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 Who's this muscly green mongoloid?  The Hulk is a "superhero" (kind of) who gets stronger the angrier he gets. His alter-ego is Bruce Banner, a scientist who was working with the military to develop a gamma bomb for, you know, military 'splodin' goodness. Banner gets caught in test explosion of the gamma bomb and it turns him into the Hulk when he gets angry or depressed or anxious -- really any sort of extreme emotional state. The Hulk is the physical manifestation of Bruce Banner's id, an amoral monster that gives voice to years and years of Banner's insecurity and repressed nerd rage. Why the Hell does this matter now?   As part of Marvel's big "Marvel NOW!" initiative that shifts up creative teams on books with the loose creative directive of "do something completely different," Hulk is getting a new series called The Indestructible Hulk written by Mark Waid (above left) and drawn by Leinil Francis Yu (above right). The first issue went on sale yesterday (November 21, 2012) and, in my humble opinion, was really fantastic. Finding a good Hulk series/run, for me personally, is like finding a good fantasy novel. About 99% of the ones out there are, at best, aggressively mediocre, but it makes finding a good one so much sweeter. Given the great about-face creative direction Waid has taken the current Daredevil book, which I highly recommend reading, Indestructible Hulk was a big hopeful on my list of to-read Marvel relaunches. Judging solely by the first issue, it seems even more promising. What's been happening with Mr. Smash the last few years?  Well, for one, there's about a million Hulks now. Red Hulk, Red She-Hulk, regular She-Hulk, some sort of interdimensional blonde She-Hulk, plus an assortment of retooled Hulk characters, like the Rick Jones A-Bomb take on Abomination, Doc Samson, etc. I'll try to touch on those in a later post. For good, old-fashioned Green Hulk, he's spent the last who-knows-how-many continuity years trying to "cure" himself of the Hulk. In the Marvel event, Fear Itself, from a few years ago, Hulk gets possessed by a big, angry, evil Asgardian god of yore and eventually ends up getting split from Banner when the god is purged. Then a new Incredible Hulk series was launched by Jason Aaron and a variety of artists. It was. . . Ennis-esque insofar as it was a bit ridiculously over-the-top. Mostly, Hulk wants peace of mind and the ability to be a hermit, Banner goes crazy and wants to merge with Hulk again. There's some bombing and some Dr. Doom and some cloning, but it ultimately leads to Hulk and Banner in the same body again and coming to something of a truce. Banner acknowledge that Hulk is a "chronic condition" that can't be cured. He's fed up with Tony Stark, Reed Richards, and the other prominent Marvel Universe super-scientists getting all the glory and wants to help the world with his science, which is probably better than with his penis. This is where Indestructible Hulk starts. Where else can I look for Hulk poo poo? I'm not even going to pretend this is a comprehensive list. If other posters would please post some recommendations/synopses/etc., I would be happy to add them to the OP. Planet Hulk  During the Civil War event, Marvel's "Illuminati" group -- a secret, pretentious group consisting of Professor X, Black Bolt, Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Dr. Strange, and Namor -- decided that they couldn't have Hulk on Earth messing their plans up. They decided that, because the Hulk is borderline impossible to kill, they'd make him gently caress off to space. His ship lands on an alien world where Hulk becomes a gladiator, bones a local, and eventually leads a ragtag gaggle of aliens to Earth so that he can exact revenge. It's surprisingly good. You can find the the trade here. It's written by Greg Pak and drawn by several artists. Hulk: The End  Peter David has written a lot of incredibly revered Hulk stories. This collection features two stories. The first is called "Future Imperfect" and is drawn by George Perez. Basically, in an alternate future, the world is ravaged by nuclear war. The aftermath wasteland is run by a guy named the Maestro. A group of rebels decide that the only way they can topple this oppressive regime is to use an old Dr. Doom time machine to bring Hulk to the future. There are shenanigans and smashing ans it's a really good story. The second story, drawn by classic Hulk artist Dale Keown, has the eponymous title "Hulk: The End." Mankind has all died and the only person left is the Hulk, who is desperately lonely and incapable of dying. Trade can be found here. robotox fucked around with this message at Nov 22, 2012 around 17:18 |
| # ? Nov 22, 2012 15:38 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 06:09 |
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Post reserved for Red Hulk, Red She-Hulk, and other stuff as needed and as I have time to catch up on my Hulk backlog.
