weren't S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at Gamma Base. And it wasn't really General Ross in either of the above instances where he was shown beside or near Rulk. It was a Life Model Decoy programmed by M.O.D.O.K. so that the real "Thunderbolt" Ross could be in other places...as Rulk. (Interestingly, look at pages 5 and 24: Banner at the end of WWH is inverted on the later page when he is cured. Who's in the same spot as Rulk on page 5? Ross!)
The above revelation, then, brings everything else forward, along with presenting hints at the future of Loeb's HULK series. Ross has years of previous low-level gamma exposure, making him a key candidate in a repeat performance of what he attempted with Betty years before. The game was set for the creation of A.I.M.'s gamma super soldiers: M.O.D.O.K., as noted in #600, used Stark's satellites, "[refracting] cosmic energy to interface with Banner's gamma-irradiated cells," and they struck Hulk (who was temporarily rendered comatose and, I should think, incapable of metamorphosing), Rick (whom they cured of his mortal injuries and transformed into the blue-skinned A-Bomb); Doc Samson (who turned into the split-personality "Samson" as shown in this issue); General Ross (who became Rulk); and She-Hulk, who is the only one who has, to date, remained unaffected. (Note that Loeb draws attention to all five's exposure to the red rays in the opening pages of #600.)
Each one of those affected so far seems to possess some qualities inherent to Banner, i.e. a split personality at least, and some similarity to particular of Banner's personalities (A-Bomb as the savage Hulk, and Rulk as Fixit). It's likely the energy as filtered through Banner responsible. And when Ross met Rick at the end of #2, I'm sure the dialogue quoted a few paragraphs above rings true. (When carted away at the end of WWH #5, he probably looked dead.) I'm confident, however, something will happen to She-Hulk in the aftermath of Rulk's having exposed both Samson and She-Hulk to the gamma explosion at the end of #600.
But, back to Rulk: the fact that Ross is Rulk and hence is in collusion with M.O.D.O.K. brings up echoes of more previous storylines. It was M.O.D.O.K. who helped Ross to commit treason the first time around, releasing (ironically in context of Loeb's story) the Abomination from Project Earthfall to help kill the Hulk and give control of A.I.M. back to M.O.D.O.K., aims which failed in both respects (INCREDIBLE HULK #287-291, 1983-84). He definitely colluded with M.O.D.O.K. prior to his becoming Rulk, as he directed Banner to be taken aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter that brought him to Gamma Base. In that copter he sat beside a mustachioed gentleman (thought by some to be Glenn Talbot) who later appears at Gamma Base beside his L.M.D. in #600.
(Come to think of it, the collusion between Ross and A.I.M. is symptomatic of something possibly far, far bigger. Is A.I.M. in cahoots with some aspect of S.H.I.E.L.D. for the latter--all the way up to Tony Stark and Maria Hill--to not notice that Gamma Base isn't one of their own facilities but one belonging to their enemy?)
Some other points arise with the revelation of Ross as Rulk. As above, Ross has always had trouble separating his emotions regarding the Hulk from his duty to his country, for better sometimes (immediately following his resurrection by the Troyjans during Peter David's tenure, c.f. INCREDIBLE HULK #456 and 462, 1997-1998), but mostly for worse. Ross hates Banner for marrying Betty and letting her die, more even than he hates the Abomination. Blonsky may have sealed her doom, but if Betty hadn't been around Banner for so long, she would never have contracted the gamma poisoning that led to her hospitalization in the first place.
Betty's death led to Ross' gradual reversion to type. How deep did his pathological hatred of the Hulk run? In the past it led to his treasonous activities I referenced earlier, and it led to his employing the assistance of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Clay Quartermain in possessing Zzzax so he could use its power to destroy the Hulk (of which there were also two at the time; see INCREDIBLE HULK #326-327, 1986-1987).
At the time, it was remarked: "One thing's certain--his hatred of the Hulk...his fanatical desire for vengeance against the creature...makes him ready to brave any danger. That can only work in his favor!" So, obviously, Ross has some experience in obtaining superhuman power...and not using it well, either. If Ross made the connection that Quartermain would recognize the similar events, then it's no question that he would have killed him. It's a fair point, too, that the General Ross who was with Quartermain in #2 was an L.M.D., which brings up the natural question: just when has the Ross we've seen since WWH been the L.M.D., and when has it been the real Ross? (Fun, too: the Ross L.M.D. drops a hint in #2, making reference to Hulks that are "Red. Green. Or blue," curious since there is a "blue Hulk" of sorts--Rick's A-Bomb.)
So, after this issue, are M.O.D.O.K. and the gamma super soldier plan gone for good? I doubt that. For one, we know M.O.D.O.K. (or, potentially, those above M.O.D.O.K.) had a purpose to keeping Banner dosed with gamma rays, otherwise he wouldn't have freaked when Rulk sucked his power away ("No! You have no idea what you are doing!"). I'm sure we'll see him again en route to Loeb and McGuinness' epic finale beginning in HULK #19 next year.
Now we know who Rulk is, as the clues are just too pervasive to not treat as truth. It's a cheat that Loeb employed use of an L.M.D. to cover his tracks, I'll give that. Now I'm finally anxious to see where the storyline goes from here, with what becomes of Rulk, She-Hulk, Samson, and M.O.D.O.K. in the wake of the events of #600. I'm stymied, though, as to what an individual as so obviously powerful as Rulk (only stopped by an enraged Hulk, and Galactus!) needs from M.O.D.O.K. It's the one conceit I have that still doesn't make the whole thing "work." But oh, the big positive: it could just be that Ross has, in curing Banner of his curse, freed the most lethal weapon he could. After all, the only thing holding back Dr. Bruce Banner's smarts has historically been the threat of the Hulk himself. Now, all of Banner's intelligence can be concentrated on designing newer technologies to take down the Red Hulk. The roles of Ross and Banner as hunter and hunted are effectively reversed. As the man said it himself, "Banner is the strongest one there is!"
Of course, there's no doubt that by the end of Loeb's own story, Banner will again change into the Hulk, but which Hulk is going to be the debate to rage through 2010.
And Betty will return. Mark my words.
As Red She-Hulk.
On to HULK #13, and INCREDIBLE HULK #601, and beyond.
For Further Reading: THE INCREDIBLE HULK vol. 1 #1; TALES TO ASTONISH vol. 1 #90; THE INCREDIBLE HULK vol. 2 #167-169, 260, 287-291, 326-327, 456, 462, 466, 468, 600; WORLD WAR HULK #5; HULK vol. 2 #1-12; KING SIZE HULK #1.
About a week ago, on The Incredible Hulk Message Board, I wrote a pretty lengthy, stream-of-consciousness missive on my thoughts--and recent epiphany--regarding recent events in the Hulk monthly book, esp. the identity of the much-maligned "Red Hulk" character. Right after my post, Mike Banks, owner of Samurai Comics in Phoenix, AZ, asked me if he could host a version of those selfsame thoughts on his site. I agreed, and tweaked the article over the next couple of days. The version I gave him was a condensed version of the following, the full enchilada, the one that was TOO LONG to publish anywhere else. You lucky readers'll see the full, unedited version below--about 1,500 words LONGER than the one on the Samurai site (that everyone's linking to). Enjoy, and, as always, your comments, rips and tears, are appreciated.
"Who Is The Red Hulk?"
(Or: No, Really, Who Is The Red Hulk?)
A Review of THE INCREDIBLE HULK #600 (Marvel Comics, $4.99)
By Gary M. Miller
Well, my friends, THE INCREDIBLE HULK #600, the much-maligned but eagerly-anticipated return to the original numbering, arrived on Wednesday. And while the opinions of the issue throughout comic shops and on the Internet has been mediocre at best, there's one thing virtually everyone can agree on: 14 issues into Jeph Loeb's tenure on the book (12 of HULK, one of KING SIZE HULK, and this issue), we still don't have an answer to the question posed above.
Or do we? First, a disclaimer: you're about to read an article penned by a Hulk fan of twenty-odd years, owning virtually every appearance of the Green Goliath ever published. (Supplemented, of course, by the INCREDIBLE HULK COMPLETE COLLECTION DVD, now, sadly, out of print!) I read the issue in question, and suddenly started connecting all the dots. While I won't say writer Jeph Loeb has suddenly turned "Plan Nine From Outer Space" into "Citizen Kane," he's gone a long way toward dispelling my doubts about a clear direction for the "Red Hulk" story.
Without further ado, now's the time to put your patented Spoiler Goggles on--to tell the whole story, I have to disclose all the details of INCREDIBLE HULK #600, as well as bring out the hidden points from the remainder of Loeb's run, and even before...all the way back to INCREDIBLE HULK #1 from 1962!
Of course, I'll begin where INCREDIBLE HULK #600 begins--the ending of WORLD WAR HULK. The majority of the cast as pictured on the first few pages' flashback to those final moments of the crossover are right where artist Ed McGuinness has them. As the Hulk rages, Doc Samson, the (fatally?) wounded Rick Jones, and General "Thunderbolt" Ross are front-and-center. Tony Stark prepares his satellites, noting that he "hasn't measured the effects of the combined rays" and targets the Hulk, enveloping him in a crimson band of radiation, with the others--plus She-Hulk, per Loeb--right in front of him. The result: Banner is human and comatose, and Ross helps S.H.I.E.L.D. agents load him onto a helicopter, bound for the Mojave Desert, where a new Gamma Base stands. Three miles below, Bruce Banner awakens in a chamber, bathed in red light once more.
Since then, we've seen the murder of Emil Blonsky, longtime Hulk villain the Abomination, at the hands of a Hulk-like individual in Russia. The new villain beat Blonsky to a bloody pulp before pulling a S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue giant gun and killing him. A group headed up by S.H.I.E.L.D. director Tony Stark, consisting of Maria Hill, "Thunderbolt" Ross, Leonard "Doc" Samson, and She-Hulk, examined the scene while fighting off Russia's own super-team, the Winter Guard. Ross broke up the fight, having discovered a young survivor, muttering the same word over and over: "Red." Meanwhile, Rick Jones awoke in another area of Russia, shirtless, pants in tatters, wondering "[W]hat've you gotten yourself into this time?"
Over the next few issues, the questions come fast and furious. Ross takes Samson to see Bruce Banner, awake, alert, and more than willing to investigate this new "Red Hulk." With Ross, Samson, and She-Hulk aboard, the Red Hulk attacks the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, and a computer virus set loose on the 'carrier steals all relevant information on the Hulk. The Helicarrier crashes, Iron Man is mortified, and the three missing people after the crash are Ross, Samson, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and old Hulk supporting cast member, Clay Quartermain. Later, Quartermain's corpse is found in the wreckage, as is a gamma radiation-soaked, shredded coat belonging to Samson. Meanwhile, Rick finds his way to Gamma Base and sees Rulk's human self transform...before Rick himself becomes the new, blue-skinned, armored Abomination! Rick falls in battle, but the tremors from their clash free Banner, who changes into the more classic "savage" Hulk and is trounced by Rulk in a battle that spans all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Thor interrupts Rulk from killing Hulk, and is himself defeated and left in space, as the new Abomination rescues Hulk, who realizes Rulk's weakness ("The madder Red Hulk gets...the hotter Red Hulk gets!") and beats him. As the Hulk leaves, Abomination--or "A-Bomb" as he seems to prefer--transforms back to Rick, and tries to warn Hulk of Rulk's identity, but is silenced by Doc Samson, now long-haired once more, with the thunderbolt insignia from his costume now scarring his bare chest. He tells the unconscious Rick it's "not [his] destiny" to be telling such things, and carts him off while Ross taunts the unconscious Rulk for his failures.
Of course, there's more, but little is relevant to the question at hand. Rulk fought a Wendigo during his travels to Russia to kill the Abomination, drawing the vengeful ire of a pack of mutant Wendigoes that traveled to Las Vegas, where the Hulk (in gray and green varieties) defeated them with help from Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and Brother Voodoo; and She-Hulk, humiliated by Rulk aboard the Helicarrier, organized a new version of the Lady Liberators in a vain attempt to capture Rulk and learn his identity. Then, Rulk revealed he could absorb energy while he met a time-tossed version of the Defenders alongside his own group called "The Offenders." He killed them all, but the Elders of the Universe who initiated the contest restored the status quo. Rulk, at the end, stated: "I realize now that I've left you even worse off than dead. With a broken heart. Just as you left me, Banner..."
That brings us to INCREDIBLE HULK #600, where we can begin assembling the pieces. Therein, She-Hulk ropes Ben Urich into the mystery of "Who is Rulk?" and Ben in turn involves Peter Parker, the spectacular Spider-Man. They travel with Doc Samson to Gamma Base, which stands revealed as not a S.H.I.E.L.D. installation at all but a front for Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M., longtime foes of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and its insidious leader, with whom the Hulk has had a few dealings: the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, alias M.O.D.O.K.! Banner and the new A-Bomb are both captured there (though we're not sure how Banner came to be captured--he was fine when last we saw him, whether it be in HULK #12 or SKAAR #12). Samson "hulks out," Rulk appears from nowhere and must battle Spider-Man, and finally, Banner becomes the Hulk, only to have Rulk absorb all his gamma energy, leaving him cured before the base erupts in a ball of gamma-green flame. Rulk keeps Samson and the She-Hulk at the center of the explosion while A-Bomb leaps free with Banner, and Spider-Man frees Urich. Later, Rulk finds and threatens Urich if ever he should start to reveal that which he learned at Gamma Base. The mystery, Urich says, is about much more than who Rulk is.
Now, as much as I had reasoned before, INCREDIBLE HULK #600 exploded my theories about Red Hulk, but also, more importantly, it consolidated those theories. It provided the missing pieces of the puzzle, perhaps not as apparent to everybody.
What were our earliest clues to the identity of Red Hulk? Clearly, it was his first major act of violence, that being the brutal murder of the Abomination, Emil Blonsky. Per Doc Samson, it was "premeditated," it was "punishment." Of method, motive, and opportunity, we have to look at the one not covered by the "sudden" gaining of incredible amounts of power. Who had the motive to kill the Abomination? Obviously, the answer is, someone who lost someone or something as direct result of the Abomination's actions, and/or someone who felt partially responsible for his actions or origins in the first place. This fact alone should narrow the playing field. The Abomination was a spy at Desert Base (TALES TO ASTONISH #90, 1967; retold in KING SIZE HULK #1, 2008) when he exposed himself to gamma rays. Chiefly, he has become known in recent Marvel history as the murderer of Bruce Banner's wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Ross Talbot Banner (INCREDIBLE HULK #466, as revealed in INCREDIBLE HULK #468, both 1999). Who loved Betty enough to exact this manner of vengeance upon her killer?
From there, the clues among the first several issues are plainer. In HULK #2, during the siege of the Helicarrier, Samson separated himself from Ross, who was with Clay Quartermain when Iron Man found them. Now, in the same event, someone introduced a virus into the computer systems. I don't think it was Rulk at all. Based upon INCREDIBLE HULK #600, Doc Samson now transforms--I have to guess thanks to M.O.D.O.K.'s fooling with the satellites that took down Hulk during WWH--into a larger, longer-haired version of himself, albeit with a more evil personality, who is in collusion with M.O.D.O.K. and can hide things from his alter ego. It was this Samson, on board the Helicarrier, who left the tattered shirt, and who used the virus at the direction of M.O.D.O.K. (As shown during Bruce Jones' run on the Hulk, Samson is no slouch when it comes to espionage and surveillance.) This same Samson shows up at the end of #6 and makes off with Rick Jones, bringing him back to Gamma Base, where we see him in #600. Meanwhile, his short-haired other self remains ignorant of his other self's activities but is markedly shorter-tempered than usual (see #1).
