Green, red, sometimes grey, and angry! (Hulks)
EclecticGroove
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So,
Despite the whole Rulk thing being one of the most IDIOTIC and contrived pieces of crap I've seen come around... and She-Rulk being just as bad. I do have to say the latest developments are somewhat interesting. It's nice to see some actual character coming out about Rulk. I don't think for a second they are going to wind up doing anything legitimately interesting with him, but the potential for it exists. The good (bad) Doctor is another point that I wonder how far they are willing to go with.
As for the 2 Hulk kids? Skaar is amusing, and I think he's done "mostly" well... but I feel they have jumped around his character a bit too much. He's gone from an angry abandoned orphan, to an angry savior, to an angry avenger (that actually caused more damage than what he was avenging), and now he's gone on to be a cheeky Banner buddy reading Conan and drinking milkshakes... eh... I'm just not sure what to make of it. The potential for long term impact on banner/Hulk, as well as the (almost) inevitable conflict make for some interest, but he's just not being used very well after he made it to Earth.
Hiro-Kala on the other hand, is very interesting. I'd like to see them actually run with the things he's done, but as always, it will reset back to how it was in the beginning. I think seeing the effect he had on Galactus shown as a long term impact would set up for some amazing stories, especially as it relates to his heralds.
I'm sure him going off to find his brother (and by extension father), is going to doom his character shortly.
I still feel like they should have turned the Hulk + Warbound into a Marvel Cosmic book, he was perfectly suited for it at that point.
What is everyone elses take on the big green guy and his assorted stories lately?
Despite the whole Rulk thing being one of the most IDIOTIC and contrived pieces of crap I've seen come around... and She-Rulk being just as bad. I do have to say the latest developments are somewhat interesting. It's nice to see some actual character coming out about Rulk. I don't think for a second they are going to wind up doing anything legitimately interesting with him, but the potential for it exists. The good (bad) Doctor is another point that I wonder how far they are willing to go with.
As for the 2 Hulk kids? Skaar is amusing, and I think he's done "mostly" well... but I feel they have jumped around his character a bit too much. He's gone from an angry abandoned orphan, to an angry savior, to an angry avenger (that actually caused more damage than what he was avenging), and now he's gone on to be a cheeky Banner buddy reading Conan and drinking milkshakes... eh... I'm just not sure what to make of it. The potential for long term impact on banner/Hulk, as well as the (almost) inevitable conflict make for some interest, but he's just not being used very well after he made it to Earth.
Hiro-Kala on the other hand, is very interesting. I'd like to see them actually run with the things he's done, but as always, it will reset back to how it was in the beginning. I think seeing the effect he had on Galactus shown as a long term impact would set up for some amazing stories, especially as it relates to his heralds.
I'm sure him going off to find his brother (and by extension father), is going to doom his character shortly.
I still feel like they should have turned the Hulk + Warbound into a Marvel Cosmic book, he was perfectly suited for it at that point.
What is everyone elses take on the big green guy and his assorted stories lately?
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While done before with martial arts based characters, a Hulk who needs to achieve zen in order to kick butt is something I do find potentially interesting.
As I said though, haven't enjoyed her stories or anything else with the character so far but it is early days and a good writer could do well with her.
As for the new 'Savage She-Hulks' series? I think it could be good as long as they don't use Red She-Hulk, but instead use original She-Hulk and Hulk's daughter.
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I agree with this, but then you had to ruin it with a quip like:
Also, your opinion of Skaar gives me hope that some people are starting to realise Pak isn't all he's cracked up to be.
But I gotta ask, respective writers aside, what makes the concept of Rulk (A bioweapon, for all intents and purposes, engineered by shady agencies to fight fire with fire), ridiculous as he is, any more ridiculous than the concept of Skaar (the lovechild of an accidentally-irradiated dissociative identity disorder and a genetically-engineered guard dog)? Son of the Hulk, fer the luvva Mike.
