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.