Remember the retinal scanner that identified both Doc Samson and General Ross at the entrance to Gamma Base in HULK #1? It appears again in HULK #3 during the fight between Rulk and A-Bomb, positively identifying Rulk but unable to complete its statement before Rulk pulverizes it. At the very least, this means Rulk's human self is a member of the Base staff; at most, it means that Rulk is one of these two men!
Also, during the battle, the Base's defenses are activated, resulting in the emergence of several "Harpy" robots which Rulk destroys. This is one clever hint at this to come, as it serves as a reminder of the past, since the original Harpy was Betty Ross Talbot, off a nervous breakdown (INCREDIBLE HULK #168, 1973). What isn't so easy to recall is who initiated Betty's transformation into the Harpy: none other than M.O.D.O.K., then on a crusade to defeat the Hulk (spanning #167-169).
He reasoned that the Hulk's power could put a stop to his plans in the future, so it was best to deal with him sooner than later. How? "All I would have to do is bombard human subjects with larger doses of gamma rays than Bruce Banner received, until I create a creature stronger than the Hulk! However, to survive that much radiation, the successful subject must have a conditioned tolerance to gamma rays--he must be someone who has spent years living or working around gamma experiments--and--the second condition--it must be someone whose mind I could easily control, so that I would not risk being turned upon like Dr. Frankenstein!" The Harpy's appearance, then, was the first sideways hint of M.O.D.O.K.'s involvement.
During Rulk's first battle with the Hulk, then, comes the strongest hint as to his identity, as we see Rulk's worldview as shaped by Banner and his monstrous other self: "I'm going to choke the life out of you. Ending years of ruining other people's lives! [...] You wanted to be left alone when you went to war with the entire planet? Trashed half of New York City? [...] But you've never had a friend like me." And, most importantly: "Don't pass out on me yet. I'm not interested in that milksop Banner." Plus: "They might just give me a medal for doing this." And: "For years, all I've wanted was to destroy you."
The dialogue clues that flesh out Rulk continue in his battle with Thor in #5: "I've actually studied you, Thor. I don't mind telling you that your battle skills are legendary. But, like Attila, and Genghis, and even the green Hulk--there is always a battle where one man falls and the other doesn't." Another clue in #6, in battle with Hulk: "You will never understand what it takes to be in battle." Of course, you can add the made-up braggadocio between Rulk and the Wendigo in KING-SIZE HULK #1 which brings things into, perhaps, even clearer focus: "Where I come from, we don't tolerate mistakes. Unfortunately for you--that means I'm going to have to make an example out of you. Otherwise, it'll be seen as a sign of weakness. And that's something THIS Hulk will never show anybody." After these quotes, I was confident that the Red Hulk was a military man, committed to showing strength at any cost, scoffing at weakness. And, hey, where have I heard the word "milksop" in conjunction with the Hulk before--?
Oh, yes! "Thunderbolt" Ross used the word to describe Bruce Banner in his very first appearance, way back in INCREDIBLE HULK #1! But all those clues don't make sense when you consider that General Ross was seen on-panel alongside Rulk in HULK #6. What's more, Ross was in the next room in the Helicarrier when one attacked Tony Stark in #2...
And so, a lot of old time Hulk fans out there have taken to casting Red Hulk as Colonel Glenn Talbot--Betty's late ex-husband and General Ross' right-hand man...who was killed nearly 30 years ago (INCREDIBLE HULK #260, 1981) and whose name or likeness haven't even been shown in the whole of Loeb's run. So where's the fun in the mystery when most casual fans reading the book wouldn't know who Talbot is? To say nothing of Red Hulk's human identity talking to Rick Jones at the end of #2. (Human Rulk: "I thought you were dead." Rick: "You thought wrong. What a shock.") Would Rick underplay the scene as much as he obviously did here if he saw Talbot, who as far as he knew, had been dead for years?
So, even still, Ross would seem to be among the least likely suspects. That is, until you take into consideration INCREDIBLE HULK #600. I remembered a line from when Bruce Banner was in captivity by what we then thought were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (KING-SIZE HULK): "I wonder how many S.H.I.E.L.D. Life Model Decoys would descend on me if I got a paper cut." Then, in #600, Doc Samson: "Those aren't S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Gamma Base is not U.S. military....They're upgraded Life Model Decoys. L.M.D. Human skin. Organs. All on an adamantium frame."
Bingo! Those weren't S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at Gamma Base. And it wasn't really General Ross in either of the above instances where he was shown beside or near Rulk. It was a Life Model Decoy programmed by M.O.D.O.K. so that the real "Thunderbolt" Ross could be in other places...as Rulk. (Interestingly, look at pages 5 and 24: Banner at the end of WWH is inverted on the later page when he is cured. Who's in the same spot as Rulk on page 5? Ross!)
The above revelation, then, brings everything else forward, along with presenting hints at the future of Loeb's HULK series. Ross has years of previous low-level gamma exposure, making him a key candidate in a repeat performance of what he attempted with Betty years before. The game was set for the creation of A.I.M.'s gamma super soldiers: M.O.D.O.K., as noted in #600, used Stark's satellites, "[refracting] cosmic energy to interface with Banner's gamma-irradiated cells," and they struck Hulk (who was temporarily rendered comatose and, I should think, incapable of metamorphosing), Rick (whom they cured of his mortal injuries and transformed into the blue-skinned A-Bomb); Doc Samson (who turned into the split-personality "Samson" as shown in this issue); General Ross (who became Rulk); and She-Hulk, who is the only one who has, to date, remained unaffected. (Note that Loeb draws attention to all five's exposure to the red rays in the opening pages of #600.)
Each one of those affected so far seems to possess some qualities inherent to Banner, i.e. a split personality at least, and some similarity to particular of Banner's personalities (A-Bomb as the savage Hulk, and Rulk as Fixit). It's likely the energy as filtered through Banner responsible. And when Ross met Rick at the end of #2, I'm sure the dialogue quoted a few paragraphs above rings true. (When carted away at the end of WWH #5, he probably looked dead.) I'm confident, however, something will happen to She-Hulk in the aftermath of Rulk's having exposed both Samson and She-Hulk to the gamma explosion at the end of #600.
But, back to Rulk: the fact that Ross is Rulk and hence is in collusion with M.O.D.O.K. brings up echoes of more previous storylines. It was M.O.D.O.K. who helped Ross to commit treason the first time around, releasing (ironically in context of Loeb's story) the Abomination from Project Earthfall to help kill the Hulk and give control of A.I.M. back to M.O.D.O.K., aims which failed in both respects (INCREDIBLE HULK #287-291, 1983-84). He definitely colluded with M.O.D.O.K. prior to his becoming Rulk, as he directed Banner to be taken aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter that brought him to Gamma Base. In that copter he sat beside a mustachioed gentleman (thought by some to be Glenn Talbot) who later appears at Gamma Base beside his L.M.D. in #600.
(Come to think of it, the collusion between Ross and A.I.M. is symptomatic of something possibly far, far bigger. Is A.I.M. in cahoots with some aspect of S.H.I.E.L.D. for the latter--all the way up to Tony Stark and Maria Hill--to not notice that Gamma Base isn't one of their own facilities but one belonging to their enemy?)
Some other points arise with the revelation of Ross as Rulk. As above, Ross has always had trouble separating his emotions regarding the Hulk from his duty to his country, for better sometimes (immediately following his resurrection by the Troyjans during Peter David's tenure, c.f. INCREDIBLE HULK #456 and 462, 1997-1998), but mostly for worse. Ross hates Banner for marrying Betty and letting her die, more even than he hates the Abomination. Blonsky may have sealed her doom, but if Betty hadn't been around Banner for so long, she would never have contracted the gamma poisoning that led to her hospitalization in the first place.
Betty's death led to Ross' gradual reversion to type. How deep did his pathological hatred of the Hulk run? In the past it led to his treasonous activities I referenced earlier, and it led to his employing the assistance of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Clay Quartermain in possessing Zzzax so he could use its power to destroy the Hulk (of which there were also two at the time; see INCREDIBLE HULK #326-327, 1986-1987).
At the time, it was remarked: "One thing's certain--his hatred of the Hulk...his fanatical desire for vengeance against the creature...makes him ready to brave any danger. That can only work in his favor!" So, obviously, Ross has some experience in obtaining superhuman power...and not using it well, either. If Ross made the connection that Quartermain would recognize the similar events, then it's no question that he would have killed him. It's a fair point, too, that the General Ross who was with Quartermain in #2 was an L.M.D., which brings up the natural question: just when has the Ross we've seen since WWH been the L.M.D., and when has it been the real Ross? (Fun, too: the Ross L.M.D. drops a hint in #2, making reference to Hulks that are "Red. Green. Or blue," curious since there is a "blue Hulk" of sorts--Rick's A-Bomb.)
So, after this issue, are M.O.D.O.K. and the gamma super soldier plan gone for good? I doubt that. For one, we know M.O.D.O.K. (or, potentially, those above M.O.D.O.K.) had a purpose to keeping Banner dosed with gamma rays, otherwise he wouldn't have freaked when Rulk sucked his power away ("No! You have no idea what you are doing!"). I'm sure we'll see him again en route to Loeb and McGuinness' epic finale beginning in HULK #19 next year.
Now we know who Rulk is, as the clues are just too pervasive to not treat as truth. It's a cheat that Loeb employed use of an L.M.D. to cover his tracks, I'll give that. Now I'm finally anxious to see where the storyline goes from here, with what becomes of Rulk, She-Hulk, Samson, and M.O.D.O.K. in the wake of the events of #600. I'm stymied, though, as to what an individual as so obviously powerful as Rulk (only stopped by an enraged Hulk, and Galactus!) needs from M.O.D.O.K. It's the one conceit I have that still doesn't make the whole thing "work." But oh, the big positive: it could just be that Ross has, in curing Banner of his curse, freed the most lethal weapon he could. After all, the only thing holding back Dr. Bruce Banner's smarts has historically been the threat of the Hulk himself. Now, all of Banner's intelligence can be concentrated on designing newer technologies to take down the Red Hulk. The roles of Ross and Banner as hunter and hunted are effectively reversed. As the man said it himself, "Banner is the strongest one there is!"
Of course, there's no doubt that by the end of Loeb's own story, Banner will again change into the Hulk, but which Hulk is going to be the debate to rage through 2010.
And Betty will return. Mark my words.
As Red She-Hulk.
On to HULK #13, and INCREDIBLE HULK #601, and beyond.
For Further Reading: THE INCREDIBLE HULK vol. 1 #1; TALES TO ASTONISH vol. 1 #90; THE INCREDIBLE HULK vol. 2 #167-169, 260, 287-291, 326-327, 456, 462, 466, 468, 600; WORLD WAR HULK #5; HULK vol. 2 #1-12; KING SIZE HULK #1.
9.3.09
If Wishes Were Fishes...
Drat.
I'd really like to get some more writing done tonight, but the truth is, there are a few obstacles in my way.
Like House.
And 24.
And Chuck.
And Heroes.
And that fancy schmancy new show starring Nathan Fillion, Castle. (Which also stars the IMNSHO absolutely saucy Stana Katic.)
Sometimes, it absolutely sucks to be me...
Thank God for the dual-tuner DVR.
~G.
I'd really like to get some more writing done tonight, but the truth is, there are a few obstacles in my way.
Like House.
And 24.
And Chuck.
And Heroes.
And that fancy schmancy new show starring Nathan Fillion, Castle. (Which also stars the IMNSHO absolutely saucy Stana Katic.)
Sometimes, it absolutely sucks to be me...
Thank God for the dual-tuner DVR.
~G.
8.3.09
Why We Write (Continued?)
Friends, Romans, Countrymen--
(...lend me your ears, for they taste really good salted, but I'm sorry, for you won't get them back!)
Last night, I began the precipitous climb forward to delivering a short fiction piece I intend to shop to writing magazines in the vain (let's hope not) hope of obtaining an agent and actual employment in the literary field. (I know, I need to join AA--Authors Anonymous.) The climb started waaaaaay at the bottom of the mountain...or if you prefer, at the foot of the McDowell Mountains, where I currently reside. This is my second part of said climb, We'll see if I can't crank out some Pure Imagination (TM) two nights in a row.
So, why do I write? Short, funny answer: Because I suck as an artist.
I'm sure some of you are laughing at the above, and some of you just don't get it. The longer version is that I grew up reading comic books. I still read comic books. I read actual books, too, but yes, I hold a fondness for the comic, of which I shall never let go. Ever since I was little, I had a fertile imagination. I would take sheets of blank paper, fold them together, staple them down the middle, and doodle a cover featuring Spider-Man, or the Hulk, or one of my own superheroes, the all-powerful Goober Man. (He was star of my very own imaginary Marvel Comic, with the oh-so-cool name of Marvel Print. How lame can you get?) And, aside from a story I distinctly recall about Spider-Man and the Hulk fighting in some underground parking garage, I don't think very many of those interior sheets of typing paper ever got filled. It must have driven my parents nuts, to think they were buying all this typing paper and only about 1 in every 10 of those pages ever had anything on it. So sue me, I was young.
And it took me a few years to realize the salient truth: I couldn't draw!
Well, I could lay things out. But my execution...makes me look back and want to execute myself. Sure, I took art classes, and even scored straight A's in two drawing classes in high school. Somewhere during that time I even created a cosmic-styled character named Infinitus (later, I discovered the name was that of a one-off Spider-Man villain!), and his cadre of cosmic folks. I even created this creature of ultimate evil made flesh, called the Behemoth. I drew up the first issue of Infinitus and had some copies published in the school's back rooms. Still, I never felt comfortable with pen pointed to drawing pad. So somewhere in high school, I determined to only casually draw, and instead focus on my writing talent. Having a personal computer helped.
Oh, throughout the next few years, I wrote and wrote. Then after college and all the wonderful stories I wrote in Professor Schneeman's fiction writing classes (R.I.P.), I wrote less and less. Then I got my first "real" job, and wrote some more. I started writing this blog as--you guessed it--a method of rebuilding my atrophied skills in hopes to start writing bigger things. I failed then, but you have no idea how badly I want to succeed this time around. I have two novels in my head (thinking too big!) and one short story with several more to follow if only I just start that first damned short story. (No, it won't be damned short, but it will be a short story. Just damned.) Think of what I'm doing now as flexing the mental muscles. I know the skills are up here (pointing to my head), it's just a matter of getting them down here (wiggling my fingers). We'll see what I've learned in the intervening years and go from there.
They say you write what you know, and you pick up tricks from what you read. I've enjoyed some genuinely great books lately, thanks to my own interests but mainly those of friends. This is my chance to say thanks to Ben for introducing me to Joe Hill's opus Heart-Shaped Box, a crackling good yarn (isn't that term a cliche?) if ever there was, and thanks also to Stephanie for getting me to order Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, which is an absolutely fascinating exercise in social psychology and an immense boon to me as a writer reaching for that next novel. Hill earns style points in a way his dad never could with me, and Gladwell's just fascinating for laying out social psych theory in a way that just makes my brain tickle with anticipation of putting these ideas into play in a future story.
