Bruce Banner - The Hulk Appreciation 2021

[Immortal Hulk]

I noticed that The Leader's speech bubbles are stylized like Knull's now, red and white with simalar text style. Wonder if that's intentional since Ewing has seemed to really work with the idea Knull is an agent of OBA, Below-Leader could be on similar level

Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with Knull at all. This is simply a resource commmonly used when supernatural, demonic entities (or posessed people) speak. You could probably find thousands of examples in comics, with guys like Mephisto, Dormmamu, Cthon and similar (and the posessed) talking like that. knull borrowed that kind of speech from ones who came waaay before him too.

I loved the design of the creatures from Hell. God imagine a Hulk game that takes place entirely in Hell with Hulk trying to escape through the Green Door while OBA tries to possess him and his other gamma Rogues try to beat him to it. I would love that so much.

That would be awesome, Vordan!

After all, TOBA does want to turn into a hollow shell, an empty machine of destruction, a "Hulk". That gives an idea of how powerful that guy from above can be (as I've said in another place, I'm not even talking about WBH), and why an entity would like to pilot that.

[Dinosaur Hulk]

I loved the design of the creatures from Hell. God imagine a Hulk game that takes place entirely in Hell with Hulk trying to escape through the Green Door while OBA tries to possess him and his other gamma Rogues try to beat him to it. I would love that so much.

Immortal Hulk game... yes please. But I highly doubt that's gonna happen. We haven't even got any Marvel Legends figures of IH- and this is just gold mine waiting for someone to discover it. Rick, Red Harpy, Xemnu, Minotaur, new Abomination, Leader, Hulk's different versions, Dr.Frye etc etc. Too grotesque I guess.

[Immortal Hulk]

U-foes' faces here: priceless.

[Vordan]

Immortal Hulk game... yes please. But I highly doubt that's gonna happen. We haven't even got any Marvel Legends figures of IH- and this is just gold mine waiting for someone to discover it. Rick, Red Harpy, Xemnu, Minotaur, new Abomination, Leader, Hulk's different versions, Dr.Frye etc etc. Too grotesque I guess.

Been so frustrated with Marvel’s struggles on the gaming side. Only Spidey is being well served, the rest of the Marvel IPs not so much.

[Kingkalamari]

Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with Knull at all. This is simply a resource commmonly used when supernatural, demonic entities (or posessed people) speak. You could probably find thousands of examples in comics, with guys like Mephisto, Dormmamu, Cthon and similar (and the posessed) talking like that. knull borrowed that kind of speech from ones who came away before him too

Yeah, this was my first thought too, but the specific text and speech color design is shared between Knull and The Leader here. Mephisto had his own unique font and is typically white bubbles with red letters. Cthon has had black bubbles and also red ones, but he seems to be in line with the abstract lovecraftian terror that OBA is anyway so it checks out. Also looking back at IH #10, OBA-possessed Absorbing Man doesnt have any color bubble palette to it, it's new with Leader here, that was before Knull stuff really started, and the AC:IH issue has Banner theorizing Knull is just an agent of OBA. Suppose it doesnt really matter in the scheme of things, just thought it was a fun little detail to imply the efforts of OBA and it's chosen agents.

[Dinosaur Hulk]

Been so frustrated with Marvel’s struggles on the gaming side. Only Spidey is being well served, the rest of the Marvel IPs not so much.

Haven't even played Spidey cause I don't own PS4, heard it was awesome. Also read that Avengers game was a complete disaster. Marvel really should step up their game.

[McFarlane's Green Hulk]

Marvel Fanfare #29
“A Terrible Thing to Waste!”