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| # ? Nov 22, 2012 15:39 |
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The Hulk was my first comic book and remain my favorite character to this day. I grew up reading my dad's old Roy Thomas/Herb Trimpe issues and others from that era, I love both movies, and LOVED Ruffalo in Avengers. Hulk Stories I would recommend include the Thomas/Trimpe run I mentioned earlier, as well as the original Lee/Kirby run. I find the Lee/Kirby stories interesting because of how by-the-seat-of-their-pants it was. While FF and Spider-Man both seemed to have something of a direction to them as far as the characters went, I don't think Stan had any solid idea of who the Hulk should be. The Hulk is constantly changing personality, appearance, powers and reason for transformation. In the first issue he changes only at night, then three issues later he has a Hulk-Machine to transform himself whenever there's trouble. Sometimes the Hulk is just an rear end in a top hat, sometimes a heroic rear end in a top hat and sometimes completely villainous. Sometimes he has grey skin, sometimes he has Bruce Banner's face, sometimes he has three toes. It all feels delightfully schizophrenic, and is acts as unintentional foreshadowing to the "multiple hulks" idea Peter David introduced.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2012 05:35 |
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So how did they reconcile the whole 'Banner making an island full of Hulk monster-animals and him being physically separate from the Hulk' thing? I read that arc at like... the start of the last Hulk zeroing and was pretty much instantly done with the series.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2012 21:05 |
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The entire series ended a little bit better than it started, but if you don't like the first arc you can basically skip it and have it entirely summed up with "Hulk and Banner are useless apart and decide to say gently caress it and just team up to roll over their enemies, as combined they are one of the smartest and strongest super-heroes on the planet".
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| # ? Nov 23, 2012 21:12 |
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Sion posted:So how did they reconcile the whole 'Banner making an island full of Hulk monster-animals and him being physically separate from the Hulk' thing? I read that arc at like... the start of the last Hulk zeroing and was pretty much instantly done with the series. Banner sets off another gamma bomb which somehow reintegrates him and Hulk. After that, Aaron goes on kind of an insane plot where Hulk tries to stay angry all the time to keep an insane Banner from gaining control, then they both decide to go take down Dr. Doom, which is actually really great. I agree the initial arc was pretty "meh", but I'd recommend at least checking out the first issue of the "Stay Angry" arc because that's when Aaron just goes nuts and that'll decide how you feel about the run in general. (Also the Doom arc made me realize I would pay so much cash money to have Aaron write a mini about the day-to-day life of a pack of Doombots)
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| # ? Nov 23, 2012 22:18 |
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I liked the first issue of Indestructable. I haven't really kept up with Hulk at all since Planet Hulk (which I loved)/World War Hulk (which was fairly disappointing), I guess because Loeb got his hands on the character. I was definitely interested again though after Waid really re-ignited my interest in Daredevil. He's really done the same with Hulk, I like the angle (which I guess stems from Aaron's run), and I like Yu's art for the most part. Red She-Hulk is a bit disappointing so far, to be honest. It might improve, it has only had 2 issues so far, so I'll stick with it for a few more and see where it's going. Also, I haven't read any of it, but Peter David's run on Hulk which started back in the 80s is supposed to be fantastic. But definitely, for something more modern, Planet Hulk was really good.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 00:00 |
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irlZaphod posted:Also, I haven't read any of it, but Peter David's run on Hulk which started back in the 80s is supposed to be fantastic. But definitely, for something more modern, Planet Hulk was really good. Yeah, David's run is arguably the definitive Hulk run. I was much the same way after Planet Hulk. Loeb came on, I tried to be a good fan and bought the first few, then wanted to slit my throat. I was definitely a big fan of this issue. Hulk's just such a simple character, generally speaking, and they've played the tortured soul card for far too long. Waid definitely has chops in terms of the about-face direction he took Daredevil.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 00:19 |