Y'know, a couple of years ago, when I was putting together ideas for a big novel, I jotted everything down in a Five-Star Notebook. I had lots of good ideas but had no clue how to brand the narrative to fit what I wanted to accomplish. Now, a few years later, I find some of the concepts in that notebook weren't so bad, but now have a whole other method of using the ideas contained therein. I think I'm finally going to put a few years' worth of research to good use and write what amounts to the story that I should have been planning all along since 2005. And on top of that...I still have another novel in my head, one which will see the return of characters that made their first appearance over ten years ago, in that all-but-forgotten Friday the 13th/The X-Files crossover story. Of course, they're being tweaked a little, as they were created as little more than Mulder and Scully clones, but then again, nobody else is ever going to see that fanfic story from yesteryear, are they?
Did I answer why I write? No?
Simple answer: because it's fun.
Maybe you won't hear me tomorrow. Maybe I'll be too busy spinning my agonizing story of karaoke gone horribly wrong.
I speak from experience on this one. And no, it won't be comedy.
Because that would be hard, wouldn't it?
~G.
(...lend me your ears, for they taste really good salted, but I'm sorry, for you won't get them back!)
Last night, I began the precipitous climb forward to delivering a short fiction piece I intend to shop to writing magazines in the vain (let's hope not) hope of obtaining an agent and actual employment in the literary field. (I know, I need to join AA--Authors Anonymous.) The climb started waaaaaay at the bottom of the mountain...or if you prefer, at the foot of the McDowell Mountains, where I currently reside. This is my second part of said climb, We'll see if I can't crank out some Pure Imagination (TM) two nights in a row.
So, why do I write? Short, funny answer: Because I suck as an artist.
I'm sure some of you are laughing at the above, and some of you just don't get it. The longer version is that I grew up reading comic books. I still read comic books. I read actual books, too, but yes, I hold a fondness for the comic, of which I shall never let go. Ever since I was little, I had a fertile imagination. I would take sheets of blank paper, fold them together, staple them down the middle, and doodle a cover featuring Spider-Man, or the Hulk, or one of my own superheroes, the all-powerful Goober Man. (He was star of my very own imaginary Marvel Comic, with the oh-so-cool name of Marvel Print. How lame can you get?) And, aside from a story I distinctly recall about Spider-Man and the Hulk fighting in some underground parking garage, I don't think very many of those interior sheets of typing paper ever got filled. It must have driven my parents nuts, to think they were buying all this typing paper and only about 1 in every 10 of those pages ever had anything on it. So sue me, I was young.
And it took me a few years to realize the salient truth: I couldn't draw!
Well, I could lay things out. But my execution...makes me look back and want to execute myself. Sure, I took art classes, and even scored straight A's in two drawing classes in high school. Somewhere during that time I even created a cosmic-styled character named Infinitus (later, I discovered the name was that of a one-off Spider-Man villain!), and his cadre of cosmic folks. I even created this creature of ultimate evil made flesh, called the Behemoth. I drew up the first issue of Infinitus and had some copies published in the school's back rooms. Still, I never felt comfortable with pen pointed to drawing pad. So somewhere in high school, I determined to only casually draw, and instead focus on my writing talent. Having a personal computer helped.
Oh, throughout the next few years, I wrote and wrote. Then after college and all the wonderful stories I wrote in Professor Schneeman's fiction writing classes (R.I.P.), I wrote less and less. Then I got my first "real" job, and wrote some more. I started writing this blog as--you guessed it--a method of rebuilding my atrophied skills in hopes to start writing bigger things. I failed then, but you have no idea how badly I want to succeed this time around. I have two novels in my head (thinking too big!) and one short story with several more to follow if only I just start that first damned short story. (No, it won't be damned short, but it will be a short story. Just damned.) Think of what I'm doing now as flexing the mental muscles. I know the skills are up here (pointing to my head), it's just a matter of getting them down here (wiggling my fingers). We'll see what I've learned in the intervening years and go from there.
They say you write what you know, and you pick up tricks from what you read. I've enjoyed some genuinely great books lately, thanks to my own interests but mainly those of friends. This is my chance to say thanks to Ben for introducing me to Joe Hill's opus Heart-Shaped Box, a crackling good yarn (isn't that term a cliche?) if ever there was, and thanks also to Stephanie for getting me to order Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, which is an absolutely fascinating exercise in social psychology and an immense boon to me as a writer reaching for that next novel. Hill earns style points in a way his dad never could with me, and Gladwell's just fascinating for laying out social psych theory in a way that just makes my brain tickle with anticipation of putting these ideas into play in a future story.
Y'know, a couple of years ago, when I was putting together ideas for a big novel, I jotted everything down in a Five-Star Notebook. I had lots of good ideas but had no clue how to brand the narrative to fit what I wanted to accomplish. Now, a few years later, I find some of the concepts in that notebook weren't so bad, but now have a whole other method of using the ideas contained therein. I think I'm finally going to put a few years' worth of research to good use and write what amounts to the story that I should have been planning all along since 2005. And on top of that...I still have another novel in my head, one which will see the return of characters that made their first appearance over ten years ago, in that all-but-forgotten Friday the 13th/The X-Files crossover story. Of course, they're being tweaked a little, as they were created as little more than Mulder and Scully clones, but then again, nobody else is ever going to see that fanfic story from yesteryear, are they?
Did I answer why I write? No?
Simple answer: because it's fun.
Maybe you won't hear me tomorrow. Maybe I'll be too busy spinning my agonizing story of karaoke gone horribly wrong.
I speak from experience on this one. And no, it won't be comedy.
Because that would be hard, wouldn't it?
~G.
7.3.09
"Guys, it's okay! He just wanted his machete back!"
Or, more appropriately, I want my machete back. And by machete, I mean my writing mojo.
To recap where the hell I've been since my last communique: I sold stuff. I moved. I got a new job. I'm still seeking another one because...well, that would be telling, but it should be utterly obvious.
So, where am I now? Sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. (No, they didn't make a whole new town and call it "Sunny Scottsdale," because that would be redundant.) And just why is Scottsdale so famous or infamous in My Life So Far (TM)?
Let's take a trip back to...I want to say 1997. I was eighteen. That should be right. If it's not, I'll just lie and call it right anyway. Way back in the burgeoning days of the Internet, I followed some fandoms. (Still do, but nowhere near as rabidly.) One of those fandoms was Friday the 13th: The Series. (No, nothing at all to do with the slasher films. Where do people get these questions?) Another was Forever Knight. And right around then, I became involved in still another one: The X-Files. Hoo boy.
Of course, saying I was a fan wasn't enough back then, oh no; in the days of the AOhelL message boards, I felt compelled to follow the lead of others and write my own stories set in those TV universes. Up to when my parents bought me my first computer (1995--stop laughing!), I mostly wrote stories with a good ol' pen and paper, and maybe I'd do something like use an electric typewriter. The personal computer was my first excuse to go totally apeshit and write as much as I wanted without having to actually commit to paper. Saving word processor files was my salvation! And quickly I drafted two short fiction stories set in the Friday the 13th universe. (Don't bother looking for them online. Although you stand an excellent chance of finding them, they aren't representative at all of the writer I've become, and are best forgotten.)
Then I took things a step further. More comfortable in my developing talents, I wrote a Forever Knight short fiction piece. Then I wrote a novella-length Friday the 13th story. (Again, I'd rather you didn't look them up.)
Unsatisfied and possessing even loftier ambitions, I then wondered what it would be like for my favorite characters from two television shows to meet up. Such was the basis for my longest work to that date, a crossover between Friday the 13th and Forever Knight. Thirty chapters. Not bad, right?
Of course, the cliche goes that one thing leads to another, and with the pressures put on me by some of the fanfic establishment, I determined that my next story would be yet another crossover. But not just any crossover, oh no.
I remember looking on the AOL boards and seeing that someone labeled Friday the 13th a blatant rip-off of The X-Files. Nevermind that the former show had aired 71 episodes between 1987 and 1990, a full three years before the latter even hit the air! Well, I would show them. I'd come up with the biggest and best crossover event yet: Friday the 13th meets The X-Files!
In early 1997 I began to write the story. A few chapters fluttered about. The characters met in chapter one, and then quickly parted ways. I introduced a new team of private detectives who were much closer in relation to the "bad guys" of my story. Maybe they were rip-offs of Mulder and Scully, and maybe the woman didn't have to be a redhead too, but c'est la vie. And then the chapters started to pile up. Maybe twenty chapters. And a certain panic set in, because I didn't know where the goddamn thing was heading! (Years later, I had a knowing laugh when watching the film, Wonder Boys, where Michael Douglas' character Grady Tripp finds himself writing the follow-up to his smash first novel, and the page count is in the thousands because he doesn't know where the goddamn thing is heading!)
Then, the story goes, I went on vacation.
To Scottsdale.
And while I was here, well, the final pieces of the story just sort of clicked into place.
True, it took another 36 chapters beyond the twenty I'd written to that point, but I included another character from The X-Files that served as an excellent catalyst, a real reason to spin the narrative in another direction. Alex Krycek was that character. He fit in so perfectly to the story I was telling, about snakes and regeneration (with Alex having just had his arm amputated during season four), it would have been criminal to not include him in the proceedings! And so, I busily wrote several chapters of the story on my uncle's computer and e-mailed them back to myself at home. The story picked up, and it all neatly dovetailed up to the point where I wrote those magical words: THE END. (I later added a question mark, but you get the idea.)
So, you can see why I've wanted to come back here, to Scottsdale, to the sun, to the land where my creativity seems to heighten. (Or maybe it's all in my head?) The only other place where my creativity surged, in direction if not in page count, was State College, PA, where I took some fiction writing classes. But the weather there is horrid at best...
Here I am. I'm in Scottsdale, and I'm prepping for some writing. I've come back to the blogosphere to re-acquaint myself with my craft. I may even chew some bubble gum. Failing that, I guess I could always kick some ass.
But, he says, what I really want to do is write...
...and for God's sake, let's get something of consequence done in the next, oh, 34 days.(*)
~G.
* You who really know me, know the significance of 34 days from today.
To recap where the hell I've been since my last communique: I sold stuff. I moved. I got a new job. I'm still seeking another one because...well, that would be telling, but it should be utterly obvious.
So, where am I now? Sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. (No, they didn't make a whole new town and call it "Sunny Scottsdale," because that would be redundant.) And just why is Scottsdale so famous or infamous in My Life So Far (TM)?
Let's take a trip back to...I want to say 1997. I was eighteen. That should be right. If it's not, I'll just lie and call it right anyway. Way back in the burgeoning days of the Internet, I followed some fandoms. (Still do, but nowhere near as rabidly.) One of those fandoms was Friday the 13th: The Series. (No, nothing at all to do with the slasher films. Where do people get these questions?) Another was Forever Knight. And right around then, I became involved in still another one: The X-Files. Hoo boy.
Of course, saying I was a fan wasn't enough back then, oh no; in the days of the AOhelL message boards, I felt compelled to follow the lead of others and write my own stories set in those TV universes. Up to when my parents bought me my first computer (1995--stop laughing!), I mostly wrote stories with a good ol' pen and paper, and maybe I'd do something like use an electric typewriter. The personal computer was my first excuse to go totally apeshit and write as much as I wanted without having to actually commit to paper. Saving word processor files was my salvation! And quickly I drafted two short fiction stories set in the Friday the 13th universe. (Don't bother looking for them online. Although you stand an excellent chance of finding them, they aren't representative at all of the writer I've become, and are best forgotten.)
Then I took things a step further. More comfortable in my developing talents, I wrote a Forever Knight short fiction piece. Then I wrote a novella-length Friday the 13th story. (Again, I'd rather you didn't look them up.)
Unsatisfied and possessing even loftier ambitions, I then wondered what it would be like for my favorite characters from two television shows to meet up. Such was the basis for my longest work to that date, a crossover between Friday the 13th and Forever Knight. Thirty chapters. Not bad, right?
Of course, the cliche goes that one thing leads to another, and with the pressures put on me by some of the fanfic establishment, I determined that my next story would be yet another crossover. But not just any crossover, oh no.
I remember looking on the AOL boards and seeing that someone labeled Friday the 13th a blatant rip-off of The X-Files. Nevermind that the former show had aired 71 episodes between 1987 and 1990, a full three years before the latter even hit the air! Well, I would show them. I'd come up with the biggest and best crossover event yet: Friday the 13th meets The X-Files!
In early 1997 I began to write the story. A few chapters fluttered about. The characters met in chapter one, and then quickly parted ways. I introduced a new team of private detectives who were much closer in relation to the "bad guys" of my story. Maybe they were rip-offs of Mulder and Scully, and maybe the woman didn't have to be a redhead too, but c'est la vie. And then the chapters started to pile up. Maybe twenty chapters. And a certain panic set in, because I didn't know where the goddamn thing was heading! (Years later, I had a knowing laugh when watching the film, Wonder Boys, where Michael Douglas' character Grady Tripp finds himself writing the follow-up to his smash first novel, and the page count is in the thousands because he doesn't know where the goddamn thing is heading!)
Then, the story goes, I went on vacation.
To Scottsdale.
And while I was here, well, the final pieces of the story just sort of clicked into place.
True, it took another 36 chapters beyond the twenty I'd written to that point, but I included another character from The X-Files that served as an excellent catalyst, a real reason to spin the narrative in another direction. Alex Krycek was that character. He fit in so perfectly to the story I was telling, about snakes and regeneration (with Alex having just had his arm amputated during season four), it would have been criminal to not include him in the proceedings! And so, I busily wrote several chapters of the story on my uncle's computer and e-mailed them back to myself at home. The story picked up, and it all neatly dovetailed up to the point where I wrote those magical words: THE END. (I later added a question mark, but you get the idea.)
So, you can see why I've wanted to come back here, to Scottsdale, to the sun, to the land where my creativity seems to heighten. (Or maybe it's all in my head?) The only other place where my creativity surged, in direction if not in page count, was State College, PA, where I took some fiction writing classes. But the weather there is horrid at best...
Here I am. I'm in Scottsdale, and I'm prepping for some writing. I've come back to the blogosphere to re-acquaint myself with my craft. I may even chew some bubble gum. Failing that, I guess I could always kick some ass.
But, he says, what I really want to do is write...
...and for God's sake, let's get something of consequence done in the next, oh, 34 days.(*)
~G.
* You who really know me, know the significance of 34 days from today.
25.8.08
A Soul, For Sale or Rent - Part 1
Save me, guys! (Ooh, bad "Queen" reference. Sorry!)
I'm going to be moving in over a month, so that means I have to get some stuff cleared out of the ol' homestead. Okay, a LOT of stuff needs to move. That's why I'm calling on you, the assembled masses. I have comics, I have books, I have DVDs, I have CDs, and a whole bunch need to just go. I'll be posting what I have to sell here. What do you need to do if you see something you like? Send me an E-mail at garysmovingsale (at) comcast dot net. We'll discuss pricing details. Feel free to make an offer! I will be accepting payment via Paypal and other methods TBD (hint: that is NOT the correct Paypal address).
Here are the DVDs I'm selling right now. If more than one release has been made of the movie, presume it's the earliest edition (not SE) and widescreen unless noted.
