For The Love of Comics

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My ongoing theory has been that the Red Hulk is really General Thunderbolt Ross, mainly supported by the “military” vibe I get from Red Hulk and the idea that it would be terribly ironic if Ross became a reflection of what he hates most.

It was a pretty good theory, I thought, but then Brian Hughes of Again With The Comics came up with an even better theory that even satisfies that military vibe I had been getting:

Major Glenn Talbot was a longtime thorn in the Hulk’s side, while serving as Bruce’s romantic rival for Betty. Talbot even married Betty for a time, but that ended fairly quickly in divorce. He met his alleged death in Incredible Hulk #260, having stolen the experimental War Wagon to wage a desperate last-bid attack on the Hulk.

[...]

So Talbot “died” under a deluge of molten lava while mentally bonded with a fantastical computerized battle wagon/artificial intelligence and was declared dead with no body found. Yeah, that’ll stick in a universe where even Uncle freakin’ Ben eventually came back. We’ve already seen that Red Hulk emits incredible, volcanic heat, recognizes most of the Hulk cast, and there are certainly enough back doors in that “death” to exploit, so I guess we’ll see. Whadda you think?

I think that’s a damn good theory. The only fault I can really see is that it may be too good of an idea for Jeph Loeb to have come up with.

Check out Brian’s post to read more of Talbot’s backstory and Brian’s theory.

Technorati Tags: Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Red Hulk, Glenn Talbot, Thunderbolt Ross, Secret Identity, Theory

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I’ve found some leaked footage featuring the Red Hulk in the Incredible Hulk movie…

Man, that Edward Norton sure can write!

Found via the CBR forums.

tag: Edward Norton, Gay Hulk, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Parody, Red Hulk, youtube

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Popularity: 78% [?]

I’m sure many of you have seen this image on Superhero Hype:

It’s from the new Incredible Hulk movie, and Hulk looks pretty damn cool, but what really caught my eye was the word “Sakar” in the lower left corner of the poster:

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, especially because of the different spelling, but I still found it kinda interesting

tag: Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Sakaar, Sakar

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Popularity: 12% [?]

Blog@Newsarama (who, incidentally, quoted me awhile back regarding Batman’s maybe-death), has a Day-One report from Wizard World Texas written by Aron Head from EvilBastard.net.

The highlights (for me) include:

• Greg Pak’s favorite line from World War Hulk was “I didn’t come to hear you whisper, I came to hear you SCREAM!” Yeah… mine too. That shit was hardcore.
• Senor Pak also says that Hulk’s son, Skaar, will have plenty of adventures on his home planet, but will eventually have an impact on the Marvel Universe as a whole.
• One more from the Pak - he is working on “the most disturbing and challenging project [he has] worked on in any medium,” but is not at liberty to announce it yet.
• Dan Didio says Bart Allen’s story is not yet over. This excites me, since Bart had the most heroic scene in my recent memory; it made me sad that it was his death scene.
• Connor may also be back. Didio’s answer to a question about any plans for the Superclone was “maybe”, which is pretty damn cool, but I wonder what they’ll call him. I’m willing to let DC have “Superclone”, royalty-free, as long as they bring back Conner.

Damn, I can’t wait for Megacon!

tag: Bart Allen, Connor Kent, Dan Didio, Flash, Greg Pak, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Kon-El, Megacon, Skaar, Wizard World Texas, World War Hulk, WWH, Superboy, Superclone

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Popularity: 7% [?]

Image from Wikipedia

I’ve finished reading World War Hulk and… I’m really not sure how I feel about it.

I mean, I guess there really wasn’t any other way to end it. It wouldn’t have made sense for Hulk to kill everyone, because Hulk is not a killer and, even if he was, there wouldn’t be any comics left to publish if Hulk killed everyone.

The Miek thing… I don’t know. I mean, basically sacrificing his home, his race, and ultimately himself (he obviously knew that would be the result of killing Rick Jones), just to keep the Hulk’s rage going, because he believed that it was what the Hulk “needed”? Very odd and I’m not sure that I buy into it.

I know that Miek allowing the Red King’s people to blow up the ship is supposed to redeem the Illuminati, but I’m not sure that it does. I mean, they didn’t plan on killing the Hulk, fine. But they’re still somewhat responsible. They put Hulk on that ship against his will, thus they are responsible for what resulted from their actions.

And Hulk’s “suicide/sacrifice”? Ehhh…. I understand that it was necessary to bring an end to the story, since things couldn’t just go back to normal and he wasn’t going to kill them. I don’t like it, but I’ll accept it. The self-loathing, rage, and ultimate self-sacrificing nature IS in character for him, really.

So here are my revised predictions. From CBR’s interviews with Mark Paniccia and Fred Van Lente, we know that:

Skaar, Son of Hulk looks to be pretty damn cool and Skaar just may be even more powerful than his father, being half Shadowperson and half Gamma-powered Hulk, and is likely to be a must-read for those who loved Planet Hulk

Also…

Incredible Hulk is changing to Incredible Herc and will focus on Hercules and Amadeus Cho while they evade the Initiative and try to find a way to take down SHIELD. Since Cho is in Incredible Herc, it seems that he is most likely NOT the Red Hulk, as I previously guessed.

But this blurb from the Van Lente interview:

Some might wonder why Van Lente and Pak’s collaboration is keeping The Incredible Hulk’s old numbering system instead of launching with a new number #1. “It’s partly because the functions of the Hulk will be in the new adjectiveless ‘Hulk’ series that Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness are doing,” Van Lente explained. “So I think it’s neat that Herc is kind of keeping Hulk’s seat warm. The good news is we keep getting renewed with story arcs so right now there’s no definite end to ‘Incredible Herc’ so maybe ‘Hulk’ will continue on as well.

leads me to believe that Hulk is not planned to run indefinitely and Incredible Herc will eventually go back to being Incredible Hulk. This, combined with the final panel of World War Hulk, leads me to believe that Bruce Banner is not dead and that this image:

Is a before/after split and not a split between two characters,

And that the blacked out man in this image:

is Bruce Banner, as I originally believed, making this image a red herring.

