Bought/Thought for 9/6/07; SPOILERS INSIDE!!

[TheCorpulent1]

iKnow.

 

[BrianWilly]

And Thor apparently doesnt have Banner's mathematical ability or perception..

This is exactly the problem. Hulk is a dozen times more callous and careless and unrestrained in a fight than other superbeings with his strength level...Thor, Juggernaut, Sentry, any variety of DC heroes, you name it...

But! Now he has SUPER MATH so it's all okay, he's never killed anyone for any remotely negative reason and he never will kill anyone for any remotely negative reason, guaranteed. Everything you've ever thought about him being uncontrolled and untamed is just bunk 'cause, y'know, what the Hulk really is is a fluffy mathematical machine with the power of supernotkilling.

IMO, it's right up there with his breathing in space shenanigans.

 

[VICTORVONDOOMX]

SUPERMATH is lame.

Hey Marvel! (Yeah... WAY down here...) How 'bout - SINCE THIS IS "THE HULK"- we just let him be the hero of the comic book and we not over-think it?
OK?
Please?

 

[deemar325]

You have a point. I hadn't read FNSM either.

I did "flip through" INCREDIBLE HULK #110, and by that I mean "scimmed". So I do sort of know what everyone is talking about in terms of "the explaination".

I...had a hard time swallowing it, honestly. I definately don't want Hulk to be retroactively made into a mass murderer who has killed people in rampages, because then you are completely unable to root for him, unless you are a sociopath without any sense of morality (or one who believes no one really has any morals), like Mark Millar's theme in ULTIMATES. But I would rather suspend belief than easily accept the explaination that Rampaging Hulk does "subconcious bull**** math equations in his head to prevent innocents from dying". Especially since while Hulk hasn't murdered civilians on-panel before, other heroes HAVE gotten into battles with him to prevent damages or injuries during rampages.

Really, was suspending belief with the Hulk so bad? Must everything either be grim, violent, and ugly or else have some implausibly fantastic explanation? This all began because Bendis, and likely Millar and some of the editors, back in the early 2000's, when Ultimate was hot ****, believed that the best way to improve 616 was to strip-mine the talent and ideas from Ultimate and force them into 616. And part of that was Millar's sadistical, mass murdering, cannibal Hulk who then can turn around and be a hero. But Ultimate is a new universe, so it works there. The problem is that Bendis & Millar have never adjusted as well to 616 because that requires sharing characters, ideas, and concepts with other people in the past, present, and future, and they are both too egotistical, selfish, and arrogant to accept that. Which wouldn't be a problem if the editorial board didn't decide to either throw out what has worked for 40 years to cave into "the new fad", or allow both to confuse the **** out of readers. But they do. Trust me, in a decade, "grim and gritty" will be the "spiked shoulderpads" of the 2000's.

A Hulk who kills people is not a character who can be rooted for, period. A Hulk who has left innocents dead is someone who should be destroyed, and it is a Hulk that proves every word Thunderbolt Ross has ever said about him right. But that doesn't mean that in order to accept that Hulk hasn't outright killed anyone, that I can swallow that 24/7, regardless of whether Hulk is the Professor or Savage or Joe Fixit, he always does math in his head and subconciously holds back. I could seen some incarnations of Hulk doing that. Not all. And not all the time.

But I guess fans like me are dwindling, fans who read a Hulk story and didn't obsess about why a hundred fatalities didn't result from Hulk tearing up a street to throw at Absorbing Man. Fans who could accept a rampage without needing to see or hear about bodies laying in heaps somewhere. When the hell did comics become so god damned self-defeating? And when the hell is it going to stop!? Attacking the genre expectations and then feeling the need to remove them, mock them, or ridiculously explain them rarely add anything of value.

It reminds me of a more extended version of the fan who can accept that Banner gains a ton of mass from nowhere, turns green and whatnot, yet complains about why the pants always stay intact. Do we need some baloney explaination for that? Or can we prioritize?

So, Cho's theory in #110, I wasn't 100% gung-ho for it, but I'd rather that then Bendis having Hulk eat people in Vegas and other writer's attempts to retroactively insert fatalities into Hulk's stories, especially when a few treated a single supposed death as a big deal.

I also am in the thought that if a villain and a hero are fighting, any damages and deaths that occur should usually be blamed on the villain for committing a crime or being a wanted felon in the first place (Nitro could have always surrendered, plead guilty, worked on good behavior; running from the law is always a choice). But the concept of punishing heroes for every mistake but collectively saying, "baddies will be baddies" at every atrocity I guess creates drama and keeps stuff "grim".