13 Ghosts (remake)
13 Going on 30
A Fistful of Dollars
Alien Vs. Predator
Almost Famous
American Pie
American Pie 2
American Wedding
Badder Santa
Bare Exposure
Basic Instinct (w. Ice Pick Pen & Ice case)
Basket Case
Bedazzled
Best Buy Demo Disc 3
Best Buy exclusive: Bond Girls Are Forever
Best Buy Hellboy Demo
Bikini Summer
Bikini Summer 2
Blade Runner Director's Cut (NOT Final Cut)
Blazing Saddles
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Bringing Down the House
Bruce Almighty
Captivity
Challenge of the Superfriends volumes 1 & 2
Cheaper By the Dozen (Steve Martin)
Chicago
Chinatown
The Chronicles of Riddick (2-disc Best Buy Edition)
Collateral Damage
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Darkman
Darkman II: The Return of Durant
Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die
Desperado
Die Another Day (2-disc)
Dr. Strangelove (1-disc special edition)
Dracula 2000
Dracula 3: Legacy
El Mariachi
Entrapment
Final Destination
For a Few Dollars More
Frankenstein 2004 miniseries - Luke Goss
Frankenstein 2004 TV movie - Parker Posey
Garden State
Gone in 60 Seconds (Nic Cage remake)
Hannibal (2-disc)
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
The Incredible Hulk: The Original Television Premiere
The Incredible Hulk: The Television Series Ultimate Collection (6-disc)
King Kong (2 disc original cut)
Kingpin
Kiss of the Vampire
Liar Liar
Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
Love, Actually
Meet the Fockers
Meet the Parents (Special Edition)
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible II
National Lampoon's Vacation
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (2 disc)
Nosferatu (1922) - Image Entertainment
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Our Man Flint
Phantom of the Opera (1925 Image 1-disc)
Pitch Black (Unrated Edition)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Psycho
Red Dragon (2-disc director's edition)
Reign of Fire
Resident Evil SE
Road Trip Unrated
Roadie
Robocop (Criterion, rare--ask for price)
Roman Holiday
Rosemary's Baby
'Salem's Lot (new miniseries w/ Rob Lowe)
Say Anything...
Scooby Doo (the movie)
Shanghai Knights
Shanghai Noon
Showgirls
Showtime
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (+ bonus discs)
Skyscraper/To The Limit
Species
Superman (1940s cartoons) volumes 1 & 2
Swordfish
The Animatrix
The Birds
The Bourne Identity
The Dream Team
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Not SE)
The Hurricane
The Lawnmower Man
The Man With Two Brains (FS)
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
The Star Wars Story (Wal-Mart bonus disc)
The Tenant
The Thing (1982 SE)
The Two Jakes
The Wicker Man
There's Something More About Mary (2 disc)
Tomb Raider
True Romance
Underworld
Wedding Crashers
What Women Want
Wonder Boys
X-Men (2000)
Young Frankenstein
I'm generally asking $5 per movie, more for extra discs in the mix. Negotiable the more you buy.
~G.
I'm going to be moving in over a month, so that means I have to get some stuff cleared out of the ol' homestead. Okay, a LOT of stuff needs to move. That's why I'm calling on you, the assembled masses. I have comics, I have books, I have DVDs, I have CDs, and a whole bunch need to just go. I'll be posting what I have to sell here. What do you need to do if you see something you like? Send me an E-mail at garysmovingsale (at) comcast dot net. We'll discuss pricing details. Feel free to make an offer! I will be accepting payment via Paypal and other methods TBD (hint: that is NOT the correct Paypal address).
Here are the DVDs I'm selling right now. If more than one release has been made of the movie, presume it's the earliest edition (not SE) and widescreen unless noted.
13 Ghosts (remake)
13 Going on 30
A Fistful of Dollars
Alien Vs. Predator
Almost Famous
American Pie
American Pie 2
American Wedding
Badder Santa
Bare Exposure
Basic Instinct (w. Ice Pick Pen & Ice case)
Basket Case
Bedazzled
Best Buy Demo Disc 3
Best Buy exclusive: Bond Girls Are Forever
Best Buy Hellboy Demo
Bikini Summer
Bikini Summer 2
Blade Runner Director's Cut (NOT Final Cut)
Blazing Saddles
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Bringing Down the House
Bruce Almighty
Captivity
Challenge of the Superfriends volumes 1 & 2
Cheaper By the Dozen (Steve Martin)
Chicago
Chinatown
The Chronicles of Riddick (2-disc Best Buy Edition)
Collateral Damage
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Darkman
Darkman II: The Return of Durant
Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die
Desperado
Die Another Day (2-disc)
Dr. Strangelove (1-disc special edition)
Dracula 2000
Dracula 3: Legacy
El Mariachi
Entrapment
Final Destination
For a Few Dollars More
Frankenstein 2004 miniseries - Luke Goss
Frankenstein 2004 TV movie - Parker Posey
Garden State
Gone in 60 Seconds (Nic Cage remake)
Hannibal (2-disc)
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
The Incredible Hulk: The Original Television Premiere
The Incredible Hulk: The Television Series Ultimate Collection (6-disc)
King Kong (2 disc original cut)
Kingpin
Kiss of the Vampire
Liar Liar
Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
Love, Actually
Meet the Fockers
Meet the Parents (Special Edition)
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible II
National Lampoon's Vacation
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (2 disc)
Nosferatu (1922) - Image Entertainment
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Our Man Flint
Phantom of the Opera (1925 Image 1-disc)
Pitch Black (Unrated Edition)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Psycho
Red Dragon (2-disc director's edition)
Reign of Fire
Resident Evil SE
Road Trip Unrated
Roadie
Robocop (Criterion, rare--ask for price)
Roman Holiday
Rosemary's Baby
'Salem's Lot (new miniseries w/ Rob Lowe)
Say Anything...
Scooby Doo (the movie)
Shanghai Knights
Shanghai Noon
Showgirls
Showtime
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (+ bonus discs)
Skyscraper/To The Limit
Species
Superman (1940s cartoons) volumes 1 & 2
Swordfish
The Animatrix
The Birds
The Bourne Identity
The Dream Team
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Not SE)
The Hurricane
The Lawnmower Man
The Man With Two Brains (FS)
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
The Star Wars Story (Wal-Mart bonus disc)
The Tenant
The Thing (1982 SE)
The Two Jakes
The Wicker Man
There's Something More About Mary (2 disc)
Tomb Raider
True Romance
Underworld
Wedding Crashers
What Women Want
Wonder Boys
X-Men (2000)
Young Frankenstein
I'm generally asking $5 per movie, more for extra discs in the mix. Negotiable the more you buy.
~G.
10.6.08
Maybe "Incredible" is the wrong word...(A "HULK" Review)
Hulkamaniacs assembled:
I know it's been a while. I didn't go into hiding, contrary to popular belief. Okay, so maybe I did, but I came out in time to score free passes to a preview screening of "The Incredible Hulk," the new film starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, and a couple of CGI creations resembling the Hulk and one of his arch-enemies, the Abomination. People have speculated like mad in the days counting down to its release: will the film be everything the first movie in 2003 (to its detractors) wasn't? Will Marvel Films go two-for-two in bringing its characters to the silver screen?
It certainly hasn't been an easy go since news leaked about the quarrel between the producers, director Louis Leterrier, and star Edward Norton over final cut. Edward Norton's hardly doing any publicity for the film, probably even less than the meager amount that was planned after he had his name removed from the writing credits once the WGA viewed the finished product. Sole screenwriting credit now goes to Zak Penn, who's been much-maligned as far as Marvel screenwriters go, having written the relatively disastrous "Elektra" and "X-Men: The Last Stand." (Seriously, wasn't the fact that he wrote "PCU," "Last Action Hero," and "Inspector Gadget" enough of a dead giveaway that his scripts are a steaming pile of suck?)
(Last warning: here there be GIANT FRICKIN' SPOILERS! You have been warned.)
Yet, I went to the film with as open a mind as a dyed-in-the-wool Hulk fan could. The first thing that struck me was how quickly the film was paced. Aside from the origin being played against the opening credits, the story opens in medias res and asks the audience to follow along as best they can. Benefitting from the larger budget and location shoots that the TV show couldn't pull off, the film begins in Brazil as Bruce Banner works as a lowly laborer at a bottling plant for some kind of green-hued energy drink. It's been well over a hundred days since his last metamorphosis. He's learning yoga, messing around with metronomes, training with a master of martial arts, learning techniques to manage his anger and suppress his inner beast. He's also learning Portuguese (watch for the Bill Bixby cameo!) and corresponding via an encrypted wireless connection with a mysterious colleague, "Mr. Blue," who promises a cure for his gamma exposure--if only he can give him a blood sample, and the data on his original exposure.
An accident happens with the equipment at the plant, and Banner cuts his hand, a drop of blood dribbling down to the conveyors below. He immediately shouts out, having the foreman stop the plant. He seals the cut with super glue and runs to wipe up the blood. He thinks he has it all...but no, as the conveyors start anew, one bottle escapes, a drop of blood smeared inside, then filled with the green beverage and shipped to the United States. Of course, the wrong person (Stan Lee, in an inspired bit) drinks the drink, gets gamma poisoning; thus the army is tipped off to the location of the esteemed Doctor, and the chase, as they say, is on.
General "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt, not nearly equalling the depth of character of Sam Elliott) dispatches a crew headed up by Russian-born, British-bred Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) to do what the soldiers think is an easy "snatch-and-grab," but which they of course find is anything but when Banner transforms after an exciting, town-spanning chase sequence. The transformation and the lead-up to it are well-done, and director Leterrier gives the sequence ample mood by placing it mostly in the dark, not totally letting the cat out of the proverbial bag regarding the Hulk's overall appearance. It's during this sequence we hear the Hulk's first words, and the most he ever says at once during the film: "Leave me alone." It's also here where Blonsky first falls in hetero lust with the power of the Hulk--a power which he covets for himself. The crew gets their asses handed to them, of course, and the Hulk escapes (all the way to Guatemala). Blonsky wants to be better armed for the next time--and General Ross unearths Dr. Reinstein's super-soldier formula from WWII for a test-run.
I don't want to go too much further into the details of the movie itself. Of course, you know that Bruce reunites with Betty, who's dating psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samson. The army again catches up with Bruce, who hulks out. Blonsky continues to evolve, and Bruce and Betty finally meet the enigmatic Mr. Blue, a biologist named Sam Sterns. Hijinks ensue, a cure is briefly found, and then Blonsky undergoes his ultimate transformation. Then the REALLY BIG BATTLE happens, and it's game over.
Louis Leterrier did a thankless job directing this movie in a way wholly unlike the 2003 film. The tone is much faster, but also more standard. There's no novel "comic-booky" editing style, just a lean, mean machine of narrative that may actually be a bit too lean. Whole pieces of the narrative are missing, including the opening sequence set in the Arctic and an entire sequence between Bruce and Leonard Samson (both shown in varying degrees in the trailers). The fear of the filmmakers to have any real emotional connection, any real drama, seems to have translated into an all-action film to the exclusion of any scenes that may actually shed three-dimensional light on the characters. Not that there isn't any character development to be found (it's mostly Blonsky's arc), it's just that there's so much action, it doesn't feel like the film has the editorial balance it needs in order to be truly successful in the same way as, say, this year's "Iron Man."
I've been withholding the answer to the most important question posed by anyone: How does the Hulk look? Does the CGI hold up? Is it better than the first film? Sadly, I thought Rhythm & Hues missed the mark with regard to the Hulk's actual look. He does look fake...serviceable, but I thought the 2003 incarnation looked and moved much better. (Truthfully, when you see a full body view of the Hulk, it honestly seemed like most of his muscles were in his legs, not his upper body.) Whereas the Hulk didn't look all that great aside from a few scenes, the Abomination looked nothing short of spectacular. The battle between the Hulk and the Abomination was done on a grand scale, and it didn't disappoint. It moved so quickly, I all but forgot about the flaws in the Hulk's design and just went with it.
Am I happy with the film? It's tough to say. You have your obligatory in-joke moments--cameos by Bix, Stan, and Lou; name-dropping of everything from SHIELD, to Captain America, to Jim Wilson, Rick Jones, and Jack McGee--and you have a narrative that tries to be an amped-up version of its television predecessor, but with many of the trappings of the source material. It's a mishmash, but a fun mishmash, provided you don't think too hard. I would have liked to see a bit more character development all around (including the restoration of those "lost" scenes) and a slightly different design for the Hulk himself, but what I saw was by no means terrible. I'll be seeing it at least once more in the theatres.
How did the crowd react? I heard applause with the Hulk's two-word catch phrase, HUGE applause with the arrival of Tony Stark at film's end, and moderate applause when the credits rolled. There were laughs to be had when Bruce and Betty attempted (but didn't succeed at) a little hanky-panky in a hotel room while on the way to New York. And yes, Bruce trips all over Portuguese and ends up slaughtering his classic catch-phrase from the 70s show.
"The Incredible Hulk" is an uneven but still impressive effort. Catch it in the theatre, then wait for the inevitable "Expanded Edition" Blu-Ray release.
Grade (the film): B+
Grade (the Hulk's CGI): C-
How much will it make opening weekend? $58 million
~G.
I know it's been a while. I didn't go into hiding, contrary to popular belief. Okay, so maybe I did, but I came out in time to score free passes to a preview screening of "The Incredible Hulk," the new film starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, and a couple of CGI creations resembling the Hulk and one of his arch-enemies, the Abomination. People have speculated like mad in the days counting down to its release: will the film be everything the first movie in 2003 (to its detractors) wasn't? Will Marvel Films go two-for-two in bringing its characters to the silver screen?
It certainly hasn't been an easy go since news leaked about the quarrel between the producers, director Louis Leterrier, and star Edward Norton over final cut. Edward Norton's hardly doing any publicity for the film, probably even less than the meager amount that was planned after he had his name removed from the writing credits once the WGA viewed the finished product. Sole screenwriting credit now goes to Zak Penn, who's been much-maligned as far as Marvel screenwriters go, having written the relatively disastrous "Elektra" and "X-Men: The Last Stand." (Seriously, wasn't the fact that he wrote "PCU," "Last Action Hero," and "Inspector Gadget" enough of a dead giveaway that his scripts are a steaming pile of suck?)
(Last warning: here there be GIANT FRICKIN' SPOILERS! You have been warned.)
Yet, I went to the film with as open a mind as a dyed-in-the-wool Hulk fan could. The first thing that struck me was how quickly the film was paced. Aside from the origin being played against the opening credits, the story opens in medias res and asks the audience to follow along as best they can. Benefitting from the larger budget and location shoots that the TV show couldn't pull off, the film begins in Brazil as Bruce Banner works as a lowly laborer at a bottling plant for some kind of green-hued energy drink. It's been well over a hundred days since his last metamorphosis. He's learning yoga, messing around with metronomes, training with a master of martial arts, learning techniques to manage his anger and suppress his inner beast. He's also learning Portuguese (watch for the Bill Bixby cameo!) and corresponding via an encrypted wireless connection with a mysterious colleague, "Mr. Blue," who promises a cure for his gamma exposure--if only he can give him a blood sample, and the data on his original exposure.
