Hey, Bronze-Nose! It is me... Hulk! And I am taking over! You don't like Hulk? Well get ready to be smashed because this week it is...
ALL HULK ALL THE TIME!
THIS PAST WEEK:
Martinex1: we looked at final issues, lost our passion for certain creators, kicked around our bucket lists, traveled back to 1984, visited the Land of the Lost, and gazed at widescreen covers! Check out the sidebar or scrolll through past posts for lots of fun stuff.
Who cares!?!! HULK doesn't care about the past.... It is HULK WEEK!
COMING SOON:
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| MONDAY! HULK! |
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| TUESDAY! No Stupid Big Head Leader on Tuesday! Just HULK! |
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| WEDNESDAY: INCREDIBLE HULK! |
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| THURSDAY: MORE HULK! |
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| FRIDAY AND SATURDAY: HULK! PUNY HUMANS! You get it now! HULK! HULK! HULK! Grab a can of beans and get ready! |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
You think the Hulk is not cultured! Well, I'm Bruce Banner on the inside... so get a load of this:
Music: Anything by Green Day!
Movie: Tom Hanks is kind of puny, but Michael Clarke Duncan makes up for it in The Green Mile!
Food: I prefer canned kidney beans, but try green beans sautéed in olive oil with a little garlic, turn down the heat and mix in some fresh ginger and soy sauce with just a dab of wasabi and some sesame seeds.
Book: The Marvel Novel, Stalker from the Stars by Marv Wolfman and Joseph Silva starring who else but ... me...the Hulk!
Martinex1: Feel free to make your own recommendations here as well. And if you have something you would like to contribute down the line - guest post, suggestion, observation - feel free to reach out to Redartz and me at backinthebronzeage@gmail.com. We do try to be responsive.
You think the Hulk is not cultured! Well, I'm Bruce Banner on the inside... so get a load of this:
Music: Anything by Green Day!
Movie: Tom Hanks is kind of puny, but Michael Clarke Duncan makes up for it in The Green Mile!
Food: I prefer canned kidney beans, but try green beans sautéed in olive oil with a little garlic, turn down the heat and mix in some fresh ginger and soy sauce with just a dab of wasabi and some sesame seeds.
Book: The Marvel Novel, Stalker from the Stars by Marv Wolfman and Joseph Silva starring who else but ... me...the Hulk!
Martinex1: Since it is a busy week ahead and we have every day jam packed, let's get started today with an extra Chew the Fat conversation about the Hulk. Which version of the Hulk is your favorite? I've listed a bunch below, but I am sure I missed some or some may be overlapping or amalgams. The Hulk has run through a number of personalities and a number of formats over the years - which do you prefer? Define your own Hulk if you need to. We will be covering most of the below in some aspect during the week; for now just tell us who is your favorite and why. I know it is Sunday, but if you choose to join in this extra conversation please do!
A) Original Grey Hulk
B) Avengers' Clown Hulk
C) Hunted and Despised Hulk
D) Childlike and Caring Hulk
E) Defender Team Player (or Non-Team Player) Hulk
F) Mad and Destructive Rampaging Hulk
G) Angry Grey Hulk
H) Joe Fix-It Hulk
I) Genius Pantheon Leading Hulk
J) Lou Ferrigno Hulk
K) Planet Hulk Warrior Hulk
L) Eric Bana Hulk
M) Edward Norton Hulk
N) Mark Ruffalo Avengers' Hulk
O) Saturday Morning Cartoon Hulk
P) Future Imperfect George Perez' Dictator Hulk
Q) Red Hulk (Not to influence you but...ugh!)
R) She-Hulk (I know she is not really THE Hulk)
S) Amadeus Cho Hulk (Huh? Yeah I know - modern times Hulk)
T) Just plain ol' Bruce Banner
U) Baby Hulk (not sure but I have to believe there is one out there somewhere)
So that is it BITBA fans ... every day this week we will have reviews, questions, and conversations around yours truly ... The Incredible Hulk! HULK WEEK 2017 begins now!