I have to say I'm biased, though. I'm one of two or three people in the world who didn't like Planet Hulk and World War Hulk. The former seemed promising for the first couple of issues, but rapidly filled with too many banal and tired old cliches from sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that the Hulk started coming across as a capricious jerk ('gravage' is one thing, but this...) and it wasn't helped by the themes of 'Banner is the monster, the Hulk is infallible' and the entire planet divided into moustache-twirling villains or starry-eyed worshippers*. First I thought Pak had turned him into the Maestro, but then I realised, way before Skaar's visit to a comic shop - I wasn't reading The Incredible Hulk, I was reading Big Green Conan. I half-expected monologues about how gamma mutation makes the Hulk more noble than civilised men.
I thought things would pick up with WWH. Some segments of the Marvel U. could use a stomping, I thought. But in the prologue issue I read about the Hulk being stronger than ever while doing tai-chi on the outside of a spaceship as it hurtled through hyperspace...
*
I'm not saying that Loeb's use of Rulk wasn't spectacularly bad. I cringed at things like Wendigos in Vegas, and Rulk punching out Uatu and shooting about on a silver surfboard (although bits like the showdown with the Lady Liberators weren't so terrible, I thought). But before those points I just wanted WWH to end and someone to stomp on the Hulk, and I was grateful for that. And you knew where you were with Rulk - he was meant to be an arrogant overpowered jerk. Funny how no-one seemed to pick up on the similarities when they started screeching about this red guy replacing 'King' Hulk.
I think it also helped that I cringed and put the comics back on the shelf. I stopped buying comics I didn't like; I didn't have as much nerd-rage focused on Rulk during the Code Red arc.
And aside from Ian Churchill's 'poor man's Bruce Timm' act (I know chin clefts are supposed to look like arses, but this is ridiculous. And what's with all the glowing red eyes? We need Ed McGuinness back if Rulk stories are starting to turn good) and the dire interactions of the 'guest stars' ("I'm not gonna wait for the sun to come up!"), it wasn't too bad. Personally, although it's maybe a bit quick for a heel face turn, I really liked Rulk's self-examination and realisations over the arc, and I'm looking forward to seeing What Rulkie Did Next.
Red She-Hulk's alright. At the least she's not worth the torrents of bile and venom I've seen that would shock klan members. She's a big, angry, red version of Jen Walters. It's like, totally the worst thing evar, you guys. :shock:
I get the feeling most of the hatred's due to the fact she seems even more arbitrary than Rulk. Well, that's true; but from my POV Rulk wasn't that arbitrary to start with, and why doesn't it make sense for shady agencies to create more than one big, red bioweapon? There've been 'other Hulks', though maybe not so obviously, before them. Seems like their first big offence is not being green.
Rulk was crappy but he's getting better. Let's let, er... Shrulk (?) have a bit more development and characterisation (and writers) than a bit-player in two issues and one panel (or just that one panel, considering when the complaints started) before deciding to hate her forever. I'm still not going back to read PH and WHH, though. :P
I don't suppose both'll last longer than Fall of the Hulks or World War Hulks, though. More's the pity.
Although I'm probably one of two or three people in the world who think that.
Punching out the Watcher
Yeah, that plus his inexplicable battle with Thor, wherein he succeeded using a tactic that has failed time and time again before.
Why does that ruin it? Rulk is most likely going to suffer a quick death or simply disappear. If it keeps running as is, I just don’t see any evidence of him getting much more complex than he already is right now.
Everyone has issues, Pak included. Skaar has more potential than Rulk, but he needed far more planning out. I get the feeling that several different people were involved with his story/personality and they didn’t really bother checking each others work for consistency.
Rulk is more absurd because you take the Hulk, who is supposed to be the cannon most powerful physical being in the MU… and you have him go through a story phase where he not only shows that, but gets MORE powerful, and then you just create Rulk out of nowhere to be even MORE powerful than that.
He’s better than doomsday was to superman mind you, but not by much.