An accident happens with the equipment at the plant, and Banner cuts his hand, a drop of blood dribbling down to the conveyors below. He immediately shouts out, having the foreman stop the plant. He seals the cut with super glue and runs to wipe up the blood. He thinks he has it all...but no, as the conveyors start anew, one bottle escapes, a drop of blood smeared inside, then filled with the green beverage and shipped to the United States. Of course, the wrong person (Stan Lee, in an inspired bit) drinks the drink, gets gamma poisoning; thus the army is tipped off to the location of the esteemed Doctor, and the chase, as they say, is on.
General "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt, not nearly equalling the depth of character of Sam Elliott) dispatches a crew headed up by Russian-born, British-bred Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) to do what the soldiers think is an easy "snatch-and-grab," but which they of course find is anything but when Banner transforms after an exciting, town-spanning chase sequence. The transformation and the lead-up to it are well-done, and director Leterrier gives the sequence ample mood by placing it mostly in the dark, not totally letting the cat out of the proverbial bag regarding the Hulk's overall appearance. It's during this sequence we hear the Hulk's first words, and the most he ever says at once during the film: "Leave me alone." It's also here where Blonsky first falls in hetero lust with the power of the Hulk--a power which he covets for himself. The crew gets their asses handed to them, of course, and the Hulk escapes (all the way to Guatemala). Blonsky wants to be better armed for the next time--and General Ross unearths Dr. Reinstein's super-soldier formula from WWII for a test-run.
I don't want to go too much further into the details of the movie itself. Of course, you know that Bruce reunites with Betty, who's dating psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samson. The army again catches up with Bruce, who hulks out. Blonsky continues to evolve, and Bruce and Betty finally meet the enigmatic Mr. Blue, a biologist named Sam Sterns. Hijinks ensue, a cure is briefly found, and then Blonsky undergoes his ultimate transformation. Then the REALLY BIG BATTLE happens, and it's game over.
Louis Leterrier did a thankless job directing this movie in a way wholly unlike the 2003 film. The tone is much faster, but also more standard. There's no novel "comic-booky" editing style, just a lean, mean machine of narrative that may actually be a bit too lean. Whole pieces of the narrative are missing, including the opening sequence set in the Arctic and an entire sequence between Bruce and Leonard Samson (both shown in varying degrees in the trailers). The fear of the filmmakers to have any real emotional connection, any real drama, seems to have translated into an all-action film to the exclusion of any scenes that may actually shed three-dimensional light on the characters. Not that there isn't any character development to be found (it's mostly Blonsky's arc), it's just that there's so much action, it doesn't feel like the film has the editorial balance it needs in order to be truly successful in the same way as, say, this year's "Iron Man."
I've been withholding the answer to the most important question posed by anyone: How does the Hulk look? Does the CGI hold up? Is it better than the first film? Sadly, I thought Rhythm & Hues missed the mark with regard to the Hulk's actual look. He does look fake...serviceable, but I thought the 2003 incarnation looked and moved much better. (Truthfully, when you see a full body view of the Hulk, it honestly seemed like most of his muscles were in his legs, not his upper body.) Whereas the Hulk didn't look all that great aside from a few scenes, the Abomination looked nothing short of spectacular. The battle between the Hulk and the Abomination was done on a grand scale, and it didn't disappoint. It moved so quickly, I all but forgot about the flaws in the Hulk's design and just went with it.
Am I happy with the film? It's tough to say. You have your obligatory in-joke moments--cameos by Bix, Stan, and Lou; name-dropping of everything from SHIELD, to Captain America, to Jim Wilson, Rick Jones, and Jack McGee--and you have a narrative that tries to be an amped-up version of its television predecessor, but with many of the trappings of the source material. It's a mishmash, but a fun mishmash, provided you don't think too hard. I would have liked to see a bit more character development all around (including the restoration of those "lost" scenes) and a slightly different design for the Hulk himself, but what I saw was by no means terrible. I'll be seeing it at least once more in the theatres.
How did the crowd react? I heard applause with the Hulk's two-word catch phrase, HUGE applause with the arrival of Tony Stark at film's end, and moderate applause when the credits rolled. There were laughs to be had when Bruce and Betty attempted (but didn't succeed at) a little hanky-panky in a hotel room while on the way to New York. And yes, Bruce trips all over Portuguese and ends up slaughtering his classic catch-phrase from the 70s show.
"The Incredible Hulk" is an uneven but still impressive effort. Catch it in the theatre, then wait for the inevitable "Expanded Edition" Blu-Ray release.
Grade (the film): B+
Grade (the Hulk's CGI): C-
How much will it make opening weekend? $58 million
~G.
9.1.08
From the Company That Brought You CLOR Comes...RULK!
Well, I couldn't resist...on its first day of release, ahead of my weekly shipment, I went ahead and picked up Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness' HULK #1 at my local comic shop. SPOILERS below, natch. (And for those who didn't get the title joke: Clor = Clone Thor from CIVIL WAR, so Rulk = Red Hulk, herein.)
The first thing that struck me was the cover logo. I was immediately reminded of the last time HULK was rebooted. ("We took the INCREDIBLE off the cover and put it IN the book!") It's basically the logo that's had the most staying power (being on in the late 60s, then again during Peter David's tenure), only with an inversion of perspective. Not a bad logo, per se, but hey, I liked the logo from the #200s best, even if it didn't really fit the character.
Moving along to the story inside, in a nutshell: Doc Samson and She-Hulk go to Russia to re-enact the murder (!) of the Abomination, who was apparently stomped on and then shot by the Hulk (!!) in a battle that demolished an entire village. They, together with General Ross, Iron Man, and Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. then encounter the Winter Guard (the old Soviet Super Soldiers). Of course, there's the obligatory fight scene because the Guard want to find Blonsky/Abomination's killer themselves. Ross breaks up the battle with gunshots to alert the heroes that he's discovered a survivor in the town, a boy whose only word, over and over again, is the Russian word for "red." Meanwhile, in the Alaskan frontier, a shirtless, shoeless Rick Jones wakes up to find a nearby town engulfed in flames, and asks the Bruce Banner-ish query: "Rick Jones...what've you gotten yourself into THIS time?!" Lastly, General Ross and Doc Samson travel to the new Gamma Base in Nevada, where a ways beneath the surface, they arrive at a secret level complete with a single patient: Robert Bruce Banner.
The story seems to meander a bit and flirt with being a direct rehash of a bunch of Hulk storylines in the recent and distant past. We've got a "did the Hulk kill?" mystery a la the last relaunched Hulk #1, a brutal Hulk/Abomination battle a la Hulk #25, a battle with the former Soviet Super Soldiers eerily a la Incredible Hulk #393, Bruce Banner's wonderful impression of Hannibal Lecter (without the fava beans or Chianti) a la the recent run in The Ultimates, and last but not least, a retread of Rick Jones as the Hulk from Incredible Hulk #325-332. Did I miss anything? It's like NBC's summer ads for Must See TV: "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you." For those that have, well, I'm sticking around, but you might feel like there's something more important to do, like read The Incredible Hercules or Warbound or the World War Hulk: Aftersmash issue du jour.
If the identity of the red Hulk (who only appears red on the cover, for God's sake) is supposed to be a mystery (as the issue's--and arc's--title, "Who Is The Hulk?", would seem to indicate), then it isn't a very good one, as it's solved by the fifth to final page of the story. Then again, "Who Is The Hulk?" is a better, more dramatic title than, say, "Why Is The Hulk Red?" or my personal favorite, "Why Should We Give A Damn What Color The Hulk Is?". If the answer is given by Rick Jones' torn pants in this issue, then we only have the "who" and not the "how" or "why." I'm curious, but at the same time, I've seen these tropes before. I'd rather see someone else become the Hulk if it's not going to be Bruce. The strangeness of the flow from WWH #5 to this book has me just interested enough to see where everything's headed. Then again, what are the chances Jeph Loeb's trying to fake us out and make us only think Rick is Rulk? (Admittedly: not very.)
The art by Ed McGuinness is pretty good, with adequate storytelling. I'm guessing the series right now is being written by Loeb as a favor to McGuinness, who loves the Hulk and is, I'm sure, telling Loeb what he wants to draw so he can build a story around it. (Not the best way by far of building a narrative, but them's the brakes.) Of course, Loeb will explain why someone else is the Hulk right now, and how, and eventually, Bruce Banner will make his way above ground and become big and green again. And the Abomination will return, too. That's the way it always works. And ordinarily, I like these types of dissections of character stories, so that's another reason I'm sticking on board (aside from the fact that I own every book with "Hulk" as part of its title since 1962).
For originality, this issue #1 gets a big fat 0/10 because as the Barenaked Ladies sang, "It's all been done"....art gets a solid 7/10, and the script gets a 6/10. Overall, that means I give HULK #1 a rating of 13 out of 30. But if you take out the originality rating, it's a 13/20. Whee.
Well, there you have it. I'm not going to speculate on the whys and wherefores just yet...I'd rather sit back and relax and let any further comments and speculation pour in. I may be back next week with more Hulk-related reviews, or some actual speculation.
Keep on Hulkin'!
~G.
The first thing that struck me was the cover logo. I was immediately reminded of the last time HULK was rebooted. ("We took the INCREDIBLE off the cover and put it IN the book!") It's basically the logo that's had the most staying power (being on in the late 60s, then again during Peter David's tenure), only with an inversion of perspective. Not a bad logo, per se, but hey, I liked the logo from the #200s best, even if it didn't really fit the character.
Moving along to the story inside, in a nutshell: Doc Samson and She-Hulk go to Russia to re-enact the murder (!) of the Abomination, who was apparently stomped on and then shot by the Hulk (!!) in a battle that demolished an entire village. They, together with General Ross, Iron Man, and Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. then encounter the Winter Guard (the old Soviet Super Soldiers). Of course, there's the obligatory fight scene because the Guard want to find Blonsky/Abomination's killer themselves. Ross breaks up the battle with gunshots to alert the heroes that he's discovered a survivor in the town, a boy whose only word, over and over again, is the Russian word for "red." Meanwhile, in the Alaskan frontier, a shirtless, shoeless Rick Jones wakes up to find a nearby town engulfed in flames, and asks the Bruce Banner-ish query: "Rick Jones...what've you gotten yourself into THIS time?!" Lastly, General Ross and Doc Samson travel to the new Gamma Base in Nevada, where a ways beneath the surface, they arrive at a secret level complete with a single patient: Robert Bruce Banner.
The story seems to meander a bit and flirt with being a direct rehash of a bunch of Hulk storylines in the recent and distant past. We've got a "did the Hulk kill?" mystery a la the last relaunched Hulk #1, a brutal Hulk/Abomination battle a la Hulk #25, a battle with the former Soviet Super Soldiers eerily a la Incredible Hulk #393, Bruce Banner's wonderful impression of Hannibal Lecter (without the fava beans or Chianti) a la the recent run in The Ultimates, and last but not least, a retread of Rick Jones as the Hulk from Incredible Hulk #325-332. Did I miss anything? It's like NBC's summer ads for Must See TV: "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you." For those that have, well, I'm sticking around, but you might feel like there's something more important to do, like read The Incredible Hercules or Warbound or the World War Hulk: Aftersmash issue du jour.
If the identity of the red Hulk (who only appears red on the cover, for God's sake) is supposed to be a mystery (as the issue's--and arc's--title, "Who Is The Hulk?", would seem to indicate), then it isn't a very good one, as it's solved by the fifth to final page of the story. Then again, "Who Is The Hulk?" is a better, more dramatic title than, say, "Why Is The Hulk Red?" or my personal favorite, "Why Should We Give A Damn What Color The Hulk Is?". If the answer is given by Rick Jones' torn pants in this issue, then we only have the "who" and not the "how" or "why." I'm curious, but at the same time, I've seen these tropes before. I'd rather see someone else become the Hulk if it's not going to be Bruce. The strangeness of the flow from WWH #5 to this book has me just interested enough to see where everything's headed. Then again, what are the chances Jeph Loeb's trying to fake us out and make us only think Rick is Rulk? (Admittedly: not very.)
The art by Ed McGuinness is pretty good, with adequate storytelling. I'm guessing the series right now is being written by Loeb as a favor to McGuinness, who loves the Hulk and is, I'm sure, telling Loeb what he wants to draw so he can build a story around it. (Not the best way by far of building a narrative, but them's the brakes.) Of course, Loeb will explain why someone else is the Hulk right now, and how, and eventually, Bruce Banner will make his way above ground and become big and green again. And the Abomination will return, too. That's the way it always works. And ordinarily, I like these types of dissections of character stories, so that's another reason I'm sticking on board (aside from the fact that I own every book with "Hulk" as part of its title since 1962).
For originality, this issue #1 gets a big fat 0/10 because as the Barenaked Ladies sang, "It's all been done"....art gets a solid 7/10, and the script gets a 6/10. Overall, that means I give HULK #1 a rating of 13 out of 30. But if you take out the originality rating, it's a 13/20. Whee.
Well, there you have it. I'm not going to speculate on the whys and wherefores just yet...I'd rather sit back and relax and let any further comments and speculation pour in. I may be back next week with more Hulk-related reviews, or some actual speculation.
Keep on Hulkin'!
~G.
28.12.07
2007 Wrap Party: Top 10 Requested Trades
Howdy, cowpokes!
I figured I'd close out 2007 and look forward to 2008 at the same time. This Christmas, I got a bunch of trade paperbacks and hardcovers that just look pretty on my bookshelf. I completed my set of DC's 52 trades (including World War III), made headway on Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus collection with the first three volumes, ditto with Vertigo's Y The Last Man collections with volumes 5-9, started and finished X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse Epic (4 volumes), and even got The Avengers: Operation Galactic Storm and Jae Lee's Hellshock in trade. But, as always, there are books out there on my "wish list"--stuff the Big Two have yet to release in trades for whatever reason (not even one volume of them--that's my caveat), that I really want to see. Without further ado, I'd like to fill you guys in on my 2008 Wanted Trades (and Hardcovers, too!)...
10) Secret Wars II Omnibus (Marvel Comics) Yes, my first choice may be reviled among comic historians, but the second Secret Wars effort from Jim Shooter & co, bringing the Beyonder to Earth and teaching him how to use the bathroom, was goofy 80s fun, and should be reprinted as threatened, with the deluxe Omnibus treatment, including all of the crossovers that Marvel can get the rights to (guessing that counts out Transformers and Micronauts to name two). If nothing else, it's an intriguing study in a line-wide crossover, and the do's and don't's of such an undertaking.
9) Essential Master of Kung Fu (Marvel Comics) It should happen. Marvel must get the rights for Fu Manchu from the Sax Rohmer Estate so that it can republish, in glorious black-and-white, its most masterful achievement of the 1970s. Created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, innovated by Doug Moench and a host of artists including Paul Gulacy, Mike Zeck, and Gene Day, the adventures of kung-fu master Shang Chi, son of the most infamous criminal mastermind who ever lived, were a testament to the creativity present at the House of Ideas. The series actually outsold The Amazing Spider-Man at the apex of its run! What's more "Essential" than that? In the words of Stan Lee, "'Nuff said!"
8) The Incredible Hulk: Days of Rage (Marvel Comics) The Hulk has had some interesting stories in his 45-year history, but this is the one that made me a fan for life. After years, Bruce Banner had finally learned to control his inner beast, asserting his intellect in the Hulk's body, receiving a Presidental pardon, becoming the hero he knew he could be. And then, with the prodding of Nightmare, it all fell apart, and the Hulk became even more of a monster than ever before. Certainly an influence on World War Hulk, this story by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, from Incredible Hulk #292-300, with flashbacks of the previous dozen or so issues, deserves to be in a format where it can be appreciated for all time.