Cover Date: November 1986
Sale Date: August 5th, 1986
Writer: John Byrne
Artist: John Byrne
Inker: Keith Williams (backgrounds only)
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Andy Yanchus
Editor: Al Milgrom
Villains: Hammer and Anvil, Scourge.
Synopsis: The mysterious Scourge of the Underworld, disguised as a Native American, has managed to subdue the mindless brute, and hired old Hulk villains Hammer and Anvil to try and kill him. During the battle, Scourge shoots Hammer in the head, killing him instantly. Anvil dies seconds later due to their bond. Scourge leaves the scene as the Hulk picks up the disguise and utters the word “Friend?” in a questioning manner…
Commentary: The ORIGINAL Hulk #320. Done in all splash pages, at least a year before Walt Simonson had done Thor #380 in the same manner. This is where is gets messy. Byrne claims he objected to this issue, Shooter claims he never saw it and that’s why it ended up in Marvel Fanfare.
From his blog in 2011:
http://jimshooter.com/2011/05/anothe...r-answer.html/
Shooter: During the nine plus years that I was EIC at Marvel, only three times did an assistant editor come to me privately to complain about the editor he or she worked for. Two times, it was an assistant of Denny's, two different assistants. The complaint from both was that Denny left too much work to them, and spent the day writing his freelance scripts. Some books, therefore, went out unedited by Denny, and by that I mean he hadn't read and approved the plot, hadn't read the script, hadn't reviewed the art and never even looked at the finished job.
I generally read every book before it went to the printer, and signed off on it. Many times I walked down the hall to Denny's office to ask him how he could possibly have missed some egregious mistake, or let something pass that was amateurish or otherwise patently unacceptable. I knew why, thanks to his assistants, but I was hoping he'd get the hint.
I was frequently out of the office in those days, traveling on business, in which case DeFalco or Gruenwald signed off on the books. What they were thinking sometimes, I cannot fathom, but a number of issues from Denny's office made it into print that had serious flaws or things that were unacceptable — including several by John Byrne.
After one particularly bad incident, I finally confronted Denny and told him he'd better start doing his job. That very day, I think, a John Byrne Hulk job came in, finished, lettered and inked, that was all splash pages. Denny thought I'd go ballistic when I saw it, so he rejected it! And he told John it was because I, Jim Shooter, didn't approve.
John was the one who went ballistic. He quit, contacted the President of Marvel and demanded I be fired. The President called me and asked who the hell John Byrne was, and to please keep these people from bothering him.
DC, indeed, made John a great offer — he told everyone all about it. DC constantly made great offers to our stars — and John was a star of the first magnitude — but most creators stuck with us because they were already making very good money and enjoyed great benefits at Marvel. John was making a bloody fortune at Marvel. Every Marvel book paid royalties, some very big royalties, while only a few DC titles paid any royalties at all, and relatively small ones at that. One time I handed John a $30,000 royalty check for one issue of one title. That was by far not the record, by the way. Meanwhile, a DC artist once showed me three DC royalty checks that did not total a dollar! We were outselling DC better than three to one. If the DC deal was better for John, good for him. He deserves top dollar. But I suspect that, long term, Marvel was a better deal.
At any rate, as previously stated, when the above happened, Publisher Mike Hobson ordered me to fire Denny, and I did.
Here's the twist ending. I never even saw the rejected book! I assumed that Denny had given it back to John. I didn't even know why Denny had rejected it, only that he did. I didn't know it was all splash pages. Months later, Al Milgrom found the rejected book in a drawer and brought it to me. He liked it. So did I. I thought it was great. Al looked into the situation and found out that Byrne hadn't been paid for it, got him paid and ran the job in Marvel Fanfare. (Fanfare jobs paid rate-and-a-half, so it turned out to be a good deal for John.)
Know this: John and I weren't on the best of terms before all of the above happened. I had objected to some things he'd done in the books, and nixed a few things he'd wanted to do; and he had objected to my objections. So, maybe he would have left Marvel eventually anyway because of me.

