The Immortal Hulk #9 - "The Sinners"

[laughing_tree]

I'm very conscious that I'm looking through the lens of all this internal stuff, this fear of death and the apocalypse, and this internal struggle between my conscious atheism and a more deep-down subconscious faith that's harder to grasp and work out, and emotional issues, particularly my anger and the things I get angry about... but I know without all that stuff, the book wouldn't be what it is, and I wouldn't be as invested in it, and people would smell that lack of investment coming off it.

If I was just coming at it completely dispassionately, like some executive in a writer's room going "so what do the kids want from the Hulk? How about he rides a skateboard? How about he makes YouTubes?" - there just wouldn't be anything there.

-- Al Ewing

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

...

Does supernatural stuff like this really WORK for the Hulk?

[icon_uk]

It's an interesting question, I think the general horror genre does, because that's how he started, but outright supernatural stuff playing a part, not so much IMHO?

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Why not?

At its best, Hulk has always been about one man's battle with his own demons. Now those demons are more literal than ever

[erikred]

It's certainly not unprecedented; see the Crossroads phase for some of the more weirdly metaphysical.

Now if they really wanted to go full horror here, he'd swap out that ball and chain for an enormous gallstone attached to his lower intestine....

[cainofdreaming]

If he did that Innards, from D.O.A., might sue him for copyright infringement.

[crinos]

Last time we saw Absorbing man he was paling around with the Inhumans right? What happened between then and now to get us here?

Or did anything happen?

[beyondthefringe]

He went back to work doing what he loves best: robbing banks.

[crinos]

You know.... yeah sure why not. You do you Crusher.

[captainbellman]

I mean, not any more, by the looks of it...

[icon_uk]

If I had a penny for every time the Absorbing Man apparently died, I'd be living on a private island somewhere with lavishly well-paid Dick Grayson lookalikes waiting on me hand and foot.

[crinos]

Oh please, he's survived worse.

I mean int he Black Bolt series he absorbed Black Bolt's scream in order to kill the bad guy and then all that was left of him was his hammer. He was back like five seconds after they wrapped up the funeral.

[thanekos]

The One Below All has excellent taste in masks.

[super_fly]

I bet he's got one hell of a splitting headache



I'll see myself out.

[stolisomancer]

Nice use of continuity. The "Roxxon gig" Creel mentions is the plot for what's currently happening in Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente's Weapon H.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I think we missed a step here? How did Hulkty Dumpty get put back together again?

[wizardru]

It happened last issue. It was kind of the focus of the entire issue, really. Did you see the summary posted here? TL;DR version: cut into pieces, the Hulk still goes through alive/dead cycle, but is virtually unkillable. He didn't escape as the Hulk wanted to see what he could do and was capable of and let the scientist do the heavy lifting of figuring it out. Once he realized he could control his severed parts remotely, he freed himself and grew back into a whole. The scientist he grew around didn't fare nearly as well.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Ah, no, didn't see the summary. Last I saw was the events you described in the issue before, but I guess I forgot that he reassembled himself already.