Bruce Banner: The Hulk Appreciation 2020

[Celgress]

Not like Hulk is a saint himself

Ain't that the truth, but I still love the big green lug.

[FrazettaHulk]

Getting closer to becoming his old self again...”It’s Joe!”

[Venom Melendez]

I'm kinda disappointed with this mini thus far. Hulk seems more dropped into this entire world than forged by it and in reaction to it

Most of the heroes died because of the bombs, that's not anything new.

The whole point of the mini is to see him go from Hulk to Maestro and he's not the Maestro yet.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Most of the heroes died because of the bombs, that's not anything new.

The whole point of the mini is to see him go from Hulk to Maestro and he's not the Maestro yet.

When the Maestro was first introduced, he came off as cynical, jaded (heh), knowledgeable and contemptuous of what exactly had happened to the world to bring it to such a sorry state. His little prophecy to Hulk seemed to imply a lifetime of bad experiences, leading to him being the monster we all saw.

But IMO, that doesn't mesh with what we've seen. Hulk awakes and is completely ignorant of world events, learning only second hand. Worse, he didn't create Dystopia, or even pick his minister (New York seems to be an odd place for the city too).

Worse, is that we don't know the status of Hulk prior to the end of the world. He says nothing about Betty, Samson or Rick. Was he estranged from them, they think him dead, what? As tragic as the end of the world might be, to Hulk, it's no great threat.

It's not over yet, obviously, but the ground work does not inspire. Hopefully we'll see better signs in the following issues.

[Intothevoid]

Most of the heroes died because of the bombs, that's not anything new.

The whole point of the mini is to see him go from Hulk to Maestro and he's not the Maestro yet.

Most of the heroes would probably die from the bomb but literally anyone around Thing level or more would survive a nuclear apocalypse so we are still talking about hundreds of heroes out there, like i genuinely wanna know how Thor and at least dozens of heroes around his level alone died in all of this, it makes no sense if it was an alien invasion i could see it but PAD does nothing to address this point, "all the heroes died cause bombs" is not an explanation especially when there are heroes that can survive destruction's of entire planets let alone some nukes. On top of that Marvels trailer outright lied it literally says Hulk will kill the Avengers which made most people believe that's the reason why most top tiers died, Hulk went insane and killed them as Maestro or was forced to kill them and that made him go insane and turn into Maestro, but no only Hercules survived for some reason. It's very bizzare and random. PAD did an interview a few days ago where he talks how he thought about this for decades already and was glad he got a call to do a prequel to Maestro but reading this it looks like he just came up with everything yesterday, he also stated he has long term plans for Maestro but unfortunately my expectations are lower than ever and i just don't care, PAD has definitely lost his touch when it comes to Hulk, although from what i have heard that's true with everything else he writes, well age is always a factor, none of will be in our primes forever.

[Intothevoid]

When the Maestro was first introduced, he came off as cynical, jaded (heh), knowledgeable and contemptuous of what exactly had happened to the world to bring it to such a sorry state. His little prophecy to Hulk seemed to imply a lifetime of bad experiences, leading to him being the monster we all saw.

But IMO, that doesn't mesh with what we've seen. Hulk awakes and is completely ignorant of world events, learning only second hand. Worse, he didn't create Dystopia, or even pick his minister (New York seems to be an odd place for the city too).

Worse, is that we don't know the status of Hulk prior to the end of the world. He says nothing about Betty, Samson or Rick. Was he estranged from them, they think him dead, what? As tragic as the end of the world might be, to Hulk, it's no great threat.

It's not over yet, obviously, but the ground work does not inspire. Hopefully we'll see better signs in the following issues.

Also this post perfectly explains why Maestro's character journey from super hero to tyrant does not work, he wakes up finds out everyone he knew and loved is dead and he takes the news surprisingly well, after that he just journeys across the country, not really coming across anything horrific that would traumatize him or break his mind, like i was expecting to see some Mad Max 2 or Escape from New York level stuff, innocent families being gunned down like rabid dogs, raping, pillaging, etc... But honestly apart from some buildings and monuments being destroyed the whole world looks like a happy go lucky place lol, everyone is good to each other, even the AIM guys don't seem like the bad guys anymore, everyone has their own bunkers or communities and they all seem to be doing well for themselves, this does not feel like an apocalyptic world in the least.