But my biggest issue with Rulk and She-Rulk is that they are purpose manufactured creatures. If any group has the power to do that, then every other hero or villain is just about irrelevant. People may cry about Thor losing to Rulk, but could he take out 2 Rulks? 3? How about a few hundred?
Even assuming it takes a very specific psychological and/or physical specimen to create the Red Hulks, that should still allow for several dozen, if not thousands of candidates… all without using the wonderful power of clones.
Previous attempts at “Hulks” have been exceedingly limited in power/duration/mental capabilities. They were never more than a short threat to anything with a power of its own.
I liked Planet Hulk, it was different… sure, cliché fantasy/sci fi stuff but it was a twist to the Banner/Hulk dynamic that has been for so long. Hulk is usually the powerful one, only being impacted emotionally while Banner was the milksop who couldn’t stand up to a strong breeze. PH left the Hulk vulnerable, and he couldn’t even rely on Banner to figure things out for him as the world was too hostile to let him free.
It was nothing that hasn’t been done before, but that isn’t new either. It was a “Conan Hulk” story to be sure. It was basically a gladiator rip… warrior ,to slave, to gladiator, to king. And then of course he lost it all to set up the next event.
I do agree WWH was pretty bad, started off reasonable but then it became obvious that it was going to be just another fireworks display where nothing was changed in the end. It even reset the Hulk back to “dumb brute” mode and called it a day. That’s why I have little faith for anything existing here to stick around.
In the end, I can sadly see both the Hulk kids, and the Rulks simply being killed or sent off, even the warbound will probably go away. Leaving Banner as the Hulk again (the dumb one), once more doing the “leave Hulk alone” shtick till they use him in another event. In essence they are going to “Brand New Day” the Hulk at the end of it I’m sure.
Could Rulk and She-Rulk stay and be made good? Could the Hulk kids and the warbound all stay around? Sure, but how do you work them all into anything? Skarr and the warbound are the only ones I can see having a decent fit, as they are all less powerful than the Hulk himself, and the old power has been shown to have problems that will likely make any who have it need to stop using it. The rest of them? Don’t think there is really a place… then again they kept the Sentinel around so who knows.
Put it like this. If you read a fan-fiction set in the Marvel Universe, and it featured Red Hulk, who pucnhes out the Watcher and gets the power cosmic and all that, you'd think to yourself, "Mary-Sue." And you'd be right.
That is certainly why he's a poor character for sure. But it does not really make him a bad character. How he was handled after his creation? (IE: the watcher, Thor, Surfer scenes) Those make him a bad character. Entertaining to some sure, but still bad.
Rulk is essentially a comical "What If" story that was allowed to be in the mainstream continuity.
As far as ranking the Greg Pak Hulk trilogy, Planet Hulk is first while Skaar is second. Although WWH is the weakest of the three I still liked it mainly because I didn't expect everything to be changed afterward like House of M and Civil War except for the Hulk books of course. Plus it had much fewer tie-in issues than HoM and CW.
Also, draining the gamma radiation out of bruce banner.
On the topic of red hulk's character development and how you like it's direction I'm going to have ask what exactly has occured since his 2008 debut that has impressed you, because as far as I can see the character is only beginning to expierience development around issue 19. Prior to that he's been running around being a dick wad while virtually everyone in the setting has been helpless in the face of his cunning and power (the only person he was unable to cock whip was fucking galactus).
That's pretty much the ONLY development there's been. I'm just glad to see he's not running around punching things for the sake of showing off. Now he's at least seeing what he's gotten into... and while it may or may not become interesting in itself, it's at least more interesting than he's been.
And as far as the draining banner thing... yeah, that was just dumb. If he'd jsut temporarily depowered him fine... happened before, but to have it verified he was... to put it... de-hulked?
Stuuupid.
The leader, MODOK, Reed, Dr Strange, Banner himself, as well as countless others have tried for decades to cure Banner and have failed miserably. Then Rulk does it as a throwaway scene? Horrible.