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Quick question: when did "The angrier Hulk gets, the stronger he becomes" turn into "The madder I get, the stronger I get?" They mean the same thing, but the former always felt more poetic to me, or at least more fun to say.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 00:28 |
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I wasn't in love with Indestructible Hulk. I liked the status quo at the end of Aaron's run, where Banner realizes he needs the Hulk to keep his poo poo together and Hulk realizes he needs Banner because he can't do everything alone, and this just felt like a return to THE HULK IS A SICKNESS and ugh. There's always the chance that they're snowballing Hill so that Banner can get a cool lab and Hulk can smash all kinds of poo poo, but as written it wasn't anywhere near what I was hoping for.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 11:50 |
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I didn't read Aaron's run at all, but I didn't get that at all from the book. Banner certainly felt like he'd accepted that Hulk was needed, particularly in the way he just told Hill to point him in the direction of Thinker so that he could smash.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 12:23 |
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How many Hulk kids are running around besides Skaar?
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 16:48 |
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I think they killed the other one. Which is good because he was terrible and everything he was in was terrible.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 16:58 |
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notthegoatseguy posted:How many Hulk kids are running around besides Skaar? Skaar's the only child, at least to my knowledge. There are just a bunch of other Hulks.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 16:59 |
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Lyra's still around. But she's an alternate reality kid, not "our" Bruce's, if I recall correctly.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 17:13 |
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Nah, I think Lyra is his his due to the wackiness of alternate reality time jumping. And I think they implied Carmilla Black was his a few times, but really that one is just a bit out there.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 17:16 |
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I guess that Hulk kid from Old Man Logan and Mark Millar's Fantastic Four run was still running around for a while. He showed up in Hickman's FF stuff a few times and kind of became the Maestro from Future Imperfect. That's alternate-future stuff though.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 17:21 |
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So I'll ask here: Is any of the Red Hulk stuff worth jumping into at all? After Loeb leaves, that is.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 17:34 |
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Hakkesshu posted:So I'll ask here: Is any of the Red Hulk stuff worth jumping into at all? After Loeb leaves, that is. Yeah, Jeff Parker's stuff is pretty decent and worth a read.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 17:55 |
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robotox posted:Skaar's the only child, at least to my knowledge. There are just a bunch of other Hulks. Nope, didn't Peter David reveal in the last issue of his last run that Banner hooked up with Monica Rappaccini in college and was the new Scorpion's dad?
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 18:00 |
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d00gZ posted:Nope, didn't Peter David reveal in the last issue of his last run that Banner hooked up with Monica Rappaccini in college and was the new Scorpion's dad? I believe that was in the House of M tie-in. Lyra is definitely the current Hulk's daughter, even if she comes from an alternate future. Her mother Thundra came back in time, fought the Hulk, scraped some DNA off his face and used it to genetically create a child. Lyra is seen as inferior to her people because she was partially created by a man, even if it's the strongest man there ever was. There was also that insane other Son of Hulk guy, but I never read much about him other than that arc where Skaar finally takes him down. My favorite part of Indestructible Hulk #1 is Hill telling Banner, "I'd rather have you with SHIELD than against SHIELD." That's a nice callback to Avengers #1 and Hulk telling the team, "I'd rather be with you than against you."