Preach on brother

 

[fifthfiend]

So reducing Dread's points:

1. It's kind of stupid to have Hulk doing super-Hulkmath to not harm bystanders.

2. It's even stupider to have Hulk just killing innocent civilians all over the place.

3. It's unfortunately the case that 1 is necessary to keep Millar and Bendis from doing 2.

4. Millar and Bendis are *******s.

Assuming I haven't missed anything important I can definitely say we are agreed on all counts.

 

[deemar325]

You pretty much summed it up 5thfiend

 

[Dread]

With dread 100% here.

Up until this part anyway where it goes wildly off the rails and starts making stupid assumptions and insulting people he has never met (and factually incorrect as well).

Naturally, you're free to disagree about my opinions on writers. Let's just say that if they aren't as I described in RL, that is how they usually come off in their writing and interviews (and the shared quirk of when FINALLY doing something that fans have collectively called for, doing it in a petty, ass-backwards ******ed way as if to try to "prove" the fans know nothing), that is how I call it. In their defense, it isn't all their fault; coddling from all their bosses at Marvel has made them that way. I mean, if I wrote for Marvel and I not only sold well, but all of my superiors treated my dime a dozen storylines as the greatest thing since plumbing before they were even published, I'd probably be an arrogant **** too.

What really burns my arse is that the entire "Hulk slaughters people" that has been shoved into 616 by Bendis wasn't even in a Hulk comic...but in a NEW AVENGERS one-shot, in which Hulk wasn't even a starring character. And despite that, it is not only accepted into canon, but now other writers have to work with it or around it, and the editors are divided over it and usually let both sides squabble. How is it that Bendis can dramatically alter the accepted status quo of a character from a 5 page sequence in a one-shot, and it is accepted down the line, but Bendis can pick and choose what to accept and what to ignore or retcon about the dozens of other characters that he uses as regulars? It reaks of hypocrisy, and despite all the reasons Marvel may have for it (he is their #1 selling ongoing writer), it is almost unheard of until now that one person who isn't an editor has this much power over the characters of the entire universe, and many fans get tired of the smell of it.

Preach on brother

Thanks.

So reducing Dread's points:

1. It's kind of stupid to have Hulk doing super-Hulkmath to not harm bystanders.

2. It's even stupider to have Hulk just killing innocent civilians all over the place.

3. It's unfortunately the case that 1 is necessary to keep Millar and Bendis from doing 2.

4. Millar and Bendis are *******s.

Assuming I haven't missed anything important I can definitely say we are agreed on all counts.

That's a good CLIFF'S NOTES version I guess.

 

[Eros]

Dread while I respect you, you are clearly being foolish on this one. if you want hulk to be a teddy bear, whos child like rampages never cause any harm, then why he **** does banner and awhole bunch of people try and get rid of him?! why has the hulk story always been a jekyll and Hyde one, and not a Jekyll and mis understood super non death teddy bear one?! you not suppose to root for the hulk, why would you root for a creature that cuuses unheard of destuction when he gets alittle mad? I don't understand you people, why the hell is so wrong about hulk killing people accidently, he is a freaking monster! you say you hate Bendis retcons, but Paks supermath crap topes anything bendis has done IMO.

 

[Dread]

Dread while I respect you, you are clearly being foolish on this one. if you want hulk to be a teddy bear, whos child like rampages never cause any harm, then why he **** does banner and awhole bunch of people try and get rid of him?! why has the hulk story always been a jekyll and Hyde one, and not a Jekyll and mis understood super non death teddy bear one?! you not suppose to root for the hulk, why would you root for a creature that cuuses unheard of destuction when he gets alittle mad? I don't understand you people, why the hell is so wrong about hulk killing people accidently, he is a freaking monster! you say you hate Bendis retcons, but Paks supermath crap topes anything bendis has done IMO.

As I said before, my issue is I was perfectly fine with suspending belief. Hulk was a danger and his powers were a curse that he struggled with and all that. But, in order for Hulk to work you need to be able to root for him in some degree; Hulk battles actual villains most of the time after all. Hulk's been smashing stuff for ages and it seemed everyone, the writers and fans, were willing to at least acknowledge that no one had been directly killed. No one obsessed over visualizing stacks of dead bodies in a building that got shaken up or something.

Then, Bendis, in a NA one shot, on a lark, decides to insert Ultimization into 616, and now down the line people need to either explain it away or go with it. But the problem is, if Hulk kills innocent civilians, then he is not a character who you can sympathatize with or enjoy. He is a mass murderer, little better than Carnage. You can't root for that. You can't root for killers of innocent civilians.

