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laughing_tree
Back in '63, there was a kind of boundless optimism; no matter how many anxieties or fears there might be hanging over the work, that venues into this incredible optimism—that everything was possible. That was true of the artists who were working with the form. They were experimenting. They were trying things. They were caught up in the energy and experimentation of the times. I think that perhaps in '93, there were some very good artists but it seemed like there was a kind of lack of energy. A lack of fierceness to the work, a lack of desire to push boundaries or to experiment which was there in the Sixties. -- Alan Moore
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laughing_tree
Originally it was going to be the Beast from Hydra, but I found out people had plans for that so I was like, "Okay, okay, we need a new cosmic Satan. Oh! There's One Above All. What about One Below?" -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
I like that he doesn't fit in any boxes — one of the primal scenes of the Hulk is the opening of Avengers #2, where Thor's ranting at him for being nearly naked in a meeting and the other Avengers are clearly disgusted by him. I actually see him as a countercultural figure, and right from the start he has that diegetic appeal to disaffected youth — Superman hangs out with straight-laced Jimmy Olsen, who at his very wildest is "kooky", while Hulk hangs out with Rick Jones, a juvenile delinquent who introduces himself by playing chicken with an atom bomb. -- Al Ewing
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FCBD Avengers/Hulk #1: Ignition
Aug. 17th, 2021 12:47 amsuperboyprime
"I love Hulk. I have a HUGE pitch in my back pocket if I ever get called upon." - Donny Cates
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The Immortal Hulk #48 - "Hiding Places"
Aug. 4th, 2021 06:36 amlaughing_tree
I'd read up on the whole Red She-Hulk arc, and I'd seen how that had fleshed Betty out, and informed her personality, but at the same time that all felt fairly safe, in a way. Going back to the original Harpy stories after that — it's the '70s, they haven't aged spectacularly, but at the same time, there's a weird power in there. This is all coming up directly from the mental basement of a bunch of hippies and ne'er-do-wells — Red She-Hulk feels slick, Hollywood, a spin-off of an established brand that's catching fire, while Harpy is... Harpy is a creature from a dream I would hesitate to tell a therapist about. So, getting back on point, I ended up combining the two with a view to getting back to the feeling of Harpy - something a bit more primal and interesting. And Joe, being Joe, took my somewhat mealy-mouthed direction of "Red She-Hulk with wings, claws, fangs and big bird feet" and gave me what I needed for the story, which is a Junji-Ito-esque horror from the very depths of the id. -- Al Ewing
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The Immortal Hulk #47 - "Chaotic Terrain"
Jul. 2nd, 2021 06:56 pmlaughing_tree
I like that [the Black Panther]’s several steps ahead of everyone, that he’s the most capable hero in the Marvel pantheon. There’s room in him for humanity – he has the room to be wrong sometimes, which is important in a character – but he is absolutely the smartest person in any room he’s in, and he’ll always have that twist up his sleeve that will surprise you. And that’s something I probably got from the wonderful Christopher Priest run of the 2000s, which redefined the character by taking him seriously. -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
I would go as far as to say that, as the Superman/Spider-Man dichotomy perfectly represents DC vs Marvel, Batman and the Hulk is another such axis. On the one hand, a fictional universe of order and structure, that reinvents itself in alignment with the times — on the other, a fictional universe of free-roaming chaos, that twists and builds on what came before and contains multitudes. (Although, like the Hulk, Batman is also a dark and endlessly-changing sea, like the void in the book of Genesis. I hope they team up again sometime.) -- Al Ewing
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The Immortal Hulk #45 - "Ready or Not"
May. 4th, 2021 06:17 pmlaughing_tree
Things are definitely building to a crescendo - or even a series of crescendos. 2021 is going to be an incredibly significant year for the Green Goliath. -- Al Ewing
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The Immortal Hulk #44 - "To Rule in Hell"
Apr. 10th, 2021 07:09 pmlaughing_tree
If you look back at those early issues, he’s hanging around with juvenile delinquents. In the ’60s, Iron Man’s building weapons for the military industrial complex. Hulk is beating them up. From a time before Stan Lee thought, “Actually, I’m feeling very counter-cultural myself,” Hulk was still the earliest example. I feel like Immortal Hulk is a book where we can do that and it won’t be out of place. It’s been an interesting journey, though I think some readers didn’t appreciate it as much as others. -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
In a larger sense – all superheroes are immortal, to an extent. Certainly the major ones. All they have to fear is cancellation, and even then they’ll live on as merchandise – their symbols, etched onto non-biodegradable plastic, have a very good chance to outlive the human race. So once you take death off the table, what’s left for them? It’s a question that’s often asked in horror – what’s worse than dying? I think that’s more interesting than just threatening the Hulk with another fistfight. -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
This might be a bad time to mention that I've bagsied Puck as well. Sorry guys. I think Motormouth and Killpower are available though! -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
I will say that this special has an ending which I think will probably make a lot of readers cry actual tears. -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
Originally, I was going to leave the THING VS. HULK dichotomy to the pages of FF -- the fight they had there was a fun example of the genre -- but while I was plotting the upcoming issues, I realized there was a great opportunity for a twist on that, and I didn't want to let that chance go to waste. It's ended up really playing into some ideas I've been having about gamma rays and cosmic rays, and some of the larger workings of the book. I can promise that this is a Thing/Hulk story unlike any you've read before. -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
If you pick up Incredible Hulk #1, from 1962 – which is easier than you’d think, since it’s been reprinted a bunch of times and is available digitally – you’ll be reading a classic monster comic of the era with some fairly disturbing flourishes. Bruce Banner literally screams for hours when he’s hit by the gamma bomb, and the Hulk only emerges when night falls – there’s a sequence of Bruce Banner sitting terrified in his chair as the shadows lengthen, waiting for the night to fall and his dark side to emerge. So a horror take was baked into the character to an extent. -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
In which... no, I won't spoil it. But it's big. And even by our standards... it's a horror comic. -- Al Ewing
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laughing_tree
Given time and resources, the Leader will out-think any foe. You can't beat him in a rational contest of minds, which is why the Hulk is a great foe for him, since the Hulk represents the irrational unconscious. -- Al Ewing
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