Bruce Banner - The Hulk Appreciation 2021

[Username taken]

I really hope there's a good explanation for all of thus though.

It was always my fear once Hulk killed someone in IH that subsequent writers will simply run wild with the Hulk.

Seeing the Hulk kill soldiers like that is very distasteful IMO.

[Dinosaur Hulk]

Bruce being scary is a retcon made by Pak. Bruce is traumatized kid genius, not a psychopath in waiting and certainly not a monster. Its the worst cliche in fiction.

I'm not saying he's a bad guy or a monster but he certainly has some dark side to him. He's someone you don't want to mess with. Hulk is clearly represents his oppresed feelings, rage and trauma. You can't have green giant monster without wanting to smash everything, heh. Even if it's hidden very, very deep inside of him. Maybe it's a cliche, but it's how I see it- Bruce is psychologically unstable individual. Especially without Betty or Rick to keep him in check.

But that's just my take. It's very hard to talk about any character because different writers write him differently. So we are either picking up someone's version (David, Pak, Ewing, Jenkins, Jones, Aaron etc) or trying to get some sort of "average" of all versions we have.

[Vordan]

Hate to be that guy, but PAD probably planted the seeds for that.

He murdered his father (justifiably?) and was going to blow up his school, etc.

Yeah I remember that, although Hulk was the one who wanted to do that, and I believe he took control of their body to do so iirc.

[Superfan90]

Hate to be that guy, but PAD probably planted the seeds for that.

He murdered his father (justifiably?) and was going to blow up his school, etc.

Yeah, might be. But PAD's Bruce was a genuinely good guy with a dark side.

[Superfan90]

I'm not saying he's a bad guy or a monster but he certainly has some dark side to him. He's someone you don't want to mess with. Hulk is clearly represents his oppresed feelings, rage and trauma. You can't have green giant monster without wanting to smash everything, heh. Even if it's hidden very, very deep inside of him. Maybe it's a cliche, but it's how I see it- Bruce is psychologically unstable individual. Especially without Betty or Rick to keep him in check.

But that's just my take. It's very hard to talk about any character because different writers write him differently. So we are either picking up someone's version (David, Pak, Ewing, Jenkins, Jones, Aaron etc) or trying to get some sort of "average" of all versions we have.

Yes, he is a genuinely good guy with a dark side. Not a monster, not a psychopath and certainly not worse than Hulk.

[Superfan90]

I really hope there's a good explanation for all of thus though.

It was always my fear once Hulk killed someone in IH that subsequent writers will simply run wild with the Hulk.

Seeing the Hulk kill soldiers like that is very distasteful IMO.

It was only a matter of time after what Ultimates did to hulk. Sigh

[Vordan]

I really hope there's a good explanation for all of thus though.

It was always my fear once Hulk killed someone in IH that subsequent writers will simply run wild with the Hulk.

Seeing the Hulk kill soldiers like that is very distasteful IMO.

I’ll throw Cates a bone and say that even Devil Hulk stated Bruce reigning in Hulk’s rampage only ever was true for some Hulks. Could have this Hulk be a new personality, are we sure it’s Savage or even our Bruce? Ewing established that the other Hulk alters could take control of the Bruce body at certain points. Maybe a Hulk alter has gotten free and taken control of both bodies?

[CitizenXXX]

I think we need to do what Cates tells us to do - be patient and wait. He said, in the beginning, the fans will get angry, very angry, go crazy, but this is all part of the plan. We will not understand what is happening to Bruce and why this is happening to him, but over time we will find out everything. Patience.
It might be the Hulk's HydraCap, who knows. Let's see

[The Cool Thatguy]

Hate to be that guy, but PAD probably planted the seeds for that.

He murdered his father (justifiably?) and was going to blow up his school, etc.

PAD set the seeds of every Hulk story that followed his, lol.

Though killing his dad was self defense, as the man assaulted him and would have tried to kill him if he didn't defend himself

[Frontier]

Seeing the Hulk kill soldiers like that is very distasteful IMO.

I think it's an imagine spot and Hulk isn't actually killing anyone.

[Intothevoid]

I think it's an imagine spot and Hulk isn't actually killing anyone.

I think its inside his mindscape and it's just Banner projecting them to distract Hulk from trying to escape, or something similar. Either way you are right i don't think they are actually real. With that said the people he slaughters in issue 2 preview do look very real.

[ChrisIII]

Brian and Bruce's cemetery confrontation was way back in Mantlo's run (During 312 which established the whole part of that backstory), I think it was PAD who kind of fleshed it out and added "What happened next" during Marvel's -1 event in the late 90's.


I don't think Brian's fate was known until then, although he still appeared in several flashbacks.

[ChrisIII]

So there's an interview with Ewing in which he states that an idea he had for the Hulk's ressurection in NO SURRENDER was that he was going to be bone-white with red eyes.


Looks like the concept was reused in the sequel story NO ROAD HOME with the "Crom Hulk". (Which I think was just a dream or possible outcome?)

[Vordan]

[Intothevoid]

Here is apparently the full interview Donny Cates did on KLC thats behind the paywall.