On top of that i will just come out outright and say it, i HATE the fact that Maestro isn't the one that made Dystopia, isn't the first one to take the Maestro mantle, didn't pick his minister, etc... he just comes to a place that already has all of it including his new name and then i guess he takes it eventually from Hercules, that kills everything that made the character unique or interesting, it made him a pretender, a thief, a fake... This could have and should have been handled so much better. I genuinely thought the horrors of a post apocalyptic world would bother Hulk a lot more, that the death of his wife alone would put him in a state of misery and then eventually he might come across whats left of the Avengers or some other heroes, they would conflict for one reason or another Hulk would be forced to kill them and that would finally crack him and put him over the edge. What a let down.

Obviously we have to say it's not over yet, there are still 3 more issues to go but going by everything we have seen i really doubt the end will deliver.

[Laufeyson]

Getting closer to becoming his old self again...”It’s Joe!”

Wow, it's been a long time since I saw Ben as ugly monster. Usually, he is drawn like Paul Chadwick's concrete which is a bit cuddly side of monster.

[Immortal Hulk]

Can't wait to see Fixit back in full form!

[your_name_here]

Okay so The Leader is the scariest and most threatening he’s ever been.
Do you think he’ll be the final threat or will TOBA show up again?

[FrazettaHulk]

Okay so The Leader is the scariest and most threatening he’s ever been.
Do you think he’ll be the final threat or will TOBA show up again?

TOBA/Green Scar horror monster is my guess for final boss threat.

Devil Hulk breaking thru the reflection/mirror-verse to become a spiritual/physical entity with some assistance from TOAA, is my guess on THE Hulk to “save the universe”.

[ChrisIII]

Or he died and came back. We saw his body in the Carnage crossover, IIRC

Could that have been the LMD somehow? Not sure how they're built now. (Curiously, Ross has an LMD girlfriend in the Parker series that's kind of vanished into limbo along with Ross's villains with the exception of Fortean of course).

[The Cool Thatguy]

Could that have been the LMD somehow? Not sure how they're built now. (Curiously, Ross has an LMD girlfriend in the Parker series that's kind of vanished into limbo along with Ross's villains with the exception of Fortean of course).

I wouldn't think so. Carnage was supposed to have sucked all the codexs out of past venom suit wearers, I don't think an LMD could fake that.

But then, we never saw the act itself

[Immortal Hulk]

Okay so The Leader is the scariest and most threatening he’s ever been.
Do you think he’ll be the final threat or will TOBA show up again?

It will be TOBA, but in a way I can't imagine so far.

[ChrisIII]

Getting closer to becoming his old self again...”It’s Joe!”

Are you sure? All the Hulks seem to be drawn with the big forehead brow at least when Bennet is penciling (The savage Hulk in #35 seemed to be drawn more like the wild-haired version when Joe wasn't pencilling), and you can't tell the color here.

[T'Challa Bruce Von Doom]

Most of the heroes would probably die from the bomb but literally anyone around Thing level or more would survive a nuclear apocalypse so we are still talking about hundreds of heroes out there, like i genuinely wanna know how Thor and at least dozens of heroes around his level alone died in all of this, it makes no sense if it was an alien invasion i could see it but PAD does nothing to address this point, "all the heroes died cause bombs" is not an explanation especially when there are heroes that can survive destruction's of entire planets let alone some nukes.

Actually, Thor's fate was explicitly covered in the original Future Imperfect:

Rick Jones: Remember all the reports about how people might survive atomic wars? Exaggerated. All of it. Thor? Gone. Wolverine? Gone. Cap... All of 'em... all gone.

Thor was the very first name Rick mentioned to Hulk. And "All the heroes died 'cause bombs" is exactly the explanation given in the original story. Almost 30 years ago. So I'm not sure why it's not an explanation now, unless it's been a while since you've read the original story (I don't know whether you have or not, but I'm assuming you have for the purposes of this conversation, since Maestro is supposed to show how Future Imperfect came about).

I do have to say though, that I'm disappointed thus far that Dystopia, the Minister, and even the Maestro were already there, and Hulk had nothing to do with them. When Machine Man told Hulk that Dystopia was constructed and overseen by the Maestro, I was like, "Huh? The Maestro isn't Hulk's future self this time since this series is supposed to show how he became the Maestro, so there was already a guy named Maestro who was ruling Dystopia by the time that period became the present?" So everything was already there, and Hulk just overthrew Hercules and seized the Maestro identity. That's the explanation for how Hulk became Maestro. Meh.