INCREDIBLE HULK preview: You wouldn't like me when I'm... smart?

[starwolf_oakley.insanejournal.com]

Here are some pages previewing INCREDIBLE HULK #602. Bruce Banner apparently can't turn into the Hulk anymore (like that trick ever works).



One page cut for Mod reasons. Bruce is riding the subway while a young boy does a rhyme. The kid's father wakes up, annoyed.

Can ANYONE fall asleep on a subway?





Bruce Banner's father being an abusive bastard was established by Bill Mantlo and expanded by Peter David. Brian Banner was a full-on psychotic, convinced his 3-year-old son was a monster.



I guess both the Fantastic Four, "New" Avengers and the "Mighty" Avengers are testing that Bruce Banner being "fixed" isn't just a passing fad.

Comments

[ninjapeps.insanejournal.com]

how do you get all that information from a cell phone? it doesn't matter how smart someone is. unless you were stupid enough to save that information on your phone, no amount of hacking will yield that info.

[autolychus2.insanejournal.com]

The same way Willow used to get all that info for Buffy over the school's computer?

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

In other words, IT'S THE INTERNET, DON'T QUESTION IT.

[autolychus2.insanejournal.com]

It was more impressive for Willow, though, Sunnydale High's computers probably had less computing power than your average cellphone these days. Gosh, I feel old.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

20-30 years from now, superhero comics nerds are going to look at the way modern writers portray the Internet with the same condescending disdain with which all of us now look at Stan Lee's ideas about "science" (IRON MAN'S ARMOR CAN DO ANYTHING IF IT HAS ENOUGH TRANSISTORS).

And if you are who I think you are, you were ALWAYS old. :P

[autolychus2.insanejournal.com]

I got too cute with the clues, didn't I?
How you been Box?

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

... Jesus Christ. :)

Admittedly, the MCAS Iwakuni narrowed it down quite a bit, but it was YOUR FUCKING BRUCE CAMPBELL-DERIVED SCREEN NAME that probably did the most to narrow it beyond that. :)

I been, let's just put it that way.

[autolychus2.insanejournal.com]

Can't help it. Autolychus2 has been my screen name since my first post on the first forum I ever joined (something Xena-related) and I joined this forum before I knew you were here. Sooo....

But this is getting off-topic. Send me an e-mail sometime my addy is (My real name, no spaces or underscores or MI)@yahoo.com -- if you can remember how to spell it.

See you around, I'm off to bed as I have to get up early for work.

Night pal.

[lawrence_live.insanejournal.com]

And the internet is MAGIC.

[liarashadowsong.insanejournal.com]

Not from the cell phone directly, I imagine. If you have a way to get the phone number, possibly through hacking to nearby bluetooth-capable devices, the nearest of which would be the phone in question, you would work from there. Take the number, and trace it back to the person's name, address, and credit card with which they pay the bill, via hacking into the records of their cell phone service provider. From the credit card company's database, you get the social security number. I'm not sure where the tax fraud info would come from then, but it may involve the IRS and his employer's pay records. Actually, I don't know how to actually go about executing any of the steps I just outlined, but I do believe that would be the logical process by which the information would be obtained. And that would be a very difficult job anyways; he'd have to have some seriously impressive technology on him to manage it that fast on something handheld.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

Earning my No-Prize here, I think that, by the time Bruce got to the point of claiming to know how much the guy had cheated on his income taxes, he was clearly just bullshitting him, but by that point, he'd already obtained enough other information that he could convince the guy that his bullshit was real. Plus, I suspect Bruce was making the leap of logic that, if this guy beat his kid, then he cheated on his taxes, too, based on ... well, I don't know, is that part of the same personality type?

[liarashadowsong.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, sounds about right. *grins* He hacked the reasonable to obtain info, and bullshitted the remainder. How he knew about the tax cheating is beyond me, and probably just a lucky guess.

[freeman333.insanejournal.com]

Arguably, yes. Abuse is often a generational phenomenon, so it's likely that Abusive Dad there was the recipient of similar treatment from his own Abusive Dad. A history of abuse is often correlated with features of Antisocial Personality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder), and though we don't see enough of Abusive Dad's behaviors in the above example to make a full diagnosis, responding to frustration with violence and a lack of compassion for the feelings of others are also both associated with Antisocial Personality. (As a colleague of mine once put it, lots of people use violence inside the home, but if someone is using violence in public spaces as a way of responding to frustration, that's a red flag for Antisocial.)

Another feature of Antisocial is a disregard for rule of law or social convention. Taxes are particularly pertinent in this regard in that they are a form of self-sacrifice that benefits a great number of people outside of one's self--exactly the kind of broad, impersonal compassion that someone with Antisocial features would find both difficult and pointless. So, if we're looking at the available evidence as an argument for a provisional Antisocial diagnosis, then yes, I'd say it's likely that the abuse and the cheating on taxes would both be features of the same personality structure.

Y'know, it's possible I'm putting too much thought into this. Maybe?

[freeman333.insanejournal.com]

And, as an entirely unnecessary follow-up to my previous comment, it's worth noting that threats of punishment, like Bruce's there, are generally found to be spectacularly ineffective for preventing incidents of violent acting-out, particularly in the case of someone with Antisocial features. (This fact contributes to many of my views on parenting, the criminal justice system, American schools, and capital punishment, but I digress.)

So, good work, Bruce, but if you think you've improved that kid's life, I'm afraid your intentions are noble but your methods are lacking. As much as I deeply love superhero comics and their slam! bam! pow! method of problem-solving, working in psychology has taught me that, in the real world, compassion is thousands of more times more effective at preventing violence than more violence could ever be.

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

He can't. He can get the name, address, phone info and maybe anything that was put onto the phone while in use. But the taxes thing, no.

Bruce is bluffing, hardcore, and given his intelligence and psychological experience he knows that the Dad isn't smart enough to realize he's being played like a chump. Just like a good grifter can size up a "mark", in a few moments of observation know details about him. That's where the tax evasion line came in. And since the dad isn't smart enough or courageous enough to call Bruce on his bluff, he backs down. The dad didn't ask for Banner to tell him if he filed it with his wife or not, to call Bruce's bluff.

Once outside the subway, though, I could see Bruce making good on his threats, keeping the dad's info in his mind and using his brains to figure out what he was bluffing about.

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

Not in the US maybe. Taxes are public records here (by and large) though. You can literally check them on the internet at a glance.

[zegim.insanejournal.com]

I like this explanation.