16 comments:
C - Hunted Hulk. Great one shot stories, always a fight and Hulk yelling "Hulk smash!". With General Ross trying to get him or some new hokey villian/hero. (Looking at you Wolverine)
Mr Fixit and the psychological explorations of Peter David were great writing, but my Hulk was hUnted, despised, childlike and caring.
The inevitable reading backlog includes much of this classic Hulk era but a special mention to the Crossroads arc starting in #300. Bill Mantlo always wrote pathos well and the desperate confusion of The Hulk as he wandered through random dimensions was drawn beautifully by Sal B. Planet Hulk was but a pale shadow of this Crossroads arc, even as it sought to copy it IMO.
I latched onto the Hulk just when he was getting his own comic back in 1968, so that bewildered impossibly strong vagrant is what I think of first. I did like the times when Hulk was made smarter as it added some zest to a formula which could wear thin, but like Superman, while the deviations are fun, it's refreshing when the classic model returns.
I've recently been reading the original Hulk adventures and the thuggish nasty Hulk is a lot of fun too. His bellicose attitudes can be quite scary. I'm a fan of the Ang Lee movie version though I know that's not one folks have cottoned to. The later movie version seemed a bit too chiseled for my tastes but I know that's how he's often portrayed these days.
Rip Off
Colin B, you are speaking my language.
There is, of course, a good chunk of cross-over in some of those earlier characterizations. And there's a sort-of morphing version that took place over the course of the Tales to Astonish run-- in fact, there was a LONG stretch where it was indeed Banner's mind trapped in the Hulk's body, but the "brutish nature" of the body had a creeping effect on the mind, and he gradually reverted back to a loosely defined low-brow, crafty tough-guy.
But yeah, while I enjoyed several of the versions listed here, the winner by many, many gamma wave-lengths is the hunted, hounded, child-like, yet innately moral and caring Hulk we had from roughly issues #109 through his tenure in the Defenders. Or, up until he was "cured" once again in the lead-up to the Crossroads arc, circa issue #300. Although I followed and loved the character for decades after that point, we never got that guy back again for more than just an occasional glimpse. And he's really the only one that your heart could (and would) break for. I don't know. Many fine writers handled him very, very well over that stretch of years-- getting his "voice" down seemingly the key to making it work. Stan introduced that idiosyncratic third-person speech pattern very late in his run on the book, and Roy refined it (more or less codified it) and cemented it in place as the model. Along with his tendency to make simple, yet concise, observations even mid-battle, and how crushingly easy it was to hurt his feelings (a whole study could probably be made on how many incidents could have been avoided if some idiot hadn't called him a Monster to his face. . . ). And this is the guy who would later have the delightful tendency to name other heroes, villains, creatures by what he saw as their most striking trait-- Bird-Nose; Sword Girl; Fish-Man; Bug-Man, etc.
Ahhh, look at me--- the simplest of little questions, and I launch into an extemporaneous essay. This week may be hard on a few folks 'round here. . .
. . . HB has more time this week. Work schedule is not hard. HB will have many words to say. . . if only HB could think faster. . .
HB
I like the "hunted Hulk" too, though it got to be a bit repetitive after a while. I also ended up really liking the "Professor Hulk" or whatever he was called, who came after Joe Fixit and ended up leading the Pantheon. He had his intellect, but was kind of a dick sometimes ... an interesting combination :) Plus, he had that dark sense of humour Peter David is known for, which I love.
"Hulk vs Thing" Hulk is always my favorite. Combine that with "Childlike Hulk" and you get some of the most fun dialog. The Thing makes some hilarious one-liners while the Hulk answers back with misunderstandings that make me laugh out loud.
"Hulk by Peter David" was always fun, too, though I'm not sure if it's still in the Bronze Age. Like Mike Wilson said, the Peter David sense of humor makes for a great read.