Dennis O'Neil replies;
Wow. Not how I remember it at all. I don't want to revisit old pain, and as Jim said, I did okay, but…I'd already told Mike Hobson that I'd had an offer from DC and asked for a reaction, because for a lot of reasons, Jim and I were on a collision course. Mike said I was valuable, etc etc yadayadaya…and he'd play peacemaker at lunch later that week. Jim told me we'd have to "part company" before we could have that meal. I take full responsibility for rejecting the Byrne job–maybe I was right, maybe not–and I don't recall Jim being in the mix at all. But maybe he was.
I did occasionally do freelance in the office. That was sleazy, and I deeply regret it. But I don't recall slighting editorial work to do it. And I guess I'm willing to stand by my output.

I won’t even get into what Byrne says about the situation, it’s been on his website for years under his FAQ, he never goes into great detail about it and Byrne’s hatred for Shooter is so unbelievably one-sided, it’s disgusting.
Trying to figure out who/what/when/where/why has been a pain in the ass, so let’s rewind a bit: Byrne was out of ideas on Alpha Flight and asked Bill Mantlo if he would like to swap books after he brought up a number of ideas to Jim Shooter for the Hulk and Shooter supposedly agreed. 6 issues in, Byrne drops the book after Shooter disagreed with said ideas. What these ideas were and what Shooter objected to are a mystery. Byrne is still writing/drawing the FF, and there is some supposed editorial drama going on between Shooter and Mike Carlin that ultimately leads to his firing and Byrne is gone from the FF shortly after that. Shortly after that, he’s gone from Marvel altogether.
My source for the release dates of these issues is from Mike’s Amazing World of Comics. And the difference between the release dates and cover dates generally ranges between 3 or 4 months.
So if Mike’s site is accurate:
FF #286 was cover-dated January 1986 and released on October 15, 1985.
HULK #319 was cover-dated May 1986 has a release date of February 11, 1986.
FF #293 was cover-dated August 1986 and released on May 13, 1986.
Man of Steel #1 has no cover date, but was released on July 10, 1986.
All this drama had to have taken place around the same time, because there were no fill-ins or delays on Hulk or FF, and Byrne was a workhorse back then, and how far ahead he was on each issue/title is not clear. I’ve checked the FF issues from #286-295, and Carlin was the editor for all of them, he stops drawing with #294, is credited as “plotter” and only gets a “special thanks” mention in #295, so he must have been pretty far ahead in terms of production. My guess is the Hulk drama occurred first, and then the FF – with talks at DC about revamping Superman sprinkled in-between. I think Byrne has stated he wanted to become a free-lancer, continue to only write FF and write/draw Superman, but considering the relationship between him and Shooter by 1986, wasn’t even a consideration.
In a nutshell, it’s a **** show. Somewhere in there is the unbiased truth, and we’ll never truly know what happened.
And for additional fun, here’s a link to the original art and script for FF #286 vs the published version – which had the artwork done by Jackson Guice and script altered by Chris Claremont.
https://brianmichaelbendis.tumblr.co...drawn-sequence

And for the greater in-depth detail about the whole Byrne run, I recommend reading this:
http://www.delusionalhonesty.com/sea...l/John%20Byrne

[McFarlane's Green Hulk]

Incredible Hulk #320
“Honeymoon’s Over!”
Cover Date: June 1986
Sale Date: March 11th, 1986
Writer: Al Milgrom
Artist: Al Milgrom
Inker: Del Barras
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colorist: Andy Yanchus
Editor: Bob Harras
Guest Stars/Supporting Cast: Rick Jones, Betty Banner, Dr. Fisher, Dianne Bellamy and the Avengers
Antagonists: Doc Samson and the Hulkbusters.
Synopsis: Pretty simple, nothing fancy. We get another begrudging team-up between Doc Samson and the Hulkbusters in their fight against the Hulk, while Betty is having a difficult time trying to convince Banner to leave for their honeymoon. Dr. Fisher and Rick Jones help re-enforce Betty’s demands and he agrees to leave. Meanwhile, everything that could go wrong does go wrong for the Hulkbusters and Samson. Their vehicle is destroyed, and LaRoquette is left wounded after an unsuccessful attempt at tackling the Hulk solo. Samson is battered unconscious and the Hulk heads for the town of Jericho in a rage. Unfortunately for the Banners, Bruce mysteriously collapses after reading a somber message from Gamma Base…
Commentary: Al Milgrom gets a lot of ****, not only for his artwork, but also for having to take over the title after superstar John Byrne abruptly leaves. Not his fault, so he had to scramble to get something going. Part of this is getting the Hulk and Banner merged back together. Del Barras gets a big shout-put from me on enhancing Al's artwork. I enjoyed his West Coast Avengers art, but a lot of that had Joe Sinnott as inker. Barras-inked Milgrom is decent enough.

