Perfect? Nah. But still a moment well worth the sharing.

[da_reap]

The Herc comic was cut dreadfully short, but I really can't blame them; frankly, the thing was pretty crappy. Most of it wasn't worth the reading... but it did have a couple good points. For example:

Comments

[blackruzsa]

Angst... fading.
WHAT IS THIS.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

[da_reap]

BWA-HA-HA! Fear the patented Herculean Angstidote formula!

(Okay, so 'Angstidote' is reaching. I'M STILL LAUGHING.)

[blackruzsa]

.....
ANGSTIDOTE.
IS THERE NO CONTEXT?

[da_reap]

Context is for the WEEEEEEAAAK It's BEER, the cause and cure of all life's problems! What more context should be needed?

[blackruzsa]

I AM WEAK.
And I don't drink beer. So... *batons down the hatches for the firestorm*

[sherkahn]

Don't drink beer? Good time to start!

May I recommend a French Frambioe to start... skip the cheap beers and go forthe good stuff. It's good enough for Herc!

[mishalak]

Personally I would recommend a cask conditioned ale as a way to start. I grew up thinking I hated beer and preferring fruity drinks with little umbrellas. Then I had this perfect pint in a brewpub in San Francisco, now I brew my own beer.

[da_reap]

WEAK YOU ARE

And honestly, I don't either. Something about the whole 'pay money to lose control of yourself by poisoning your liver' thing just never appealed to me, though I have picked out the beer I'll try if I ever do try one.

But hey, if Angst+Beer=No More Angst works for the Prince of Power, good for him!

[blackruzsa]

I don't like the taste of it. Always figured that when I decide to de-angst, it'd be with something tastier ;P I'm the type who likes the sweet so on special occasions, my friends buy me rose tequila or bailey's.

Fellow teetotaler here...

[glprime]

An evening out at a pub had me trying Hard Cider. Pretty darn good.

[eyz]

PERFECT!!!

Seriously though, gotta love SPIDER-HERC!!
Much better than the entire Spider-island story!

[da_reap]

I thought the way the X-Men were talking him up during the whole thing with Arachne was a bit overdone, a shade too close to Shilling The Wesley... But eh, it's Hercules. It's still better than all the rest of that spidery nonsense-

Peter and MJ team-up aside, that is.

[suzene]

Cute, but yeah, this title and the Alpha Flight relaunch by the same writing team both needed to go out behind the barn for a bullet in the head. There were some good stand alone moments, but Herc had lost a good bit of his charm, and there were some just truly awful plot and character choices in the AF mini. Sad, really.

[randyripoff]

I liked the series, but taking away Hercules' powers just didn't work for him. He's a larger than life character, and I think he needs larger than life powers to work consistently.

Still, hadda love the fight in Avengers Academy where Herc spent about 30 panels being defeated.

[shadowpsykie]

Still, hadda love the fight in Avengers Academy where Herc spent about 30 panels being defeated.

that was AMAZING

[suzene]

I wish I still had the first few issues of this, because there was some line crossed that went from "Oh Herc, you lovable anachronism!" to "OK, that was kinda skeevy." and I can't recall what it was. That added to Van Lente's "LOL!Spider-Rape!", making the "reveal" of Herc's bisexuality nothing more than yet another queer joke at the expense of a character who's pretty much already been reduced to his sexuality, retconning in gratuitous childhood sexual abuse for a character who already had physical abuse, emotional abuse, and multiple suicide attempts in her background, and taking one of the few female team-leaders in the Marvel U and pretty much stripping her of every heroic quality she possessed meant I was so done.

I will probably check out any creator-owned projects that Pak does, because Vision Machine was really good sci-fi that didn't have anything too maddening it it, but I'm not touching anything else he and Van Lente do as a team.

I did like Herc's stint in AA, though. Gage played up his lunkheadedness more than I would have liked, but it was still fun overall and I liked the idea of Herc as the Phys Ed teacher.

[da_reap]

Really? I have the first few issues of this, and I can't think of what would cross that line you're talking about. The only girl he was 'spending time' with was Rhea, and that was her idea from the get-go.