I mean maybe it isn't all Bendis' fault; after all, Millar made Ultimate Hulk a mass murdering cannibal and then turned around and expected people to root for him to kill aliens, because the lesson of THE ULTIMATES is heroes don't have any morals, they are merely the ones who win. And that works for Ultimate, because it is a new universe born in the post 90's era of grim, violent, depressing "overrealism". But it doesn't working being shoved into 616. The same fans who "complained" that no one died in Hulk rampages are the same sort of fans who complained about Hulk's pants always staying on (something else Millar touched on, having Hulk "steal the pants from a morbidly obese corpse" or something). The fans whose nitpicking ruin the simple enjoyment of the character and the work.

It is a dangerous game because once you start geing "uber-realistic" with one comic fantasy character, you continue with the rest and then tear down the genre expectations that have always worked. And without a foundation, buildings tend to crumble. It is self-defeating. It is like someone who goes to a wrestling match and says, "Oh, look, that punch isn't real. It is stuntwork, you couldn't do that, yada yada..." It ruins the enjoyment of the rest and makes one question why someone who isn't able to enjoy the "illusion" bothers with attending at all. Imagine all the baloney we could find in the Star Trek universe? Or Superman. Or any comic?

Where does it end?

I don't care for the Banner-Math theory much at all...I just feel ashamed that I live in an age where it is required.

 

[THANOSRULES]

I think the need for this kind of explanation is part due to the last bit with Hulk versus ROSS and the army. It looked as if he killed hundreds there, and that would not be very COOL for a hero to do..P.O.ed or not.

So we needed to be explained that nobody died there. Then one would say "thats ridiculous" ..ergo we invent this new math bit to explain it.

That and the debate is a constant monkey on HULKS back.

The Math Theory doesnt bother me. First, its confusing enough that it doesnt really need to be shown much. It has enough leeway that it has a wide birth to play with. Second, it makes sense as DREAD is saying that it allows the character to be rooted for with a bit more ease.

As long as marvel keeps it sane (i.e. not showing math equations floating in the air every time HULK is in a fight like they did when CHO used the pebble) It doesnt cause any real problems IMO.

I don't even see it as a retcon. Whoever died , died in past Hulk fights. People probably still died in rubble etc.. Hulk was just subconciously not trying to hurt innocent folks, thats all. Who says the math going on is infallible anyway?

 

[fifthfiend]

You know I'm just throwing this out there, but someone up at Marvel should totally just call up Stan Lee and be like "hey Stan, does the Hulk kill anybody?" And he can be like "Um... yeah, probably," or he can be like "What no that's ****ing stupid, now stop being stupid." And then people can just call the whole thing settled.

 

[gildea]

Naturally, you're free to disagree about my opinions on writers. Let's just say that if they aren't as I described in RL, that is how they usually come off in their writing and interviews (and the shared quirk of when FINALLY doing something that fans have collectively called for, doing it in a petty, ass-backwards ******ed way as if to try to "prove" the fans know nothing)

You honestly see what you want to see in these interviews. (links btw?)
They're pretty much like any other creators interviewed.

that is how I call it. In their defense, it isn't all their fault; coddling from all their bosses at Marvel has made them that way. I mean, if I wrote for Marvel and I not only sold well, but all of my superiors treated my dime a dozen storylines as the greatest thing since plumbing before they were even published, I'd probably be an arrogant **** too.

This isn't something from interviews btw this is your own assumptions.

What really burns my arse is that the entire "Hulk slaughters people" that has been shoved into 616 by Bendis wasn't even in a Hulk comic...but in a NEW AVENGERS one-shot, in which Hulk wasn't even a starring character.

AS dan slott said that is only one interpretation of the wording. Doesn't say he kills. Also your being misleading in your argument "slaughters" is not the same as "accidently kills"

And despite that, it is not only accepted into canon, but now other writers have to work with it or around it,

Except following on from the latest issue of the incredible hulk it quite clearly HASN'T been accepted into cannon (the hulk kills interpretation I mean).

and the editors are divided over it and usually let both sides squabble. How is it that Bendis can dramatically alter the accepted status quo of a character from a 5 page sequence in a one-shot, and it is accepted down the line,

Well as observed above the killing interpretation CLEARLY HASN'T been accepted down the line (which I appreciate you need to ignore because it hurts your nonsensical bendis demigod rants when something as major has the hulk kills interpretation (i'm always saying interpretation because of the wiggle room that dan slott observed) can be shown to be inaccurate) thus he hasn't dramatically altered this characters statu quo.

But the reasons for doing so was that it provided a launch pad for planet hulk and thus world war hulk. Could that have come in hulks own comic well yeah but I suppose it looks like you're happy to complain even when bendis works with other writers story (in the launching of planet hulk).

but Bendis can pick and choose what to accept and what to ignore or retcon about the dozens of other characters that he uses as regulars?