[Intothevoid]

Some bad news

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/jaso...engers-hulk-1/

FCBD 2021 MARVEL GOLD AVENGERS HULK #1 (NET)
MARVEL COMICS (BUY – SELL)
APR210008
(W) Jason Aaron (A) Iban Coello
In a land beyond time, a shining tower stands, deploying its operatives across the Multiverse to hold against the encroaching darkness! Who is the mysterious Avenger Prime, and how will his advent impact on the past, the present, and the very future of the mighty Avengers? Exclusive Original Material

I really, REALLY hope this doesn't mean Aaron will be writing Hulk again, if he does that means i wont be reading Hulk for the next few years that's for sure.

[Master Planner]

Haven't even played Spidey cause I don't own PS4, heard it was awesome. Also read that Avengers game was a complete disaster. Marvel really should step up their game.

I feel that we won't see any decent video game based on Marvel IP again. Spider-Man is an exception, because Sony has more freedom, but damn, after Marvel Heroes, i feel that they gave up video games as a possible revenue.

[ChrisIII]

Haven't even played Spidey cause I don't own PS4, heard it was awesome. Also read that Avengers game was a complete disaster. Marvel really should step up their game.

Yep, it was very good (as is the Miles Morales sequel/spin-off so far) but they kind of dropped the ball with Avengers

[Vordan]

Some bad news

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/jaso...engers-hulk-1/

FCBD 2021 MARVEL GOLD AVENGERS HULK #1 (NET)
MARVEL COMICS (BUY – SELL)
APR210008
(W) Jason Aaron (A) Iban Coello
In a land beyond time, a shining tower stands, deploying its operatives across the Multiverse to hold against the encroaching darkness! Who is the mysterious Avenger Prime, and how will his advent impact on the past, the present, and the very future of the mighty Avengers? Exclusive Original Material

I really, REALLY hope this doesn't mean Aaron will be writing Hulk again, if he does that means i wont be reading Hulk for the next few years that's for sure.

It’s Avengers Hulk so I’m assuming it’s She-Hulk or Aaron’s stupid One Million BC Starbrand-Hulk.

[Kingkalamari]

Sounds like its exclusive to Aaron's Avengersverse and setup for his next arc moreso than Hulk. If it is a new Hulk, it will probably not be related to Banner at all.

I'm honestly thinking we might not even get a new Banner Hulk ongoing for a hot minute, esp if Banner is in Defenders and if Gamma Flight sells well enough to extend past 5 issues.

[Dinosaur Hulk]

I really don't know why would Ewing close the series after only 50 issues, it's not that much if you think about it and some plot threads could easily be explored in much, much details (fight with Xemnu was pretty anticlimactic and the whole "war against humanity" is kinda ended because now Leader is much more serious threat). And it sells pretty well as far as I know, so kinda makes a little sense to me. At least make it to # 800 (83).

[I'm a Fish]

I really don't know why would Ewing close the series after only 50 issues, it's not that much if you think about it and some plot threads could easily be explored in much, much details (fight with Xemnu was pretty anticlimactic and the whole "war against humanity" is kinda ended because now Leader is much more serious threat). And it sells pretty well as far as I know, so kinda makes a little sense to me. At least make it to # 800 (83).

The One-Below-All villain feels like its coming to a close, that's probably why. Of course, this is only the beginning of the story. Though the book may end, Immortal Hulk won't (plus vol.2 could always be a thing a couple years down the line).