Friday, June 29, 2007

World War Hulk



I'm not a Hulk fan. I haven't been a regular reader since the Peter David days. I wasn't taken by the Hype Machine that is Marvel. But, this book really lives up the the Summer Blockbuster series that it should be. I don't even want to get into what happens to Black Bolt and Iron Man. Let's just recall that old saying about the Hulk: The madder Hulk gets, the stronger he becomes.

Of all the blockbuster series this past year, this could be THE one! If the following issues are as good and entertaining than the first...watch out world!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a "love-hate" relationship with the Hulk. In his earlier years, I hated the "dumb but lovable" Hulk! He was probably modeled after Frankenstein's monster, i.e. strong, scary, yet dumb and unknowing. All that was missing in the earlier Hulk was a special Ed helmet and a big, yellow bus. I loved the Hulk when Peter David and Dale Keown (sp?) took over. Now with this "World war Hulk" saga going on, I am reminded of the ONE thing that I hate SO much about the Hulk: "When Hulk get mad, Hulk get STRONGER!!!"

BAH!!! This is such a cop-out, a plot thread to have the Hulk escape an ultimate demise. Then they added Wolverines power of fast healing. Fast healing? Where was that in the 60's and 70's Hulk? I thought that his skin was so thick, that next-to-nothing could penetrate it?
Now, speaking of the "as the the Hulk gets madder, he gets stronger," it reminds me of playing cops and robbers as a child. When a kid would point his finger straight at me at point-blank range and say, "Bang,your are dead!" I would respond by saying, "Nope, you missed!" In the Hulk's case, if he's getting beaten up by a stronger foe, he magically gets stronger as he get's madder! So, does that mean that he wasn't mad the first time the villain punched him in the eye?
Here is how a ring announcer would comment on a Hulk pay-per-view fight with the Abomination:

"....The Abomination stands over the Hulk. He stomps his foot over the Hulks left orbital eye socket! SMASH!!.....But wait, the Hulk is losing the battle because....you guessed it, He's not that angry!!! Yes, the Hulk is still happy!!! Wait, the Abomination now rabbit-punches the Hulk in the Kidneys! Hmm....the Hulks grin is wearing thin. I see a spark of anger in his little beady eyes! Wait! Yes! The Hulk is now ANGRY!! Now he's stronger than he was when he got punched for the 50th time in the jaw! Hurray!!......"

This is such a cop-out in terms of originality and plot ideas. It is the easy way out of stories. Now that I hear that they are capitalizing on this plot structure, it sickens me! Having the Hulk get stronger as he gets angry may work if he was a creature based on magic, but he's not. He was created through a freak scientific accident. Underneath that green get-up, he's an average, geeky scientist that only lifted text books as a form of exercise rather than dumbbells . Sure the gamma rays gave him powers, but what is the source of the power? As he gets angry, I imagine that adrenaline is coursing through his veins. Does that mean he has an endless supply of adrenaline? What about his heart? There has to be a limit! Now if he was a magical being, we could just chalk it up to "the Force" or "spiritual powers", something that we can't see, smell, or prove. We just take it for granted. Because the Hulk is based on science, it seems dumb. He needs limits. He needs to be just as angry when someone punches him in the jaw the first time, than when someone punches him in the jaw the 10th time.
C'mon....the Hulk is LAME! He was written for kids by adults with childish mentalities. Just re-read the old comics. I bought the "Essential Xmen" book and couldn't stomach Stan Lee's goofball dialogue and simplistic plot. Case in point: The Xmen vs the Avengers. Both teams are after a notorious villain. Both teams track the villain and accidentally meet. Iron man shoves the Angel and says, "You are too young to fight, kid. Stay out of our way!" Then they fight over who could fight the villain. GEEZ! What are they fighting for, "the winner gets to ask the villain out for a date?" It's childish stories like this that gave birth to the "Hulk gets stronger as he gets madder" idea. This may have been cool 40 years ago, now it's just dumb!

Anonymous said...

I completely agree, the whole series is pretty stupid, and weakly written. Basically it seems like every guy that the hulk comes up against they just crank up the hulks power for no apparent reason. It's written like a childs arguement, "hulk gets hit times ten, oh ya! hulk blocks times 100. well... hulk gets hit times 10,000,000.....So what, hulk blocks times infinity!". Absolutely terrible. Blackbolts wisper before could immobilize him, now a full scream only pushes him a bit? please. The whole "oh he has a healing factor now" is pretty lame too, cut out his eyes, surprise there back two frames later. He beats wolverines head to stop him, yet being completely obliterated by an atomic explosion at the hands on nitro didn't stop wolverine, so why would a few smacks that didn't even bust his skull open. The whole X-men fight was pretty weak, xavier and emma frost couldn't just control his mind "there is just too much rage" ooohh. Emma could crack the sentry's head ,who has extensive pychic and mind control powers, and had an actual extremely powerful mental block in his mind that also effected every single other persons mind on earth. But oh ya, the hulk was mad, neither of them can crack that. The hulk can also obviously soak up cyclops' eye blast better than bishop could in the civil war series, I guess a ridiculously hightened intellect and a new found healing factor weren't the only new powers he's gained. The fantastic four are a cake walk now as well apparently, Stopping galactus is nothing, did we mention the hulk is really mad this time. In a nut shell, to the writters......come on, lets try a little harder shall we. The other thing that gets me, with him being immune to every thing from all possible mutant powers to dr.stranges magic to the gods of olympus themselves. If the nano-tube shot that stark got him with hadn't been a blank, it would have shut him down. How would Mr. fantastic miss that one, oh, it appears the vial was empty, meh...i'll fake being the sentry instead.

I'll still read the whole series, like the idiot I am, and after every comic i'll be cursing myself again for causing the inevitable dry heaves that come after I put down each consecutive issue. Wow, what a bitter taste this series leaves, time to get some infinite crisis in me.