7) Legion Lost (DC Comics) It may not matter anymore because of the recent continuity revamps that have affected the Legion. In fact, there's no group I can think of in recent history that has been revamped as much as the Legion, and yet I keep hearing good things about this 12-issue miniseries by writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and artist Olivier Coipel. It's tough to find, so tough I haven't read it at all. In fact, I really can't say anything else about it. It may just be DC's very own Avengers Forever. Trade it already, DC?
6) Marvel Visionaries: Warren Ellis (Marvel Comics) Okay, I have given in. Although I don't care for much of what was ultimately done with the character as a result, Warren Ellis resurrected the character of Daimon Hellstrom from the ashes, taking over from writers Rafael Nieves and Len Kaminski and forming a truly dark book out of the final ten issues of Hellstorm: Prince of Lies, and even stretched the awesome to the seldom-heard-of Druid miniseries, in which Hellstrom guest-starred. Both of these works should be collected in one sturdy super-volume, with additional introspections by Ellis himself. It's just the kind of dark drama that Ellis is having fun with over in Thunderbolts. So why not? C'mon already, Marvel!
5) The Avengers: The Crossing (Marvel Comics) The 90's were a period where Marvel pushed out too many comics, and too many crossovers, and nobody celebrated excess like Terry Kavanagh and Ben Raab, both of whom show up guilty as charged in this "status-quo-shaking" epic starring the Avengers, Force Works (the West Coast Avengers by any other name), and War Machine. Betrayed by Iron Man, the Avengers are faced with the ultimate scheme of the time-traveling villain, Kang, and his band of ne'er-do-wells from the future, including analogues of some Avengers mainstays. Though later retconned in Avengers Forever, this storyline still holds a special place in the hearts of some fans, and a two-volume uber-collection would be a worthwhile effort. Plus, some of the creative people in this storyline have gone to bigger and better things, Mike Deodato and Jim Cheung among them.
4) Jack Kirby's The Demon (DC Comics) Come on, DC! You've been republishing Kirby's Fourth World stuff, Kamandi is on its umpteenth Archives volume, OMAC is getting a hardcover early next year...what's your excuse with Kirby's immortal demonic creation? Although certainly there's more mileage in the Ennis/McCrea Demon of more recent vintage, I haven't even seen these Demon epics, and I'm guessing very few others have lately, too. Releasing a hardcover edition of all 16 issues would be a godsend...or maybe a demon-send.
3) Essential Morbius, The Living Vampire (Marvel Comics) While Marvel's certainly been releasing the horror titles of the 70s in the Essentials format with relish, this morsel would truly make the collection complete. start with Morbius' appearances in the Spider-Man titles up through his cure (Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #38), stir in Morbius' own solo black-and-white adventures from Vampire Tales and Marvel Preview, add a drop of his color solo series in Adventure Into Fear, then sprinkle in guest-shots with the Thing (Marvel Two-In-One #15), the Werewolf By Night (Giant-Size Werewolf #4), and Legion of Monsters (Marvel Premiere #28), and you'd have yourself a nifty volume featuring every single appearance of the living vampire at a bargain cost.
2) Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic (Marvel Comics) The title sort of says it all, doesn't it? Love it or hate it, there was no higher point in the Spiderverse during the 1990s than The Clone Saga. Ben Reilly injected some much-needed drama and compelling storylines into the Spider-titles, bringing with him a host of new supporting cast members and villains, like Seward Trainer, Desiree Winthrop, Judas Traveller, Scrier, a rejuvenated Jackal, Kaine, Armada, and more (many of whom haven't been seen since). Although a scant few pieces of the overall puzzle have been traded to date (Clone Genesis collecting the original 70's saga; The Lost Years collecting that miniseries; Revelations which collected the saga's ultimate storyline; and some issues were collected in the Onslaught trades), the whole thing deserves the star treatment, with text pieces bridging the gaps and whatever's decided as relatively unimportant. The first trade should include "The Double" and "The Parker Legacy" (both backup tales first banded together in Lost Years #0), The Lost Years miniseries proper, the Ben Reilly cameos from the months immediately preceding the actual start of the new Clone Saga, then "Power & Responsibility," "The Exile Returns," and "Back From The Edge," plus Spider-Man Unlimited #7, getting the next volume ready for "Web of Life" and "Web of Death" as well as everything else that culminated in The Amazing Spider-Man #400, still what I consider to be the best Spidey book ever. And then it goes onward from there. Wouldn't it be great?
1) I...Vampire! (DC Comics/Vertigo) This book is as close to perfect as anything written by, oh, four main writers could be. Collecting The House of Mystery #290-291, 293, 295, 297, 299, and 302-319, the series followed Andrew Bennett, a British nobleman who was transformed into a vampire and who then transferred the curse to his lover, Mary Seward, who was overwhelmed by evil and turned against him, forming the Cult of the Blood Red Moon. Together with two humans, Bennett fought the cult in all their guises. The series was created by J.M. DeMatteis & Tom Sutton in 1981 and continued through a few other writers (Bruce Jones, then Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn) before coming to its conclusion in 1983. It had great covers by Michael Kaluta and Joe Kubert. Tom Sutton stayed aboard for most of the run to provide interior art. The series would fit nicely in a 300-page trade or hardcover, with plenty of room for some nifty extras. It would fit better under the Vertigo banner than the traditional DC one, save for one appearance by Batman (Brave and the Bold #195, which is the only appearance Bennett made outside HoM).
What do you think, sirs?
~G.
I figured I'd close out 2007 and look forward to 2008 at the same time. This Christmas, I got a bunch of trade paperbacks and hardcovers that just look pretty on my bookshelf. I completed my set of DC's 52 trades (including World War III), made headway on Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus collection with the first three volumes, ditto with Vertigo's Y The Last Man collections with volumes 5-9, started and finished X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse Epic (4 volumes), and even got The Avengers: Operation Galactic Storm and Jae Lee's Hellshock in trade. But, as always, there are books out there on my "wish list"--stuff the Big Two have yet to release in trades for whatever reason (not even one volume of them--that's my caveat), that I really want to see. Without further ado, I'd like to fill you guys in on my 2008 Wanted Trades (and Hardcovers, too!)...
10) Secret Wars II Omnibus (Marvel Comics) Yes, my first choice may be reviled among comic historians, but the second Secret Wars effort from Jim Shooter & co, bringing the Beyonder to Earth and teaching him how to use the bathroom, was goofy 80s fun, and should be reprinted as threatened, with the deluxe Omnibus treatment, including all of the crossovers that Marvel can get the rights to (guessing that counts out Transformers and Micronauts to name two). If nothing else, it's an intriguing study in a line-wide crossover, and the do's and don't's of such an undertaking.
9) Essential Master of Kung Fu (Marvel Comics) It should happen. Marvel must get the rights for Fu Manchu from the Sax Rohmer Estate so that it can republish, in glorious black-and-white, its most masterful achievement of the 1970s. Created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, innovated by Doug Moench and a host of artists including Paul Gulacy, Mike Zeck, and Gene Day, the adventures of kung-fu master Shang Chi, son of the most infamous criminal mastermind who ever lived, were a testament to the creativity present at the House of Ideas. The series actually outsold The Amazing Spider-Man at the apex of its run! What's more "Essential" than that? In the words of Stan Lee, "'Nuff said!"
8) The Incredible Hulk: Days of Rage (Marvel Comics) The Hulk has had some interesting stories in his 45-year history, but this is the one that made me a fan for life. After years, Bruce Banner had finally learned to control his inner beast, asserting his intellect in the Hulk's body, receiving a Presidental pardon, becoming the hero he knew he could be. And then, with the prodding of Nightmare, it all fell apart, and the Hulk became even more of a monster than ever before. Certainly an influence on World War Hulk, this story by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, from Incredible Hulk #292-300, with flashbacks of the previous dozen or so issues, deserves to be in a format where it can be appreciated for all time.
7) Legion Lost (DC Comics) It may not matter anymore because of the recent continuity revamps that have affected the Legion. In fact, there's no group I can think of in recent history that has been revamped as much as the Legion, and yet I keep hearing good things about this 12-issue miniseries by writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and artist Olivier Coipel. It's tough to find, so tough I haven't read it at all. In fact, I really can't say anything else about it. It may just be DC's very own Avengers Forever. Trade it already, DC?
6) Marvel Visionaries: Warren Ellis (Marvel Comics) Okay, I have given in. Although I don't care for much of what was ultimately done with the character as a result, Warren Ellis resurrected the character of Daimon Hellstrom from the ashes, taking over from writers Rafael Nieves and Len Kaminski and forming a truly dark book out of the final ten issues of Hellstorm: Prince of Lies, and even stretched the awesome to the seldom-heard-of Druid miniseries, in which Hellstrom guest-starred. Both of these works should be collected in one sturdy super-volume, with additional introspections by Ellis himself. It's just the kind of dark drama that Ellis is having fun with over in Thunderbolts. So why not? C'mon already, Marvel!
5) The Avengers: The Crossing (Marvel Comics) The 90's were a period where Marvel pushed out too many comics, and too many crossovers, and nobody celebrated excess like Terry Kavanagh and Ben Raab, both of whom show up guilty as charged in this "status-quo-shaking" epic starring the Avengers, Force Works (the West Coast Avengers by any other name), and War Machine. Betrayed by Iron Man, the Avengers are faced with the ultimate scheme of the time-traveling villain, Kang, and his band of ne'er-do-wells from the future, including analogues of some Avengers mainstays. Though later retconned in Avengers Forever, this storyline still holds a special place in the hearts of some fans, and a two-volume uber-collection would be a worthwhile effort. Plus, some of the creative people in this storyline have gone to bigger and better things, Mike Deodato and Jim Cheung among them.
4) Jack Kirby's The Demon (DC Comics) Come on, DC! You've been republishing Kirby's Fourth World stuff, Kamandi is on its umpteenth Archives volume, OMAC is getting a hardcover early next year...what's your excuse with Kirby's immortal demonic creation? Although certainly there's more mileage in the Ennis/McCrea Demon of more recent vintage, I haven't even seen these Demon epics, and I'm guessing very few others have lately, too. Releasing a hardcover edition of all 16 issues would be a godsend...or maybe a demon-send.
3) Essential Morbius, The Living Vampire (Marvel Comics) While Marvel's certainly been releasing the horror titles of the 70s in the Essentials format with relish, this morsel would truly make the collection complete. start with Morbius' appearances in the Spider-Man titles up through his cure (Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #38), stir in Morbius' own solo black-and-white adventures from Vampire Tales and Marvel Preview, add a drop of his color solo series in Adventure Into Fear, then sprinkle in guest-shots with the Thing (Marvel Two-In-One #15), the Werewolf By Night (Giant-Size Werewolf #4), and Legion of Monsters (Marvel Premiere #28), and you'd have yourself a nifty volume featuring every single appearance of the living vampire at a bargain cost.
2) Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic (Marvel Comics) The title sort of says it all, doesn't it? Love it or hate it, there was no higher point in the Spiderverse during the 1990s than The Clone Saga. Ben Reilly injected some much-needed drama and compelling storylines into the Spider-titles, bringing with him a host of new supporting cast members and villains, like Seward Trainer, Desiree Winthrop, Judas Traveller, Scrier, a rejuvenated Jackal, Kaine, Armada, and more (many of whom haven't been seen since). Although a scant few pieces of the overall puzzle have been traded to date (Clone Genesis collecting the original 70's saga; The Lost Years collecting that miniseries; Revelations which collected the saga's ultimate storyline; and some issues were collected in the Onslaught trades), the whole thing deserves the star treatment, with text pieces bridging the gaps and whatever's decided as relatively unimportant. The first trade should include "The Double" and "The Parker Legacy" (both backup tales first banded together in Lost Years #0), The Lost Years miniseries proper, the Ben Reilly cameos from the months immediately preceding the actual start of the new Clone Saga, then "Power & Responsibility," "The Exile Returns," and "Back From The Edge," plus Spider-Man Unlimited #7, getting the next volume ready for "Web of Life" and "Web of Death" as well as everything else that culminated in The Amazing Spider-Man #400, still what I consider to be the best Spidey book ever. And then it goes onward from there. Wouldn't it be great?
1) I...Vampire! (DC Comics/Vertigo) This book is as close to perfect as anything written by, oh, four main writers could be. Collecting The House of Mystery #290-291, 293, 295, 297, 299, and 302-319, the series followed Andrew Bennett, a British nobleman who was transformed into a vampire and who then transferred the curse to his lover, Mary Seward, who was overwhelmed by evil and turned against him, forming the Cult of the Blood Red Moon. Together with two humans, Bennett fought the cult in all their guises. The series was created by J.M. DeMatteis & Tom Sutton in 1981 and continued through a few other writers (Bruce Jones, then Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn) before coming to its conclusion in 1983. It had great covers by Michael Kaluta and Joe Kubert. Tom Sutton stayed aboard for most of the run to provide interior art. The series would fit nicely in a 300-page trade or hardcover, with plenty of room for some nifty extras. It would fit better under the Vertigo banner than the traditional DC one, save for one appearance by Batman (Brave and the Bold #195, which is the only appearance Bennett made outside HoM).
What do you think, sirs?
~G.
1.12.07
Pre-Aftersmash Hulkish thoughts
Compadres--
Thought it was time to stop re-editing stuff into and out of the previous segment and just start a new post. This one's inspired by Lance Eason and paolo, posters on the Hulk Message Board.
First up, some thoughts on Rick Jones' "death": although I'm sure he's not dead, the threat of the death was an interesting and evocative point, as Lance said. After all, the Hulk came into being through a selfless act--Dr. Robert Bruce Banner's rescue of Rick Jones by pushing him into the trench on the G-bomb testing site. Banner might think all of the Hulk's actions are worth his initial sacrifice to save Rick...with the threat that his actions here, preaching to Miek, now contributed indirectly to Rick's possible death, well, that's got to be more than Banner and the Hulk can take. Plus, again, thanks to Lance--there's some nice symmetry to the end of this story with Rick and Bruce in reversed roles, the former having the opportunity to save the latter's life this time around. Nice catch, Lance!
Second, some thoughts about Miek: yes, he's set up as a dark double to the Hulk, with the parallels to the Hulk and following the credo of "Never stop making them pay." Simply put, things happened such that Miek's entire hive is effectively extinct with the current generation. (Nevermind the hive he tried to have with No-Name Brood--Humbug took care of them in Heroes For Hire #15.) He believes that if his people are going to die out, what use is there in living...what use is there in the whole universe living? But he's got a hangup about what he can do about it, so rather than doing the dirty work himself, he'd rather manipulate the being he sees as given to him tailor-made for destruction. (Remember his continued denials that he was the Sakaarson and the World Breaker, from the very first moment such thoughts were brought up.) And he wants everyone, everywhere to pay for the death of his hive. That's his motivation; he's a nihilist, but overall, a cowardly one. Time will tell whether he will actually learn from his mistakes, learn to take matters in his own hands, or throw in with another party willing to do what the Hulk wouldn't.
