Indestructible Hulk #3 and Daredevil #22

[arbre_rieur]

"[A]s I got into my 30s and I got into my 40s, I really started to understand a lot more about what I have learned both good and bad from superhero comics as a kid. The upsides -- the obvious upsides: do the right thing, and save cats from trees, and be honest to people, help little old ladies across the street. The darker stuff that you learn... I mean, Jesus, everything emotionally stunted and wrong about me I learned from Mort Weisinger. ... I brought even more personal issues to Daredevil in terms of a lifelong struggle with depression. How you deal with that and don't deal with that, that's something I get a chance to work out with these characters, both Bruce Banner and Matt Murdock." -- Mark Waid

HULK #3:





AIM has kidnapped one Professor Burke, a guy who used to be one fifth of the team that piloted the Quintronic Man (http://marvel.com/universe/Quintronic_Man).





He'd switched places with the real Burke earlier, you see.



DAREDEVIL #22:

Comments

[bewareofgeek]

And now we know why AIM wears yellow. :)

Liked this HULK issue, although I wish the plot was just a bit meatier. It's a quick read. Starting to wonder about the secrets of the lab assistants. Especially Leucenstern, who appears to be in prison.

[mrstatham]

The stuff with the lab assistants feels like it's been done before with the team Fraction put together for Tony in the previous Iron Man run, somehow, only without nearly half the gushing over how amazing Bruce is. That in itself maybe feels a little too much like the Mighty Avengers run that starred Hank Pym, which seemed downright desperate to finally scrape off that image of him being a wife-beater and nothing else.

Also, are we meant to find Bruce sympathetic when it comes to trashing ROB? Because how could he not expect something like that to happen given he's working for SHIELD?

[random_fan]

I took it as a comedy moment.

[filthysize]

Maybe it'll be a running joke. He'll smash Rob at the end of each issue.

NEXT: ROB 12.0!

[icon_uk]

"You killed ROB... you bastards!"

or

"ROB dies at dawn!" oh, and at lunchtime.... and sometimes in the late afternoon, sometimes in the evening too"

[darkknightjrk]

I haven't read enough of Fraction's IM to compare, but I guess you could say that since Bruce is far more volatile, you do need to have at least a little bit of an idea of why these people would want to work with this guy. The fact that they mostly just talk about how amazing Bruce is sounding like a broken record at this point doesn't particularly help, though.

[arbre_rieur]

"That in itself maybe feels a little too much like the Mighty Avengers run that starred Hank Pym, which seemed downright desperate to finally scrape off that image of him being a wife-beater and nothing else."

What are they trying to scrape off in this case, though? Because Banner's particular, er, barnacles are front and center here. Indeed, the whole one-page scene is about the question of why these guys want to work with a person of his background and circumstance. Rather than scraping away or ignoring anything, it's directly addressing it.

[turtlefu]

I find those Daredevil pages to be really weird, tone-wise.

Like, the restaurant scene, "The Foggy", etc. and then! CANCER.

Talk about mood whiplash.

[leoboiko]

Like the opposite of a magician.

[biod]

I think it works. Daredevil's always a tightrope away from tragedy; that last page is the book letting you and Matt catch on to that.

[mastermahan]

Exactly. This is Daredevil: The Man Without Hope.

[biod]

Disheveled Daredevil is adorable. He looks like a groupie for the Beatles.

[biod]

As for Foggy: ship him to Wakanda, problem solved.

[darkknightjrk]

Ah, but if Foggy got the cure for cancer, he might turn it into a weapon!

[beoweasel]

WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL FOGGY MIGHT COMMIT WITH THE CURE FOR CANCER?

[mastermahan]

Given their history of dickishness, I wonder how much international aid Wakanda got after Namor went all genocidal on them.

[darkknightjrk]

I'm imagining that America only brought a little boy from the town of Springfield named Nelson...

[salinea]

The X-Men tried to help them but they didn't want them to.

[icon_uk]

It's at that point we discvover they HAVE discovered a cure, but have just realised that it doesn't work on white people. Oops!

[shadowpsykie]

oh like Bruce doesn't know how to rewire a robot...

anyways, i would love to see them become buddies.

this series has potential, but i don't like the idea of Hulk being a "Controlled explosion"

i like it when Hulk and Bruce are more unified.... is this still the case (are they keeping it a secret?) or have they reverted to "hulk can't be controlled.... blah blah blah"

[darkknightjrk]

I haven't read enough to tell completely (I am constantly confused by the bandwagon that Waid's created these days), but I do remember that in the first issue that Bruce tells Maria that after all this time trying to cure himself, he realized it's a fruitless endeavour, and he should treat it as one would treat their diabetes, not like a...erm...cancer.

