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Topic: How to write The Hulk Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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Posted: 14 April 2021 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
How intelligent are we talking? Ben Grimm is an engineer. That's pretty smart. The "get outta my face!" Hulk has normal-level intelligence. Ben's smarter.
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 14 April 2021 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply
Stan Lee discovered the narrow range of the character during the first short run. How many different version of the Hulk appeared in those six issues?!
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 14 April 2021 at 6:54pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply
HULK, THOR, IRON MAN, and DAREDEVIL all started off a little shaky but, thank goodness, soon settled into good grooves that made decades of stories worth telling.  The early issues of each were like watching somebody whittle a piece of wood into a nice piece of art--don't concentrate on the unfinished stages!

I don't want to see any references to the Hulk ever being gray or having three toes.
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Darren Taylor
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Posted: 15 April 2021 at 2:14am | IP Logged | 4 post reply
If a Shark had a "Normal" level of intelligence, you could reason with it not to bite you.

If you can reason with the Hulk, there is little room for drama!

Or at least, that is how it seems to me.

The Hulk is sort of guided (ever so minutely) by Banners moral compass, which allows him to be mostly construed as a 'good guy'. Or at least provide the writer with the facility to put the Hulk on the side of good.

But ultimately I assumed he is supposed to be the angry, unthinking, rage-filled side of Banner. When was the last good decision made with rage?

Anyway, the character has changed and evolved under canon, so now people have variations on the character that resonates more with them.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 15 April 2021 at 5:50am | IP Logged | 5 post reply
When was the last good decision made with rage?

••

Colin Jost made a cogent comment on SNL's "Weekend Update" recently. Apparently there are gun kits that can be ordered and assembled without going thru the usual protocols. He commented on the frustrations so many of us have felt when assembling a dresser from Ikea. "Now, imagine that when you were finished you had a gun."

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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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Posted: 15 April 2021 at 9:39am | IP Logged | 6 post reply
The Hulk has been reasoned with, even in his "Hulk Smash!" form, by Rick Jones and Betty Ross and Doc Sampson and Jim Wilson and...

You can be angry without being a simpleton. That was the Hulk we saw in the last three issues of the 1962 run of THE INCREDIBLE HULK, the early issues of THE AVENGERS, FANTASTIC FOUR #25-26, etc. He wasn't a happy guy. But he didn't talk like a variation of Captain Caveman.
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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 15 April 2021 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply
My favorite Hulk stories all have Rick Jones.

I feel like dropping that ongoing link back to his origin was a huge change that I never quite "recovered" from as a fan.

I only regularly bought HULK comics for the brief times JB was in charge. Otherwise, I collect the back-issues up to his Marie Severin drawn encounter with the High Evolutionary.

After that, it has seemed to me, Hulk became a completely free-range threat whose adventures were too random for my taste.

Those first six issues by Lee/Kirby and Ditko may have been an inconsistent and wild-ride, but they are hypnotically interesting to me. I love that core group of characters and situations.
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 15 April 2021 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply
Supporting casts are really important. Rick Jones, Betty Ross, I feel those pretty much have to be there. To a lesser degree, General Ross and Glenn Talbot (though I must admit, I'm not such a fan of the stories of the Hulk vs US Army type).
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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Posted: 15 April 2021 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply
I see General Ross as the Hulk's greatest enemy. He's the most obsessed. And he never liked Banner and his "lack of real manliness" in the first place. That this "wimp" is also the strongest being in the world is a total insult to his sensibilities. The "strongest there is" should be the U.S. Army. But the Hulk is stronger. How dare he!
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