Okay, time for paolo and the Sentry fight. A lot of people still quarrel and call the fight a stalemate, that it didn't really solve anything. I call BS. I'm looking at it this way: these two had an all out, balls-to-the-wall brawl, expending so much energy each at a sustained length such that it actually caused them both to revert to their regular mortal forms. Hulk burned off his gamma. Sentry burned off....Sentry juice. (That sounds icky.) Who had enough energy left at the end of that to deliver the final punch? The Hulk, Bruce Banner--his eyes were still green with gamma energy. Sentry...didn't show any signs of Sentry-ness at the end. His energies were expended all the way, after taking what the Hulk dished out--the Hulk took what the Sentry had, metamorphosed back to Banner, and kept going. How is this not a mark in the "W" column for the Hulk? *sigh*
There seems to be something for every Hulk fan in the next few months. (SPOILER WARNING for those who want to stay surprised!) Kate Waynesboro seems to have rejoined the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Warbound #1, and there are rumblings the big bad of that mini is none other than the Leader. (Greg Pak has been quoted as saying that #3 of the series will have plenty of Bill Mantlo-era goodness.) On top of that, in the newly-christened The Incredible Hercules series, rumor has it it won't be long before the Pantheon crashes the party. And of course we'll have our fair share of Sakaarian coolness in both Warbound with the Hulk's group on Earth, and the post-apocalypse Sakaar in the spinoff Skaar, Son of Hulk.
Something else good did come out of WWH, and it's found in the four-issue miniseries World War Hulk: Gamma Corps. If you didn't follow this mini, you need to pick it up, either in the single issues or the inevitable trade paperback collection. Frank Tieri and Carlos Ferreira crafted a tale bringing together different characters with DNA from gamma-endowed creatures spliced in. They each have their own unique stories to tell and some are even tied into the Hulk mythos from before they got their new abilities. They're all corralled by General Ryker from Paul Jenkins' short run on the Hulk book. It's a good story backed up by solid art, and it introduces some characters that should have a good impact on future Hulk stories. And how about the irony of the character of Mess! Definitely a diamond in the rough, here. Highly recommended!
For my New Year's resolution, I'd like to see more of Bruce Banner in the Hulk book. Greg P., as much as you said Bruce would be an important part of the mythos, a few placeholder panels and the feeling of importance is no substitute for some genuine dialogue and psychology! Maybe Jeph Loeb will achieve more of a balance...if the red Hulk is Banner....
~G.
Thought it was time to stop re-editing stuff into and out of the previous segment and just start a new post. This one's inspired by Lance Eason and paolo, posters on the Hulk Message Board.
First up, some thoughts on Rick Jones' "death": although I'm sure he's not dead, the threat of the death was an interesting and evocative point, as Lance said. After all, the Hulk came into being through a selfless act--Dr. Robert Bruce Banner's rescue of Rick Jones by pushing him into the trench on the G-bomb testing site. Banner might think all of the Hulk's actions are worth his initial sacrifice to save Rick...with the threat that his actions here, preaching to Miek, now contributed indirectly to Rick's possible death, well, that's got to be more than Banner and the Hulk can take. Plus, again, thanks to Lance--there's some nice symmetry to the end of this story with Rick and Bruce in reversed roles, the former having the opportunity to save the latter's life this time around. Nice catch, Lance!
Second, some thoughts about Miek: yes, he's set up as a dark double to the Hulk, with the parallels to the Hulk and following the credo of "Never stop making them pay." Simply put, things happened such that Miek's entire hive is effectively extinct with the current generation. (Nevermind the hive he tried to have with No-Name Brood--Humbug took care of them in Heroes For Hire #15.) He believes that if his people are going to die out, what use is there in living...what use is there in the whole universe living? But he's got a hangup about what he can do about it, so rather than doing the dirty work himself, he'd rather manipulate the being he sees as given to him tailor-made for destruction. (Remember his continued denials that he was the Sakaarson and the World Breaker, from the very first moment such thoughts were brought up.) And he wants everyone, everywhere to pay for the death of his hive. That's his motivation; he's a nihilist, but overall, a cowardly one. Time will tell whether he will actually learn from his mistakes, learn to take matters in his own hands, or throw in with another party willing to do what the Hulk wouldn't.
Okay, time for paolo and the Sentry fight. A lot of people still quarrel and call the fight a stalemate, that it didn't really solve anything. I call BS. I'm looking at it this way: these two had an all out, balls-to-the-wall brawl, expending so much energy each at a sustained length such that it actually caused them both to revert to their regular mortal forms. Hulk burned off his gamma. Sentry burned off....Sentry juice. (That sounds icky.) Who had enough energy left at the end of that to deliver the final punch? The Hulk, Bruce Banner--his eyes were still green with gamma energy. Sentry...didn't show any signs of Sentry-ness at the end. His energies were expended all the way, after taking what the Hulk dished out--the Hulk took what the Sentry had, metamorphosed back to Banner, and kept going. How is this not a mark in the "W" column for the Hulk? *sigh*
There seems to be something for every Hulk fan in the next few months. (SPOILER WARNING for those who want to stay surprised!) Kate Waynesboro seems to have rejoined the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Warbound #1, and there are rumblings the big bad of that mini is none other than the Leader. (Greg Pak has been quoted as saying that #3 of the series will have plenty of Bill Mantlo-era goodness.) On top of that, in the newly-christened The Incredible Hercules series, rumor has it it won't be long before the Pantheon crashes the party. And of course we'll have our fair share of Sakaarian coolness in both Warbound with the Hulk's group on Earth, and the post-apocalypse Sakaar in the spinoff Skaar, Son of Hulk.
Something else good did come out of WWH, and it's found in the four-issue miniseries World War Hulk: Gamma Corps. If you didn't follow this mini, you need to pick it up, either in the single issues or the inevitable trade paperback collection. Frank Tieri and Carlos Ferreira crafted a tale bringing together different characters with DNA from gamma-endowed creatures spliced in. They each have their own unique stories to tell and some are even tied into the Hulk mythos from before they got their new abilities. They're all corralled by General Ryker from Paul Jenkins' short run on the Hulk book. It's a good story backed up by solid art, and it introduces some characters that should have a good impact on future Hulk stories. And how about the irony of the character of Mess! Definitely a diamond in the rough, here. Highly recommended!
For my New Year's resolution, I'd like to see more of Bruce Banner in the Hulk book. Greg P., as much as you said Bruce would be an important part of the mythos, a few placeholder panels and the feeling of importance is no substitute for some genuine dialogue and psychology! Maybe Jeph Loeb will achieve more of a balance...if the red Hulk is Banner....
~G.
22.11.07
War! Hulk! Good God, Ya'll: WWH #5
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone...here, Hulkinued from last time, without further ado (no, really!)...
WORLD WAR HULK #5
December, 2007
Writer: Greg Pak
Artists: John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson & Christina Strain
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Cover Artist: David Finch
After a rampage the likes of which New York has never seen, it's the end of the road for the Hulk and his Warbound. I have a bunch of key points to touch on here because this book touched off a bit of a firestorm when it hit last week. Some fans saw it as the worst issue of the series by far, a huge letdown, while others said it capped off the best Hulk story ever in tremendous fashion. Where do I stand? Well, I think it was a meticulously plotted but somewhat lackadaisically scripted story, with art that was sketchy but that conveyed incredible amounts of power. During my overview of the story itself, I'll be stopping to address some key points: namely (1) the decision to have the final battle be between the Hulk and the Sentry; (2) the identity of the true saboteurs of the Hulk's ship and the reason why; and (3) the Hulk's decision of his own fate.
When last we left the Hulk, he had converted Madison Square Garden into a gladiatorial arena a la the one he fought in on Sakaar. Outfitting those who had wronged him with obedience disks, he then forced the key foursome of Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Dr. Strange and Black Bolt into mortal combat against one another. Richards swings a mace up above his head, ready to drive it down and crush Stark, who tries to use his Extremis-enhanced abilities to "hack" the disks so they can free themselves. He's close when the mace falls...and lands within inches of his face. Reed begins to thank Tony, but Tony admits he wasn't able to hack the device: it was the Hulk who saved his life! The Warbound wonder why, and Rick Jones is quick to counter that they don't know "the real Hulk."
So who is the "real" Hulk? A being of immense power who could crush you were you stand just like a flea...but who has enough self-restraint to not...who makes you wish he'd deliver the killing blow and who leaves you mortified when he stays his hand. Does this truly make him a "hero"? Yes and no...more appropriately, probably an anti-hero, due to his unorthodox means of proving a point. Does this mean the Hulk has no teeth? Absolutely not--he's smashed enough bad guys over the years, right? This Hulk knows that he's better off having made the threat, punishing the other "heroes" in the eyes of the world. It's no harm, no foul for him because he knows he gets blamed anyway, being the one who looks like a monster. If the people of Earth believe his story about the Illuminati acting like jerks, fine, and if they don't, well, that's fine, too, he's in no worse a position than before. And anyway, he's got his escape vehicle, the Shadow People's great stone ship.
Suddenly, as the Hulk announces he's going to let the heroes live and just destroy the city around them, an explosion hits the stone ship, and down it falls toward the Garden! Astonished, the Hulk and his Warbound wonder what could have taken down the ship, as well as how they will escape offworld now. A golden streak flies through the sky, and the culprit reveals himself: it's the Sentry, and he's come to take down ol' Greenskin!
A word about the Sentry: a number of fans have complained, pretty much since day one, that if anyone was going to take down the Hulk, it would have to be the mighty Thor, thunder god and all-purpose bad dude, freshly returned in his own regular series after too long away. Historically, the Hulk and Thor have had some big brawls--check out Journey Into Mystery #112, Defenders #10, The Mighty Thor #385, and The Incredible Hulk #255, 300 & 440 for the highlights--but when you get right down to it, he and the Hulk don't have enough in common to make it a fight. The Asgardian rage bit was done in Hulk #440. Plus, as already seen in Thor #3, Thor wasn't wont to side himself with heroes who made a clone of him that killed people.
So, you may ask, what's the manufactured Sentry character have in common with the Hulk to justify his presence in the final battle? It's a combination of factors, really. Both characters have rather reserved alter-egos in Bruce Banner and Bob Reynolds. Both have alter-egos they must physically transform into, it seems (though Reynolds-to-Sentry is...cleaner). Both characters are immensely strong--with the Hulk historically being the strongest mutated human on Earth, and the Sentry being essentially Marvel's Superman archetype. More importantly, they each have their fair share of psychoses--Banner with his Dissociative Identity Disorder/MPD, Reynolds with his agoraphobia and schizophrenia. Both also struggle to not "let go" with their full abilities for fear others will be hurt. (More later during the actual battle discussion.) Plus, while it's true that it may have a "tacked-on" feeling because of the entire retroactive continuity explanation of the Sentry's introduction and origin, like it or don't, it's been established therein that the Hulk was, after a fashion, the Sentry's sidekick, for want of a much better term. Sentry and Hulk had a bunch of unpublished adventures, and there are hints (probably more due to the misapplication of continuity than anything else) that his presence led to the ascendancy of the Hulk's "Hulk smash" persona. (Take a look at Sentry/Hulk, the one-shot from the original run of The Sentry, and see what the Hulk's dialogue patterns are in the flashbacks that allegedly take place during the mid-60s publication period.) The Sentry, it seems, smoothed the Hulk's "rough edges" and calmed him down. It's said that the Hulk hurts, all the time, and that the Sentry's power in close proximity calms him down and makes the pain subside. Deep down, I'd have to think that the other Hulk incarnations resent the Sentry for reducing him to a sidekick and, in the likely words of the Fixit incarnation, a "baby." Then there's the throwaway lines in the Giant-Size Hulk #1 back-up tale, whereby there's some subconscious resentment of the Sentry found. In "Banner War," a dream version of Miek runs the Sentry through because when the Void nearly killed the Hulk, Sentry let him recuperate on the floor in his kitchen. ("But it's a very nice ki--URK!" replies the Sentry.) Obviously, then, the Hulk has some unresolved anger issues with the Sentry. Besides that, I think there are ample parallels as explained here that make the Sentry the best choice for the final WWH headline bout.
You'll notice that prior to WWH, every appearance of the Sentry and Hulk together featured the savage, simple-minded Hulk incarnation. It's a credit to writer Greg Pak that he picked up on this little fact, and used it as the basis for Reed Richards' synthesized weapon, power from the Sentry that regressed the Hulk momentarily to his childlike self (in #2). Of course the Hulk shook off those effects, and so, he's even more enraged by the point he encounters the Sentry here that another such tactic, though genuine this time, won't have the same result. The Hulk is so focused in his anger, he keeps his same personality. And the game, as they say, is on.
Right away, the battle blows up, the strength of these two titans visually displayed as something utterly unlike any battle since that with Iron Man in #1. The Hulk warns: "You don't want this fight, Sentry," to which the Sentry replies: "Yes. God help me, I do. because you're the only one I can hit...like THIS." And hit him he does, sending him through another building, and another, and into still another, blocks away in a single punch. All the while, the Hulk reminds us that the battle and any destruction caused is on the heads of Stark, Richards, Strange, and Black Bolt. (This continued reiteration does serve a story purpose beyond beating us over the head with a quick story recap, and I'll get to that before long.) Buildings explode and collapse under the onslaught of blows traded. The Hulk keeps hitting the Sentry, who receives each crushing blow with the chilling words: "Good. Just--once--more." Then the Sentry returns fire, exploding buildings for blocks, immolating the Hulk, fire funneling through the streets as Warbound and "super-hero" alike look on incredulously.
The heroes' dialogue is a point of contention here. The Thing seems to be reading right out of the writers' bible here ("...I'd say he's bustin' out the power of a million exploding suns")--probably an attempt at levity, gone flat. Again we get the "agoraphobic schizophrenic" line, this time from Reed, but blended with the idea that Sentry has "never" unleashed his power this way before. Tony reveals his "playing God" comment from last month's flashback. "Thunderbolt" Ross gives the truism of the moment: "You morons, trading one monster for another." And Hiroim tries to trump him: "Not monster, General Ross...WORLD BREAKER." The Hulk falls before them, and Rick fears that while the Sentry may not be able to kill the Hulk, the same cannot be said for everything else on Earth. Beside him, Miek expresses...glee.
As Hiroim and Korg attempt to cleave the flames from the Hulk's body, the town awash in fire, Tony begins to take advantage of the Sentry's first action against the Hulk: the decimation of the Shadow People's great stone ship. Does everyone remember that, in #1, when the ship entered Earth's atmosphere, it disrupted the planet's satellites, rewriting their code, riddling them with viruses so the defense satellites wouldn't be able to act against the Hulk and his crew? It seems a lot of people reading this story had forgotten, but the idea was very cleverly revived herein. Now that the ship is down, it's no longer jamming the satellites, which means Tony Stark can now mobilize them...but for what purpose? Ah, questions...
Interestingly, more traits of the Hulk's Warbound brethren come to light with their helping of the heroes clearing people out of the way. We've seen Korg say that the Hulk's taken things far enough; we've seen Hiroim say that they will be punished for their quest for vengeance; now we see that the Brood leaps to the humans' defense, as she "didn't come here to watch world die." It's a salient point and a direct contrast to Miek's glee at the current situation. Elloe Kaifi also seems to share a contrarian point of view, though less extreme than Miek's--questioning why they are saving the humans. (Perhaps this bit of characterization will come into play in what comes next, the Warbound miniseries. But, I digress.)