All writers do that. As do readers. Readers tend to be the worst offenders actually.

It reaks of hypocrisy, and despite all the reasons Marvel may have for it (he is their #1 selling ongoing writer), it is almost unheard of until now that one person who isn't an editor has this much power over the characters of the entire universe, and many fans get tired of the smell of it.

Again as pointed out bendis does favour the hulk kills interpretation which clearly hasn't been accepted so ummm where is this (largely imagined on your part) power??







Ahhh the most amusing thing about this is you and I are in complete agreement about how the hulk should be handled too

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Why is it that Bendis gets to change whatever the **** he wants, but when someone takes the ball away from him, and re-sets continuity back where it has been for 40 years, it'a a "retcon"?

Can someone explain that to me?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Instant top 10 seller. That's your explanation.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Instant top 10 seller. That's your explanation.

Granted. But it STILL sucks.

 

[Eros]

Why is it that Bendis gets to change whatever the **** he wants, but when someone takes the ball away from him, and re-sets continuity back where it has been for 40 years, it'a a "retcon"?

Can someone explain that to me?

I have to use super Hulk math to calculate the answer.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Granted. But it STILL sucks.

I agree.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

I have to use super Hulk math to calculate the answer.

heh. t:

 

[PhotoJones]

Anyone pick up Captain America: The Chosen?

 

[Tropico]

I think someone posted a short review a few pages back.

 

[Not Jake]

Supermath is cool


I always thought Dennis Rodman could do it, that's why he was so good at rebounding despite the fact that he was only about 6'7" and skinny

 

[Tropico]

All you whiners complaining about what practical use calculus will have in your life...let the Hulk and Amadeus be your example.

 

[Dread]

Ahhh the most amusing thing about this is you and I are in complete agreement about how the hulk should be handled too

That's good.

I considered a quote by quote debate, but, eh, not in the mood. I'm a Bendis Basher and you're one of those Devil's Advocate guys. It would go in circles and bore everyone else.

Why is it that Bendis gets to change whatever the **** he wants, but when someone takes the ball away from him, and re-sets continuity back where it has been for 40 years, it'a a "retcon"?

Can someone explain that to me?

Sales, as was mentioned before. Also, influence. With sales, Bendis has become an "influential writer". That is, the ideas he puts forth "influences" the editors and other writers. M-Day, for example, was all him, and it left the X-Books in a lurch for almost 2 years (even if some of the mutants he personally depowered, like Iceman, were "repowered" by now).

The irony is when someone chages something about one of HIS characters, he usually completely ignores it; he's had about 5 months to work with the fact that BKV had Night Nurse start dating Dr. Strange, and he hasn't. I actually believe it will be referenced at some point, but it should have been handled more organically.

Think about it; Bendis brings up something that challenges Hulk's status quo in a one-shot, and it has to be either accepted or explained away with comic baloney. BKV has something rather dramatic happen to one of Bendis' character creations (Night Nurse, or at least the current one) in a mini-series, and Bendis hasn't even had her appear in the background of Dr. Strange's lair. It is this sort of thing that leads some of us to believe there is favoritism. And while it makes sense, I can't remember any time in the past where a single writer had so much power over not only the characters in their ongoings, but any character they decide to use.

Think about it; in an issue of New Avengers, Bendis could very well claim that Spider-Man has been a Skrull since the 90's, and EVERY SINGLE COMIC BOOK would have to adhere to that or somehow banish it. Meanwhile, expect that nothing, or very little of, what that happens to Cage or Rand in IRON FIST will come up in NA, including new powers.

There is as of yet no catch term for, "a ham-fisted reveletion that undoes a retcon". Call it a Mr. Salty.

 

[Not Jake]

The irony is when someone chages something about one of HIS characters, he usually completely ignores it; he's had about 5 months to work with the fact that BKV had Night Nurse start dating Dr. Strange, and he hasn't. I actually believe it will be referenced at some point, but it should have been handled more organically.

Okay, I am gonna call "******o" on this. As in, "you are." It isn't like Bendis has Night Nurse dating Iron Fist, ignoring what BKV set up. He just hasn't mentioned anything about the relationship.

They are different things. I guess to satisfy Dread, Bendis has to reference every minute personal detail of each Avenger in each issue now. He hasn't picked up on it in what, 5 months? 5 issues? Quit being a crybaby, Dread

 

[Not Jake]

especially since they were holed up in Doc Strange's mansion for so many issues. Could Night Nurse just walk up to the abandoned soon-to-be Starbucks while Tony was scoping it out? Not much time has really passed in that book

See, if you're gonna whine, whine about how Bendis dragged out the first post-CW NA arc out so long. Oh wait. You already have. 400 times.