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Our HULK week here at KLC Press continues! Check out this exclusive interview with Mr. Donny Cates (for all you loyal paid subscribers) as he discusses how he has been shaping his Hulk run, working with Ryan Ottley, and who would win in a fight: Venom or Hulk? Enjoy!

Griffin Sheridan: Hello, Donny Cates.

Donny Cates: Hi.

Griffin: So, I hear you're gonna be writing Hulk soon.

Donny: Mmhmm. That's true.

Griffin: So if I just so happened to have 10 questions prepared about your Hulk run that's coming up, would you be willing to answer them right now? On the record?

Donny: Yes. For money.

Griffin: Well, it is for money, insofar as you're gonna make money off it.

Donny: I guess it is, in a way. Yeah, that's true.

Griffin: First, Donny, tell us about your history with Hulk and how does it differ from your relationship with other Marvel characters you've written?

Donny: I didn't really grow up as the biggest Hulk fan in the world. I found it later in life. When I was a retailer, I made it my duty to read every single comic book that was in that store. And I ended up going through the entire Peter David run and the Bruce Jones stuff with Mr. Blue and all that kind of stuff. It's always been a character that I found, I don't know, somewhat challenging to get my head around as a creator, as a writer. Because there's been so much done that is kind of in line with my interests with the character. You start to break things down and [you find themes of] psychological trauma and abuse and stuff like that. That's really where my head's at on it. But you're not going to outwrite Peter David in that respect. So I'm coming at it from a different angle than I would normally come at other books. I'm trying something new with this book, and I don't know if it's gonna work or not, and that is very scary and makes it very exciting.

Ethan S. Parker: What was your first priority sitting down to work on Hulk? What was the number one thing you wanted to accomplish going in?

Donny: I want to elicit emotional responses. It's kind of at the heart of everything that a writer does. But when I say that I'm experimenting with this, I'm trying something and I don't know if it's gonna work or not, because it's my contention that art is not candy. It's not meant to just do one thing, which is to make you happy. Art can be a variety of things. There's a very big difference between a song from Pantera and a symphony, right? One is filled with beauty and awe and makes you feel like your spirit and soul was rising out of you. The other one makes you want to fucking smash a brick wall out. And I would really like it if people read this book and felt a great degree of rage as they read it. Something I've been pushing with [Ryan] Ottley is to make the pages feel hot. Like this book was made out of anger.

Griffin: You're trading Ryans on this project, because you're doing this book with the one and only Ryan Ottley.

Donny: This is true.

Griffin: How has it been different working with Ottley on Hulk, as opposed to our very own Ryan Stegman on Venom?

Donny: You know, it's funny actually, there's a mental image that writers get when you work with an artist for a long enough time. You start to develop a mental picture of how they're going to draw things as you write. And with Ryan [Stegman], you know, it took a little while. It took six months, maybe eight months for me to start being able to kind of track in my head, how to write for Ryan and figure out what his hand wants to do on the page and start writing towards that. Stegman and I now are very, for lack of a better term, symbiotic. I don't really stage scenes out anymore. I just say like, "on this character and on this character," and he knows exactly, by the dialogue and the tone, how to place things and move things and zoom in and zoom out and everything to get across what I'm doing. And I can do the same thing for him. The reason I say all that is to say this: with Ottley, because I've been a comic book fan for my entire life, because I was a retailer... I have read all of his work. I've read every single fucking thing that he's ever done. And so I had that mental image of what Ryan Ottley's hand wants to do before I even started writing the first issue. I just innately know how to write for Ryan. His hand wants to explode. He is always one foot off the starting line, ready to do the biggest and craziest **** that you can imagine. A lot of my Hulk run is just me finding really fucking rad **** for Ryan Ottley to draw and seeing what he can do with it. This is the only book I've ever done that has had to go to several different meetings with higher ups to see if the level of violence and gore is going to be appropriate to publish. And every single time they say, "yeah, okay, you can do this," I ramp it up even more. We're gonna find what the upper ceiling on gore and violence is. I guess we haven't hit it yet. But we're gonna fucking keep trying for sure.

Ethan: You've joked online about the Hulk being relatable to you, in his instability. How true is that? Do you get a lot of catharsis out of making him smash ****?

Donny: Yeah, I do. I've been fairly open with the public about my problems with addiction and depression and anxiety and all these kinds of things. It does put me in a better headspace to kind of... how do I say this without sounding horrible? Bruce is not a healthy human being. You don't develop a Hulk inside of you by being an awesome person. And so I feel as though it is very cathartic for me to write somebody who is essentially- and I can't really give away too much of the plot- but from the first issue, you'll see that the journey he's on is not going to end well. He is speeding headlong into a wall. And everyone is telling him that and he can't hear them. It's the Breaking Bad of Hulk stories. The founding principle of the run is this idea that we've always thought that the Hulk was this personification of his 10 year old, abused self that is just lashing out, right? That's his monster. That's his shadow, his id. But what if that's not true? What if the Hulk is actually there to protect us from Bruce? What would Bruce do if he didn't turn into the Hulk when he got furious? Maybe the Hulk is there to stop that from happening. And in this run, we get to see just exactly what that looks like. And it's... not awesome.