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 18:46 |
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I decided that I might as well quickly go through all the Loeb Hulk/Fall of the Hulks/World War Hulks stuff, since it's all available on MDCU. Man, what a dumb loving mess. I'm getting total Reign of the Supermen flashbacks here, complete with Cyborg Hulk.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2012 22:35 |
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irlZaphod posted:I didn't read Aaron's run at all, but I didn't get that at all from the book. Banner certainly felt like he'd accepted that Hulk was needed, particularly in the way he just told Hill to point him in the direction of Thinker so that he could smash. He's doing the whole "The Hulk is a DISEASE" thing again. This is literally a line, that the Hulk is a disease that needs to be managed because there is no cure.
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| # ? Nov 25, 2012 05:25 |
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Banner is never going to accept the Hulk, it's one of the most realistic things about the character. No matter how many revelations he has or breakthroughs he experiences he always falls back into hating the Hulk because he hates himself.
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| # ? Nov 25, 2012 06:07 |
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That was the best part, though, his realization that he hated himself more when he DIDN'T have Hulk around than when he did.
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| # ? Nov 25, 2012 07:15 |
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So far in this book we haven't seen Hulk and Banner communicate. I'd wager Banner's "disease" spiel is just so he doesn't have to waste time convincing Hill that he and the Hulk have come to a Gentleman's Agreement, which would probably be pretty difficult for a SHIELD agent to swallow, no matter how true it is.
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| # ? Nov 26, 2012 21:23 |
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So Red She-Hulk 60 had an... interesting final page. Could she do that before? Not too read up on the stories that introduced her.
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| # ? Dec 8, 2012 03:00 |
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Not that I recall, but the same thing has happened to Jen Walters every now and again.
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| # ? Dec 8, 2012 03:27 |
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Huh, didn't know that.
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| # ? Dec 8, 2012 03:31 |
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This kinda implies female Hulks default into a Joe Fixit like version but still have a full on Smashy Hulk in there.
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| # ? Dec 8, 2012 05:27 |
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Any chance someone can post the page?
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| # ? Dec 9, 2012 07:55 |
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Sure.
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| # ? Dec 9, 2012 09:15 |
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SirDan3k posted:Sure. She looks like a troll. The creepy doll kind, not the bridge kind.
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| # ? Dec 9, 2012 12:30 |
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I'm so torn. I really wasn't feeling the first two issues of Red She-Hulk, yesterday I dropped it from my list but picked up the latest one since it was in my folder. It finally clicked for me, it was a pretty enjoyable issue, and seems to be setting up some interesting storylines.
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| # ? Dec 13, 2012 10:17 |
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I dunno, I was enjoying the first two issues more than the latest. The introduction of this super-computer thing just kinda came out of left field.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2012 20:17 |
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Did HULK (Red Hulk series) end with the Mayan arc? Or have I missed the last issue or two and didn't realize it?
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| # ? Dec 19, 2012 00:34 |
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Nystral posted:Did HULK (Red Hulk series) end with the Mayan arc? Or have I missed the last issue or two and didn't realize it? It's Red She-Hulk now, haven't been hearing good things about it.
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| # ? Dec 19, 2012 00:49 |
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Nystral posted:Did HULK (Red Hulk series) end with the Mayan arc? Or have I missed the last issue or two and didn't realize it? It, sadly, turned into Red She-Hulk. Red Hulk moved over the Thunderbolts. I thought the Mayan arc was a pretty lame end to what was a good run. I would've liked to have seen the Fortean and Zero/One stories end.
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| # ? Dec 19, 2012 00:53 |
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I really liked this week's issue - Stark showing that he's a little unnerved not being the smartest one in a room was pretty good. But at least he's still rich, right?
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| # ? Dec 20, 2012 15:59 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 06:09 |
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I remember back in Dark Reign, Osborn was pissed that no one was tracking Banner because he was no longer the Hulk. Osborn said that Banner is the real threat to his power because a focused Banner means he can apply that science mind that he can't while he's the Hulk.
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| # ? Dec 20, 2012 17:16 |
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