Of course, it is totally possible that the coloring on the final WWH panel was a red herring and I’m totally wrong, but this is my current theory and I’m sticking to it.

For now.

tag: Red Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Marvel, Amadeus Cho, Bruce Banner, Speculation, Rumor, Hercules, Incredible Herc, Hulk, World War Hulk, WWH, Skaar Son of Hulk

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Popularity: 13% [?]

JK Parkin at the Newsarama blog has lots of interesting tidbits. Max Headroom as Moloch the Mystic, Darla in the new Punisher movie, images and videos from the set of Incredible Hulk (which apparently has a shitty script)… all sorts of cool stuff, but one thing really set off my fanboy alarms - The trailer for Veronica Mars, Season Four - the season that was not to be.

May we all have a moment of silence?
…
…
..
.

Thank you. Now for the trailer:
Part 1:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI8PI8y_-M8&rel=1]

Part 2:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx89YbMasKU&rel=1]

Veronica Mars could totally beat up Elle from Heroes, for the record.

tag: Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell, Heroes, Punisher, Watchmen, Moloch the Mystic, Julie Benz, Hulk 2, Incredible Hulk

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Popularity: 10% [?]

Judging from how many hits I get on this post - which really amounts to nothing more than “WTF is this shit?!?!” - from the keyword “red hulk” on WordPress’s tag browser thingy, I’m guessing that nobody knows any more about who or what the Red Hulk is than I do.

I have to admit I’m rather impressed with Marvel’s rumor control.

For the sake of speculation, though, I will say that I’ve read that Hulk#1 is not replacing Incredible Hulk, but will be running alongside it, which leads me to believe that maybe this Red Hulk will not be replacing Banner Hulk, but coexisting, in a sense.

Thus, my best guess at this point is that the Red Hulk will be… Amadeus Cho, for no other reason than the anime hair on this image:

Also, if I’d known that post would have gotten so much attention, I would have put alot more effort into it. I mean, I would have at least come up with a better title, ya know?

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Image from Wikipedia

I suck.

I had this reasonably good review of Powers #26 written up. I had a nice breakdown about the story so far, why it was necessary to have a recap because of the months between issues, and all that. I was smart, witty, concise… I was awesome, people.

And then I somehow deleted it. Then I cried. Then I decided I did not have the energy to do it again, so now you just get my argument for why Hulk is totally justified in killing the entire Illuminati. I hope you’ll survive the disappointment.

Iron Man and his cronies decide that, through accidents and collateral damage, The Hulk is responsible for far too many deaths. They then formulate a plan to trick the Hulk into getting into a spacecraft and then sending him, against his will, to another planet.

Transporting a person against their will is known as kidnapping, by the way.

When the Hulk arrives on the - admittedly wrong - planet, he is beaten, enslaved, and forced to engage in fights to the death. Through skill, cunning, and exemplary leadership, the Hulk escapes his slavery and leads an army of former slaves to overthrow a tyrannical dictatorship and unite an entire planet in peace.

At the moment Hulk has finally attained the peace that he has sought his entire existence, the ship that the Illuminati used to abduct him explodes, not only killing his wife and unborn child, not only the residents of the city around him, but killing the ENTIRE PLANET.

Let me repeat that. They didn’t blow up a town the size of… I don’t know, let’s say Stamford, CT. They ANNHILATED AN ENTIRE PLANET!

The Hulk may have been responsible for alot of deaths, but I’m fairly certain he never destroyed an entire planet.

That’s not mass genocide, people. There’s not even a word for the scale of massacre for which Tony Stark is responsible.

Considering what was done to the Hulk because of the deaths he caused, considering the regulations that have been put on the entire superhuman community as a result of Stamford, is it even possible to go “too far” to punish the people that have done this to the Hulk and his people?

I’ve heard the argument that the Illuminati didn’t intend for the Hulk to end up on that planet or for the ship to blow up. The Hulk didn’t intend the deaths he caused. Robbie Baldwin and the New Warriors didn’t intend for the children in Stamford to die.

In fact, let me give you a scenario here. A bank robber is leaving the scene of a crime and hits a woman and her baby, killing both. Is that bank robber responsible for those deaths? I think we’d all agree that he is. So why would the Illuminati be any less responsible for the deaths caused by their kidnapping of the Hulk?

They’re not.

The Hulk may be unreasonable, he may even be a monster, but he admits that.

Tony Stark is an even bigger monster who tries to hide behind “The Public Good.”

Just another Lex Luthor who needs a beat down.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

I’d heard that the Hulk was going to turn red, but I’d never heard any speculation that it was going to be someone else turning into the Hulk. I’d always assumed that something would happen to Bruce Banner (Is it telling of my generation that I had to pause and make sure I didn’t type “David Banner”?) to make him turn into a red, bulkier, more rage-fueled Hulk. That idea is lame enough, but if they’re going to make it a new person too, that’s double lame.

On the bright side, that will probably give me another comic to drop, since this “One More Day” crap is shaping up to be the worst idea in the history of Spidey, even taking into account the Clone Saga and the six arms and alllllllllll that shit.

So, with One More Day ruining Spiderman, if they ever get the last two issues out, and this Red Hulk crap looking to ruin Hulk, I’ll be saving money.

Thanks Quesada, I guess.

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Popularity: 16% [?]