As to the 'Spider-Rape' thing, I don't really have a problem with it- mainly because it's Hercules, and he'd be pretty well guaranteed to say yes if he had the option... and probably went back for seconds once the mind control wore off. I don't remember seeing any 'childhood abuse' with Elektra, who I assume you're talking about, and which female team leader are you talking about?

My troubles with the series were that I thought the art was a little off, thought Herc smoldering with generic rage was dumb as hell, thought the situations he was in were awkward and contrived, and worst of all hated how they just had no character development from the previous stuff whatsoever! Why would Zeus be laughing at Herc from the sky? Why was he operating on such a low level? Why the hell would he be an illegal immigrant, by now he should be a Citizen of the World!? And WHY, IN OLYMPUS' NAME, COULDN'T HE SHACK UP WITH HEBE NOW THAT THEY HAD RECONCILED!? She was making out with Spider-Man before, why would she abandon Herc for becoming mortal? Oh, and after the end of the Assault on New Olympus arc, why was Zeus a cheating scumbag again? Herc remade the universe to put him back in the driver's seat, wouldn't he know better than to have him as a disgusting sleazeball? That whole thing was WAAAY too status quo.

I was less than impressed with the art for AA, but I thought he was pretty fun- and deliberately playing up the buffoonish attitude some.

[suzene]

I'm seriously considering torrenting those issues because now it's bugging me; as you can see with the rest, usually when I'm ticked off, I can cite specifics. Maybe I'm conflating it with something one of the writers said about characters in the series, but I don't think so -- I was disenchanted enough with Pak and Van Lente by this point that I don't think I'd have been looking for interviews.

Anyway, the Spider-Rape business didn't have anything to do with Herc, that was the Chameleon tricking Peter's roommate Michelle into having sex with him and the whole thing being played for laughs. The sexual abuse and character assassination were Aurora and Vindicator's respective treatments in the Alpha Flight series.

[da_reap]

If you can find Herc 6.1, pass it over please? I have the rest, but can't find that one anywhere. And while I can see some of the other characters being skeevy, Zeus especially, the only thing I can think of with Herc was a few bad come-ons to Elektra... and even then he showed her honor as a fellow warrior and knocked it off after awhile.

Ahh, sorry. I didn't bother to follow the rest of Spider-Island, it just didn't seem worth it on any level- and sorry to hear about what happened with Alpha Flight. Childhood sexual abuse should not be the new black.

[nursewretched]

making the "reveal" of Herc's bisexuality nothing more than yet another queer joke at the expense of a character who's pretty much already been reduced to his sexuality

If I may ask, when did this happen? It sounds like it was mishandled but I did not realize that Herc's bisexuality had been confirmed in canon.

[da_reap]

That was Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1, where it was very strongly hinted that Northstar used to have some 'happy fun times' with Herc.

I didn't think it was mishandled at the time (though the art was ugly as hell), but in hindsight I can see how having Northstar show up only to act as a one-note gay joke could be considered less than awesome.

[suzene]

This was in Herc's funeral issue, where Snowbird and the other Marvel ladies Herc had bedded were getting ready to boast about his sexual exploits. Snowbird does a "come on, get up here, don't be shy" to the crowd, then Northstar has one panel of "oops, gotta go" and dashes off.

I thought it was cute at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more it REALLY started to annoy me. Mostly because it was so damn OOC for Northstar, who had pretty much been Marvel's token queer since his outing, and because two seconds later, it's back to how much Herc loved sexing the ladies and all the ways that ladies were made better for having slept with Herc. They didn't even bother giving Herc one grieving male lover when his teammates were going around the world breaking the news to all the women he'd banged. And this was on top of jokes about Cho being Herc's erômenos being littered throughout the series. Essentially, any suggestion of Herc's sexual relationships with men is reduced to tittering innuendo, and even the writers wouldn't outright confirm that Herc and Northstar had been together outside of more of the same.

[salinea]

Oh yeah, I loved this.

[halloweenjack]

Not surprised to see that this team could make a silk purse from the sow's ear of Spider Island.

[da_reap]

Now if only they could have done something for the rest of the book... ah, well. They had a good run with iHerc.

[lucky_gamble]

I approve of Herc wearing tight fitting clothing. I'm talkin DOWN TOWN!

[featheredserpent]

MY BEER SENSE IS TINGLING!