The Totally Awesome Hulk #1

[history79]

Comments

[yvonmukluk]

On the one hand...yay, more representation in comics and an Asian-American cretive team!

On the other, Cho is acting like a goddamn fratboy and half of that creative team is Frank Cho, who's not exactly been a shining exemplar of political correctness.

Jury's still out.

[nyadnar17]

I love it. Its carrying on the whole Incredible Herc vibe. Also Cho is acting more like a teenage boy who know he looks good than a "movie" fratboy to me. Seeing a lot of appreciation for women of all body type but no misogyny.

[cyberghostface]

Why does it need to be PC?

[captainbellman]

Enh, it seems a little...as one of my family-members would say..."up itself".

[lizard_of_aus]

Is that the right phrase? Because this seems to be the polar opposite of pretentious.

[captainbellman]

I was using the phrase with the intended meaning "Gratuitously Narcissistic".

[captainbellman]

Enh, I feel like that last part - regarding Cho's intentions - is not unlike a guy thinking he's being flattering when he tells a woman "I'm attracted to fat chicks", or similar. Cho draws women of different body types mostly for wank-fodder's sake, not for representation - and, evidenced by his constant "Outrage!" covers, apparently gets very upset and indignant when anyone calls him out on that fact.

[beyondthefringe]

Amadeus Cho may be extremely intelligent, but he's never exactly been gifted with an abundance of common sense or restraint. Add that to the power of a Hulk, plus what appears to be a general lessening of inhibitions in that form, and you have a teenage guy who's definitely going to be obnoxious, annoying, and full of himself.

And it's obviously not going to end well for him. :)

[an_idol_mind]

I started off disliking Amadeus Cho when he was first introduced, but I've grown to like him as I've realized that he's supposed to come off as arrogant and frequently wrong.

Between this and Pak's writing of Banner when he was de-Hulked, I like the fact that Pak has a handle on the fact that a person can be simultaneously very smart and very dumb.

[nyadnar17]

I can't lie I love that stuff so many I am the wrong guy. I think its fine for certain books to be unabashed cheese/beefcake.

Harley Quinn, Grayson , Midnighter, etc. The only time cheesecake bother me is when it doesn't fit the tone of the story/scene. Greg Land's random pornfaces, antonmically improbable poses by the females in a Batman or JLA comic, that sort of thing.

This book just seems like good clean fun and I think there is a place for that.

[stolisomancer]

I was under the impression, reading it, that this was part of what being a Hulk is doing to Amadeus: rather than being enraged or extroverted, as per Bruce or Jennifer, Amadeus's Hulk side makes him an incorrigible flirt who's prone to not thinking. Instead of over-analyzing, he isn't analyzing at all, and is generally prone to doing the first thing that flies into his head.

[stubbleupdate]

"Up itself" means, to me, self-congratulatory

[lizard_of_aus]

Yeah, that makes sense now.

[halloweenjack]

Yeah, I thought he was just another guy who liked drawing the pretty ladies, of which there are obviously a bunch in comics, but then I made the mistake of looking at his blog.

[lordultimus]

Amadeus has improved since his Mary Sue early days.

Personally, this isn't "my" Hulk, but hey, it could easily be someone else's.

[silverhammerman]

Is this the first time we've actually seen Madame Curie Cho appear in a comic? I know she's been mentioned before, but all I remember is references to her being missing or something.

This new version of the Hulk doesn't seem to have generated as much publicity as Thor and Captain America, unfortunately for Marvel, but I'm liking him so far. Cho as the Hulk seems to get around some longstanding issues that the Hulk has in regards to flexibility and working as a more traditional superhero. Personally I sometimes find that the Bruce Banner story feels like a finite story which has been denied its ending, whereas Amadeus Cho seems to get around that issue.

[yvonmukluk]

It doesn't 'need' to be PC, but I'd probably enjoy this book much more if Frank Cho hadn't spent the last 6 months or so deliberately baiting feminists who (justifiably) criticised some of his art as being deliberately cheescakey.

It's like Marvel is deliberately putting some of the worst people on books featuring POCs as main characters (see also: Edmonson on Red Wolf).

[baihu]

Isn't the body-shape of the Hulk the male equivalent of cheesecake too?