My Hulk is pretty much the Defenders Hulk. Bickering with " Bird nose", sulking about " Magician", befriending Valkyrie. Childlike, warm hearted, but with a definite penchant for surliness. I've never read any of Peter David's Hulk, will have to remedy that lapse.
Hulk like Hulk the way Hulk was in mid to late 70's. Hulk was considered menace and chased a lot by puny humans and stupid army men, but Hulk was also Defender and had friends like magician and bird nose. Hulk also had own TV show and Hulk was very popular then, so Hulk was happy.
Hulk will SMASH any puny humans who do not agree with him.
Ditto to what William said and Colin said and some others. "Hulk Smash!" might be the most profound 2-word sentence in Marveldom???
If I may appeal to the collective wisdom of this astute group... did Hulk ever actually say, "Hulk smash puny human!"? It's not something I kluged together in my head? (Like I guess Bogart never said, "Play it again Sam.")
Ahh HB ol' buddy Martinex1 and Redartz had you in mind! Hulkophiles will have a feast next week!
While the thuggish Hulk was a staple in his early days my favourite incarnation has to be the hunted childlike version, and also the Defenders Hulk. Somehow ol' greenskin seemed to mesh together with Doc Strange, Valkyrie and yes, ol' bird-nose better than the Avengers. While I also enjoyed those stories where the Banner persona was dominant, the savage Hulk always seemed to be a more natural fit - you knew you would get some all out action with this Hulk!
- Mike 'Hulk smash psychological analysis!' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Bah!! My fave Hulk era was the Tales to Astonish adventures, featuring the Leader and his androids, as well as the US Army. Art (and probably story) by Steve Ditko. These stories were also serialized as the Hulk cartoon show in 1966.
My fave ever PICTURE of the Hulk is the Kirby pin-up from Fantastic Four Annual #1: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/c3/a5/27/c3a527652315eb10bdb906dec2a4e949.jpg
The cover of Fantastic Four #12 is also a doozy: http://www.sellmycomicbooks.com/images/xfantastic-four-12.png.pagespeed.ic.OxxpxFN7Yy.jpg
CH47-- That specific wording; "Hulk smash puny human"-- probably almost certainly not. At least not by a regular writer in his own book. His patois (if that's the right word-?) was surprisingly somewhat more deft than that. He would have used the word "will", for one thing: "Hulk will smash puny human". He facility with language was always better than the me-Tarzan-you-Jane cliche' that's often been attributed to him. And the "human" would likely have to be plural for him to use it: "Hulk will smash puny humans", because most of the time, if he was gonna smash one "puny" individual, he would have a more descriptive identifier for them: "Hulk will smash puny space-man". And he just wasn't apt to smash one lone individual. "Bah-- too much trouble for Hulk to smash!"
Glenn-- at least part of that Leader arc was the one where Banner's mind was residing in the Hulk's body. IIRC, there was a bullet in his brain, and if he transformed back, it would have killed him. . .
HB
Anonymous Humanbelly
I must admit, it's been literally 40 years since I read the Hulk TTA run and I don't recall that aspect of it. Might be about time to give it a second look.
Now, why DID the Hulk call us 'puny humans'? Surely the Hulk himself is human, albeit mutated?
That's a nice psychological question. Heh-- maybe the emphasis in the phrase is on PUNY rather than HUMANS-?
Did he self-identify as a human being? I don't think he did exactly-- hence the prickliness at being called a "monster". At some point over the years past, he made a statement along the lines of, "Hulk is not a puny human. Hulk is. . . Hulk."
Ah, the poor guy. . .
HB
Ah yes, but how about the Thing? He looks much less human than the Hulk in his monsterishness, but you'd never catch him saying 'Bah! Puny humans, Thing will smash!' or words to that effect. Which is to say, he still sees himself as a human.
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