[shadowpsykie]

yeah... but its more Bruce has given up trying to "cure the hulk" and just wants to use him as a tactical nuke.... if that's what he is telling SHIELD fine (Bruce in contol of the Hulk would probably be more dangerous than him not in control at least to them) but i wanted to know what Bruce actually thinks. or rather, how the conversations/understanding between bruce and hulk goes

[bewareofgeek]

Well, it seems pretty clear that Bruce can (partially) control the change. I get the feeling Waid may be playing a bit with the idea that the context of the change controls how smart the Hulk is.

In issue #2, he was somewhat goaded into it, and lost some control. But in this issue, Hulk comes across as more focused. His lack of speech may not be because he CAN'T talk, but more because he has no need to.

Just a guess, really.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm that would be and intruiging takeon it... at least one i havent seen before...

[angelophile]

no foggy no D:

[mastermahan]

Holy shit, Foggy, at least use a damn fork.

[icon_uk]

Personally I'd use a biohazard container and a 200 foot deep hole to drop it into.

[darkknightjrk]

That reminds me--what is limburger, anyway?

[skemono]

A very smelly cheese.

[icon_uk]

A cheese whose most notable trait is that it smells like BO (apparently)

[randyripoff]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburger_cheese

[skemono]

"The docs said it was cancer, but I swore to die of a heart attack! Bring on more bacon cheesecakes!"

Joking aside, I like these scenes. I look forward to seeing where they're going with Hulk's new supporting cast.

[crinos]

I honestly don't know which part is more adorable, the fact its a Limburger bacon cheesecake, or the fact that Foggy is shoveling it in his mouth.

As for the Cancer things, I am hopeful. I think the only major marvel character to contract cancer and die from it was Mar Vell (Back when a character dying meant something.)

I know Firestar had and beat Cancer, I'm sure someone else did as well, but the name escapes me atm.

[salinea]

Deadpool?

[crinos]

I am hesistant to count Deadpool since because of his healing factor he's not going to die from it. Yes he has Cancer, but he's never going to die from it, and he got his healing factor to fix it its technically kind of has been cured already.

In fiction with a character gets cancer, its either so they can show the triumph of them overcoming it (Like with Firestar), or the tragedy of their life being cut down by a tragic illness (Like Captain Marvel).

[an_idol_mind]

I get that a lot of people die of cancer. I get the hopelessness that comes with it. I work in a flippin' cancer center, interact with both patients and survivors, and lost my own father to cancer, so I know how devastating it can be.

Despite that, or perhaps because of it, I hate it when comics bring in cancer like this. It feels like a cheap way to ratchet up drama. It's made worse by the fact that I KNOW the story won't actually take the situation seriously. It will either be a misdiagnosis or Foggy will be cured via magical comic science. It comes off as insulting to me right from the get-go.

[thanekos]

The new Quintronic Man's really a nice mech design, and has a good build-up in the issue- shame about its fight just being " Hahaha Hulk you cannot overcome meOHGODYOUCAN".

(And man, that's a hell of a person to imagine as Matt's leggy magician assistant.)

[md84]

I really doubt Foggy is going to die of cancer. After he survived being shanked in a prison it became clear that he's not going to die anytime soon.

And am I the only one who was a little freaked out by Foggy eating an entire cheesecake (never mind that it's made with limburger and bacon of all things) in one sitting without any utensils? I can barely manage that with normal cheesecake.

[blunderbuss]

Is it entirely pathetic that the only thing I care about is that one of those lab assistants is from PERTH!? H-holy shit a comic book actually mentioned us, why is this not on the news.

[avantre]

Just a little over a month ago I posted a comment in the "Marvel NOW: Avengers #1" post in Scans Daily wondering how long it would take Marvel to forget that they'd offhandedly destroyed Perth (and another city). Turns out the answer to that question was "6 weeks", unless this is supposed to be before Avengers 1 or in a different continuity or something. That's impressively short, even by Marvel standards

[salinea]

Hah!

[superboyprime]

Except Perth wasn't destroyed in that comic, jut overrun with alien vegetation.

[avantre]

It wasn't blown-up destroyed, no. The bombs are there to remap dna (according to the second issue) - the population might still be alive, but it doesn't look like they're untouched/unharmed in the panels shown in the 2nd comic. Whether it's reversed or not (and if it is reversed, whether it's an immediate cure or one that will keep the city on its knees until it slowly recovers) will be a question for the third issue, I guess.