[baihu]

I think the lack of 'outrage' compared to the aforementioned 2, the 'Hulk' persona has been much more fluid and easily co-opted over the years. Possibly partially because of how even OG-Bruce-Banner Hulk has very erratic characterization, and depending how far one goes back, very weird powersets (that regenerating his head thing from really early on for example).

The Hulk persona has never been seen as wholly 'good' at all. He represents unbridled rage, and the oft times that Bruce has managed some control is the only time Hulk is truly fully heroic. Other times, that backfires as seen with Maestro, when control and power are combined in a wholly malicious person. (I know the Doc Green thing, frankly I don't know enough about that story thread. But he seems more an exception to the rule).

It's why She-Hulk's so easy to accept as well (though if she were introduced in modern times, who knows what the reaction would be). In fact she represents the best of what having Hulk powers can be, she's often if not completely more heroic than OG-Hulk. Certainly more reliable. Though it does make the times when she truly loses control that more horrific, while its par for the course for Bruce because no one truly trusts him to truly control himself.

Feels like Bruce's story thread is pretty much that he will never truly find a peace with himself and Hulk; and often watches other people not struggling as much as he does with the Hulk persona. Ultimately, he's maybe just too flawed for that kind of resolution.

[cyberghostface]

Why can't he poke fun at his critics?

[cyberghostface]

The 'outrage' stuff was in response to another artist(?) who threatened him for drawing Spider-Gwen.

[yvonmukluk]

And when men are complaining about how it's objectifying, then I suppose the two are the same thing. Honestly dudes in comics seem largely to be drawn to align with male power fantasies, only instead of titillation they're meant to be ideal physiques. There are rare exceptions (Dick Grayson is I believe the favoured example), but they're the exception rather than the rule. It's not a 1:1 thing.

When was the last time a man complained about being the art in comics objectifying his gender? Speaking as a man, I don't think I can recall an instance where that's the case. That doesn't mean women aren't being objectified. And Frank Cho's response to these criticisms really don't do him any favours.

[cdamascus]

Robbi Rodriguez, the co-creator of Spider-Gwen, kind of aggressively told him to knock it off when he drew the character in a suggestive pose. I wouldn't say he "threatened" him, though.

[cyberghostface]

He said "Be lucky your[sic] never around me".

[cyberghostface]

I'd say it's to do with Marvel aggressively promoting the former two in ways the Hulk wasn't, going on talk shows with "Captain America is black! Thor is a woman!" and reveling in the controversy by having in-universe characters as strawmen for those not happy about the change. And now they're having the two hook up and going "Cap and Thor are kissing! NOTICE US!"

Whereas 'Amadeus Cho is the Hulk' seems to be more low key. Did they even bring it to a talk show?

[captainbellman]

That specifically, but I got the sense he was generally sniping at anyone who dared criticise him - after all, it started out as that artist (the co-creator of Spider-Gwen) criticising him for drawing Spider-Gwen in the pose of that infamous Milo Manara Spider-Woman cover in order to troll people who criticised that cover.

[captainbellman]

http://www.themarysue.com/shortpacked-false-equivalence/

[captainbellman]

There's a difference between doing so good-naturedly and with some courtesy - for instance, as much as I disagree with everything any GOP candidate stands for, I did kind-of admire Cruz' response the other day to Trump's accusation of being a "maniac", by self-deprecatingly posting the music video of the song of the same name on his twitter.

Whereas Cho's pieces just generally come off as spiteful and/or begging for attention/asking for a fight.

[burkeonthesly]

It's long been my head-canon that being a Hulk drastically reduces inhibitions. In Bruce Banner, this is a problem because he's holding back psychological trauma, multiple personalities, and serious anger issues, but his cousin Jen doesn't have those issues, so being She-Hulk has only really changed her from a shy, mousy woman to an extrovert full of joie de vivre--her former self would never have gotten fired from a law firm for accidentally breaking a copier with her backside, or wrecking a conference room table in a fit of pique on her way out.

[beyondthefringe]

I'm pretty sure that's actual canon, though I can't remember just where it was established. Possibly in one of the She-Hulk series, where it was indeed specified that becoming She-Hulk loosened her inhibitions.

[burkeonthesly]

Was that establishing it for Hulk-ism in general, or just that her Hulkform, in particular, was inhibition-light?