The Hulk and Sentry continue to fight, with the Hulk leaping up into the streams of destructive energies the Sentry creates. Interestingly, the Hulk echoes a line of dialogue he spoke in Hulk #93 with "You think your machines can stop him?" referring this time to Stark's positioning of satellites for...well, you'll have to wait for it! Of especial bewilderment is the Sentry's line: "Ah, Bruce...you have to tell me something. Does it always feel this good--when you finally let go?" Does it feel good for the Hulk to smash, to let loose? I know the line from the Hulk movie ("But you know what scares me the most? When I can't fight it anymore, when it takes over, when I totally lose control... I like it."). But I know also that Banner has struggled to suppress his personal demons, to avoid the destruction, the rampages, the angst that follows the anger. Does he truly revel in the power? I'd love to find issues or sequences that directly address this point. Basically, are the Hulk and Sentry more alike than they care to admit here? Moreover, it's interesting to note that the tables have turned here and that the Hulk is once more thrust into the role of protector, that he has, since the beginning of this story arc, been in control of his actions, and he must stop a friend, come to stop him, who has himself become drunk with power. (Another note: if Sentry is so out-of-control, why hasn't the Void come out in form? Is the Void truly exorcised from the Sentry now? Is that a result of the Sentry miniseries from last year that I only half-read?)
Why does the Hulk fight to save New York City now, when only moments before he was willing to raze the city to the ground? Well, the destruction of the ship would seem to be a big contributing factor. Stuck on Earth, faced with the most powerful adversary thus far, the Hulk decides to change his tactics. Sure, there are personal reasons: a show of pride, not to just roll over and surrender; also sheer bravado, wanting to show everyone he could beat the Sentry; part also showing the Sentry who's boss after making him sleep on the kitchen floor. But now that he and the Warbound aren't going anywhere, they're going to need to get along with the humans, to have somewhere to live, and that means sparing the city; not only that, but also showing what a hero he really is, taking down another hero-cum-menace. If he saves New York, he shows up the heroes and--just maybe--gets the respect he feels he deserves, and lets the humans who saw his victory preach what a bunch of chumps the Illuminati were. His thoughts are summed up in perhaps the most important passage in the book, spoken as he and the Sentry trade awesome blows, burning tremendous amounts of energy:
"They can call you whatever they want. Savior. Destroyer. All that matters...is what YOU choose."
As Tony Stark's satellites announce their readiness, a tremendous explosion rocks the city, a bright flash igniting, then dimming, to reveal the two titans, still tussling, expending massive amounts of energy. The Hulk and the Sentry simultaneously begin to transform back into their human selves, still throwing punches. Banner hurls the last punch at Reynolds, who thanks him and collapses in a heap. Has the Hulk defeated the Sentry, or is it just a meaningless punch between two lowly mortals? Well, seeing the gamma-green glow in Banner's eyes, I would say that they each took as much as the other would give, expending the totality of the energies that give them their powers, and the definitive victor is Banner/Hulk, united at last. It's over, and the Hulk stands triumphant.
This is Banner's most prominent appearance in the series to date, and it's a doozy. Finally, the Hulk's other identity stands revealed to his Warbound teammates. (Caiera knew Banner, as he related to Strange in #3; and as it seems no surprise to Hiroim, he may have spied the transformation in the same issue along with Korg, or at the very least, his suspicions of the Hulk's "duality" from World War Hulk Prologue: World Breaker seem to have borne fruit.) Interestingly, Bruce doesn't say a word during this scene until the very end, but it's clear from the visual of his gamma-green eyes that something fundamental has changed. Hiroim calls it: "Within each of us live the World Breaker, who destroys all...and the Sakaarson, who redeems the world. Today, finally...the Hulk knows who he is." He has defeated all his adversaries...there is no one left to beat. The Hulk has shown his superiority...and he and Banner have a detente. It would seem he will emerge as the hero, unchallenged. But then...but then...
Miek cannot believe his eyes or what the others are telling him, that Banner is the Hulk. He can't believe that the battle is at an end, that there will be no more fighting, that Banner has redeemed his world. And so, to prolong the fight, he aims his spear at Banner, to force the transformation anew...only to have Rick Jones, the Hulk's oldest friend, shove Bruce out of the way and take the spear himself, collapsing to the ground. Bruce mourns as his friend teeters between life and death, finally succumbing to the monster within. Between Miek and Rick, it's no contest. Once more, Bruce's body regenerates the gamma radiation necessary to force the metamorphosis, and within seconds, he is the Hulk, the master of all he surveys. (Bruce Banner has obviously recovered from times when he could burn off all the gamma radiation in his body, circa Hulk #223-226, having, as some have theorized, now become a living, self-renewing, gamma reactor.) Tossing aside his Warbound brothers, he hits Miek as hard as ever (intriguing sound effect, that--GRGPAKK...who's the writer of this mag, anyway?), crushing his shell beneath his feet. He rages and roars, pounding his fists into Miek, blood and pieces of his shell and body flying up all over him. Miek reiterates this is what the Hulk was made for. "Never stop making them pay," he says. Then, the coup de grace: "That's why I *kik* killed them."
It's here that the evolution of the character of Miek reaches its apotheosis. The first quote has been a part of his psychology since nearly his first appearance, how much what the Hulk taught him in the arenas of Sakaar stuck. The quote first came up in #96, when Miek along with his fellow Warbound found out just how badly the Imperials had treated Miek's hive. They killed his father, enslaved him, kept the rest of the hive under their thumbs. The Hulk's rage and words of apparent inspiration allowed Miek to fight one of the Imperials, to lose one of his own arms in order to gain the advantage (there's some symbolism there, for sure). Once Miek embraced the way of the warrior, the Hulk's way, he soon after transformed into a king, the last king of his people--a warrior as big and powerful as the Hulk himself (Hulk #97). The physical transformation, again, is a symptom of the greater transformation within the character, from weak-willed to a stronger creature. His own personal decline exacerbated as he discovered a queen of his species, the last such living specimen, kept by the Red King (Hulk #99), but then lost her when the alien Spikes transformed her into one of them, forcing poor Miek to take matters into his own hands and kill her (Hulk #100). Since then, Miek helped the Hulk take the battle to the Red King (Hulk #102), but after that, he thought, his friend lost his way, bringing peace, uniting the kingdoms instead of making more war. Miek's own world, his hive, was as nothing, so he believed the world must go down in flames. Hence, when Miek discovered the message from the Illuminati on the Hulk's ship (Hulk #103), he knew he had found a weakness to exploit. When Imperials, outraged over the fact their king had been overthrown, loaded an unstable warp drive onto the Hulk's ship, Miek said nothing, knowing that when it eventually exploded, there would be no direct evidence implicating anyone but the humans. He knew that the Hulk would not be killed, but that the apparent attack would spur him to return to the planet of his birth to wreak more vengeance, to bring another world to its knees--but he didn't count on the morality of the Hulk, the innate heroism of Bruce Banner--and so, he was let down, and had to force the Hulk into further action, even at (possibly) the cost of his own life. "Never stop making them pay," he said. "We all *kik* *kik* must die. All this *kik* passing, so the next *kik* thing can come...so the World Breaker...can finally make an end." Miek is a nihilist, a world view helped along and shaped in part by the Hulk...which is far from the worst of the green goliath's problems.
First, I'll briefly address Rick's "death." Do I think he's really dead? Probably not--he's loaded onto an ambulance later in the story. Besides that, his death doesn't really have the gravitas or follow-through the death of such a major character should. In any event, the attempted murder of Rick by Miek cements the latter (I'm guessing he isn't dead, either) as the Hulk's dark double--the meek (heh) character who revels in the transforming power of anger (vis a vis his metamorphosis into "King Miek") and all of the dark impulses such a consuming anger engenders. His journey has paralleled the Hulk's throughout "Planet Hulk" and WWH, and now his journey is at an ill end. He's already come up against the price of anger--but something tells me he won't learn.
Which brings us back to ol' Greenskin. Remember when I said there's a point to the over-iteration of the Illuminati's supposed guilt in the ship's explosion and the deaths of a million Sakaarians? Well, obviously, something was fishy and the fact that it was told, and the Illuminati denied it over and over, led us directly to this next point. The problem that Miek creates is very important to understand, and is more multifaceted than at first it seems. At first, it may seem anticlimactic that the Illuminati have been exonerated of the bombing. (For those following since "Planet Hulk," we've known this fact: the back-up tale in Hulk #100 included a crucial exchange between Reed Richards and Mastermind Excello during which Reed said there was, in fact, no warp drive on the ship.) So many people online have said, "Miek did it, I knew it!" or "Miek did it, where did that come from?" but these people are missing the point I believe Greg Pak was trying to make. Miek did not blow up the ship. Sorry and thanks for playing. Miek specifically stated that his guilt was in allowing the Red King's underlings to stow away a damaged warp drive on the ship so that it would explode and launch the Hulk into new attacks to feed Miek's own thirst for nihilism. Being played by someone he thought was one of his closest confidants is one thing. Having the ship blow up and having it be all Miek's fault would have given the Hulk a target for his pent-up rage. It would have been so easy for him to kill Miek, and negate his "I'm no killer" status that this series brought to prominence. No, the real culprits being nameless, faceless agents who are long dead is what brings the story its truest closure.
Think about it: the Hulk lives to smash the guilty parties, those who let one million Sakaarians, including his wife, die. When he thought the Illuminati were guilty, he went all-out trying to make them pay. But now, with the guilty long dead in that same blast, the Hulk has no outlet for his anger, no way he can balance the scales. On top of that, Miek committed the lie of omission to end all lies of omission, letting him believe others were to blame, twisting his anger to his own ends. He's still mad at the Illuminati because without their interference, Sakaar would still be plus one million inhabitants because he would never have set foot on that planet. On top of everything else, the Hulk is furious at himself, at his own failings, for being at least partially responsible for Miek's nihilistic tendencies ("Never stop making them pay!"), and for having been ultimately led astray by Miek, at having misdirected his anger for so long, at once again showing the world he's more monster than man. And Banner's likely equally furious at going along with him. Having nowhere and everywhere to direct his anger, the Hulk's rage and strength increase geometrically, until he glows gamma-green and the Earth shudders beneath his every step. This is the Hulk as powerful as he's ever been, so much gamma hormone flooding his system, making him stronger every second. It's meltdown Hulk! From the Sakaarson of moments prior comes the World Breaker, Miek's wet dream of Hulkdom. Miek's own statements provided the catalyst to bring about exactly what he wanted in the end.
Simply put, the cycle of guilt never ends: if not for Banner's invention of the G-bomb, the Hulk wouldn't exist. If not for the Hulk's rampages, the Illuminati wouldn't have targeted him for exile. If not for the exile, the Hulk wouldn't have met Miek, and wouldn't have imparted his philosophy of "Never stop making them pay." Hence, Miek wouldn't have taken his dark turn, turned a blind eye to the Red King's men, and let them plant the bomb that killed a million Sakaarians and the Hulk's wife, launching him back to Earth for all the wrong reasons.
The Hulk's not-quite-final words in the issue itself ring with truth and affirmation of the above: "Stop. Without you...none of this would have happened. I'll hate you forever. Almost as much...as I hate myself." 'Nuff said? Not nearly.
And yet, some part of the Hulk rebels. He doesn't want to be held accountable for breaking a world. He doesn't want his legacy permanently tainted. He doesn't want to be what Miek believed him to be. And he knows that all his power is helpless to stop the advent of the World Breaker: no, his words must be the sole catalyst of change. And his words are instructions to Tony Stark, who nearly used the satellites and their unknown potential side-effects to take down both Hulk and Sentry. Now, the Hulk implores Tony, "Do it. Before I break the world!" Amid Miek's protestations, Tony reprograms the satellites to fire their beam, engulfing the Hulk from above in hues of red (amid another sound effect...JRJRKJCSSSSS...hmm, these creative types...). The Hulk flashes back to the moment of Caiera's death, only this time, it's different, as he too dissolves into pieces alongside his queen. She speaks: "I will never leave you," as before, but now he replies: "I know. And now...I'll never leave you."
After the cataclysm clears, we see the vacantly staring eyes of Bruce Banner, apparently cured of his gamma-green burden...and comatose, unmoving, at the bottom of a crater as the heroes gather above. "This is the story of the Hulk," the narrator intones, echoing the beginning and ending of "Planet Hulk," "and how he finally came home." Members of S.H.I.E.L.D. load Banner into one of their ships. The city lies in ruins. Rick Jones, too, is carted off in an ambulance. Miek is by no means dead, just taken by S.H.I.E.L.D. for further experimentation, and, I suspect, a role in the Warbound miniseries on the opposing team. And the closing picture at the battlesite is of the four Illuminati, broken, bloody, but in the end...victorious? Not so fast. Who defeated the Hulk? Who could...but the Hulk himself? In the end, he allowed himself to be defeated for the greater good. He recognized his anger for what it was, in a way that Miek never could, and redemption may yet be his, as he has paid its truest price. At saga's end, Banner is confined in a chamber three miles under the Mojave Desert-not the desert southwest where the Hulk was born, but close enough. As the Hulk's final words are reiterated, we see Banner in the container inside which the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sealed him, eyes still open, the room awash in green...before his eyes close and the light turns red. Foreshadowing? And is Banner truly comatose? Fittingly, if not for the final epilogue, this last panel could be the last page in the legend of the Hulk, with the saga begun in Incredible Hulk #1 ending in similar surroundings as to where it began--making the next Hulk #1 more of a new beginning, a fresh slate, than ever (though I'm sure Banner will return at some point).
One thing is for sure: the legacy of the Hulk shall continue in the stars. In another direct sequel moment to "Planet Hulk," the last page shows the offspring of the Green King and his queen, Caiera, rising from the radioactive soup that was once the Crown City of Sakaar. His skin is green, but with the stone texture of the Oldstrong. He is Skaar...the rightful heir to the planet so long as King Hulk remains away. And hence is setup the third part of the Sakaar trilogy...as radical a departure as anything, full of questions. It's known the Shadow People evolved to run within hours of birth, but couple that with the might of an Oldstrong and the gamma-irradiated DNA of Earth's Mightiest Mortal...it's going to be something seeing this kid grow up.
So, what's the final analysis of World War Hulk? As I've established many times throughout my critique, the story best serves as a direct continuation of the themes and character struggles brought forth in "Planet Hulk" rather than an event in its own right. Of course, the Hulk's return to Earth was going to be big, and it did have to involve many of Marvel's finest, but the ending, particularly the fall of Miek and the idea of the World Breaker, must be seen within the context of "Planet Hulk" in order to be most effective. To get the most enjoyment, read "Planet Hulk" and then World War Hulk, for together they do comprise a watershed moment in Hulk history, at least equalling, perhaps surpassing, the strength of the best Hulk writers (for me, Bill Mantlo; for most, Peter David). What World War Hulk has done best is to reestablish the Hulk character as perhaps the most powerful being of non-cosmic origin in the Marvel Universe, "the mightiest mortal to ever walk the Earth." And in today's market, that salient fact is as laudable as anything.
I'm going to let this one digest a while, then come back next week with some thoughts on Bruce Banner (and Rick!), and highlights from the World War Hulk crossover issues in other titles. Stay tuned, and keep Hulkin'.
~G.
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