Griffin: What can fans expect from your take on Hulk, Donny? Is Hulk getting the Venom treatment? Are we going to hear about some lore? What's your Hulk going to be like?
Donny: No, I don't know that it's gonna be like that really. It's a very additive approach. We're going to go to different places, we're gonna have new bad guys, we're gonna have new characters. It's a bit of a symptom of following Al [Ewing]. Al did, essentially, what Ryan and I did for Venom and came in and brought all this lore into it and this mythology to everything. Al just got done doing that with Immortal Hulk. And so I don't really feel like that's my lane on Hulk. Without spoiling how his run ends, it ends on a very succinct note that sets a very grand stage for the next iteration. The thing I could probably compare it to and- I said this on the live stream- is Mark Waid's Daredevil which, when it started, people were very, very confused by it. Confused about why it was all sunny, why everything was okay. Why was Matt Murdock happy? Why wasn't he addressing the fact that he was outed? It took a little while for Mark Waid to kind of turn the key on that and show you what he was doing and show you his hand. That's what we're doing on Hulk. Things are gonna seem real fucking weird and really fuckin angry for a while and if you'll just be patient with me, you'll see what it is that we're actually doing.
Ethan: What was appealing to you about shooting Hulk back out into space?
Donny: Well, it's funny... that Free Comic Book Day issue, and the title "Smashtronaut," seems to have given people the impression that we're going to go into space. That is not entirely true. We're going somewhere. I don't know if I would call it space but, we're going somewhere really fucking weird.
Ethan: (That's a good tease.)
Griffin: So, you just brought up Mr. Al Ewing. Of course, you've got this handoff happening here, as Al is taking over Venom, you are taking over Hulk. So how has that handoff been? What's exciting for you about seeing Al on Venom? And what do you hope you can give to Al in your own work?
Donny: I've stayed pretty far away from Venom since I left. I never want to be the guy who hangs around and gives notes on a thing that I'm not writing. It doesn't matter that I wrote it for so long or anything. It's their book now. I'm also not one to get my fucking feelings hurt if they change something about my run because, unless they invent time travel, they can't get rid of my run. I mean, if in the first issue of Al's run out, Eddie wakes up out of a dream and is like, "oh, that was weird," yeah, that's fine. I don't give a shit. That's fine. That being said, I have read the first three issues of their run. It is fucking unreal. It's so good. It's really, really, really good. Al is handling the Eddie, King in Black, god of the symbiotes stuff. It's kind of ethereal, very heady, kind of cosmic spiritual stuff. And Ram [V] is handling the boots on the ground, Dylan becoming Venom kind of thing. And it's quite beautiful, actually. As far as Hulk, Al has showed me the exact same respect back. I don't know if he's read what I'm doing or not. We exchanged some notes at a summit once. But, I think we're both of the same mind that whoever's name is on the book, that's their book. You don't jump into someone else's shit. So, I'm less concerned about Al than I am about Al's fans. Look, I can't control if you guys like it or not. I hope that you do. It's never my intention to make a bad product. That being said, I'm not Al. I write differently than Al does and Al writes differently than me. And so, if you liked Al's run, I hope that you'll give us a shot. If you don't like it, that's also fine, too. And if you don't like it, it's also fine for you to not tell me. It's also completely allowed to not get on Twitter and scream at me. I don't know if people know that or not. You don't have to actually do that.
Griffin: And also, as a fan, isn't that what we want? At the end of the day we have Al Ewing's whole run, which is incredible, but we're getting a complete and total tonal shift with you. Immortal Hulk with Al ran for, what, three or four years?
Donny: Yeah, it ran for the exact amount of issues and time as mine and Ryan's run.
Griffin: Exactly. And so I feel like now is a great time for a new era of Hulk and- this shift, this switch? Yeah, I couldn't ask for anything better.
Donny: I'm going full-on fucking Gonzo with it. The closest in tone would be Nextwave. It's fucking ridiculous. It's so fucking stupid and big and mean. It's fucking crazy.
Griffin: And Ryan Ottley is gonna draw a bunch of blood all over it.
Donny: Oh my god, dude. You have no fucking clue. It's so insane.
Ethan: All of your Marvel work kind of flows one thing into the next. You have a lot of crossover between things, a lot of lore that spills over. It can kind of be viewed as Donny Cates' Marvel saga, in a way. Would you prefer that people look at this series as the next step of Donny Cates' Marvel work or more so as its own thing?
Donny: Well, it definitely has its hooks in a couple of other little plotlines that I've put in other books. You know, next year is the anniversary of Thor and Hulk. It's like the 60th or something anniversary of both characters. And there hasn't been a writer writing both of those books at the same time since Stan. And as far as the Donny Cates like, whatever saga or mythology goes, I would be remiss if I didn't take that opportunity to make the fucking craziest fight that Marvel Comics has ever seen. Marvel saw fit, somehow, to give me the most powerful characters in the entire pantheon. And then they were, like, shocked when things got violent. That being said, there's definitely going to be some Thor antics. And then there's one fun little thing that happens, which is... Remember in King in Black, when Tony Stark rode a dragon into a Celestial's body and took it over and fuckin’ became an Iron Celestial? Well, Tony still has it.
Ethan: Mhm...
Donny: And he's been working on it.
Ethan: Oh my god.
Griffin: Jesus.
Donny: So that might be fun to play with.
Griffin: You son of a bitch. That's so awesome.
Ethan: Alright, time for the dumbest question: Who wins between Hulk at the start of your run and Venom at the start of your run?
Donny: Well, at the start of Venom, Eddie and the symbiote weren't getting along and the symbiote was losing its mind slowly because, it was being poisoned. And at the beginning of Hulk... There's some other shit happening... I would put money on Hulk. For sure. Yeah, he would fuck him up.
Griffin: So, to wrap it all up, sir: If you could share one word to hype the entirety of your Hulk run, what would it be?
Donny: Incredible.