Sperg about comic books here

[Overly Serious]

You liked this shit? I will never understand people defending this knock off, Grant Morrison wannabe.

No. That bit is crap along with a few other parts. As I said, it started going downhill around the midway point. What I DID like was the things I already mentioned along with a deep delve into the Hulk continuity bringing out older personalities like Joe Fixit.



forgotten villains like Xemnu from the magic planet (a fun and horrifying mini-arc).



There were lots of cool parts to the series. Like Banner unable to transform fighting for his life (and relying on his intellect and capacity for callousness to do so), Betty refusing to talk to Banner, only one of his other personalities, lots of little things like that plus some great art.



and the aforementioned mysticism which I enjoyed.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

No. That bit is crap along with a few other parts. As I said, it started going downhill around the midway point. What I DID like was the things I already mentioned along with a deep delve into the Hulk continuity bringing out older personalities like Joe Fixit.

View attachment 2669742

forgotten villains like Xemnu from the magic planet (a fun and horrifying mini-arc).

View attachment 2669748View attachment 2669749

There were lots of cool parts to the series. Like Banner unable to transform fighting for his life (and relying on his intellect and capacity for callousness to do so), Betty refusing to talk to Banner, only one of his other personalities, lots of little things like that plus some great art.

View attachment 2669754View attachment 2669755View attachment 2669756

and the aforementioned mysticism which I enjoyed.

don't forget that the series nerfed Banner's intelligence from being super-scientist smart to just being normal human scientist smart.

like, no more force fields or sci-fi bannertech. rip.


i kinda liked that nerf, but i wish it was explored more.

 

[Overly Serious]

don't forget that the series nerfed Banner's intelligence from being super-scientist smart to just being normal human scientist smart.

like, no more force fields or sci-fi bannertech. rip.


i kinda liked that nerf, but i wish it was explored more.

I don't really remember that. But then I never really followed the Hulk that much before then anyway. So to me in the series he just came across as a very smart guy. He does hack those systems in the military base, iirc, when he's prevented from transforming.

I don't follow Marvel enough to really know this but the genius rankings in the setting to me seem to go sort of along the lines of:

Reed Richards
Hank Pym / Dr. Doom as close followers.
Tony Stark - more of an engineer than a scientist. Bruce Banner - scientist but with a specialist area he's the best in. I could swear he used to be a medical doctor but that seems to have changed?
An assorted rag tag of jostlers like Shuri, the Thinker, Nadia Pym (that's his daughter, right?), Norman Osbourne, Dr. Octopus et al.
Peter Parker as a third-stringer and various other sciency- characters I can't be bothered to remember.

Valeria floating somewhere behind Reed Richards. And I pretend Moon girl or whatever she is doesn't exist.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I don't really remember that. But then I never really followed the Hulk that much before then anyway. So to me in the series he just came across as a very smart guy. He does hack those systems in the military base, iirc, when he's prevented from transforming.

I don't follow Marvel enough to really know this but the genius rankings in the setting to me seem to go sort of along the lines of:

Reed Richards
Hank Pym / Dr. Doom as close followers.
Tony Stark - more of an engineer than a scientist. Bruce Banner - scientist but with a specialist area he's the best in. I could swear he used to be a medical doctor but that seems to have changed?
An assorted rag tag of jostlers like Shuri, the Thinker, Nadia Pym (that's his daughter, right?), Norman Osbourne, Dr. Octopus et al.
Peter Parker as a third-stringer and various other sciency- characters I can't be bothered to remember.

Valeria floating somewhere behind Reed Richards. And I pretend Moon girl or whatever she is doesn't exist.

iirc don't forget Hank McCoy and T'Challa. They're around the Level of being a lead science character for their groups. Amadeus Cho's somewhere around the 8th smartest iirc.

Moon Girl 100% is just a meme.

DC is simpler. Lex Luthor and Batman compete for top spot.

 

[Overly Serious]

iirc don't forget Hank McCoy and T'Challa. They're around the Level of being a lead science character for their groups. Amadeus Cho's somewhere around the 8th smartest iirc.

Moon Girl 100% is just a meme.

DC is simpler. Lex Luthor and Batman compete for top spot.

You know I'd somehow managed to forget about the X-Men entirely. A happy moment.

Is Black Panther supposed to be a scientific wiz? I guess there's that whole Wakandan thing. Honestly though, people who top out as martial artists shouldn't also be topping out in the genius stakes (with rare exceptions).

I'd like to disagree with you on DC and say Lex is clearly the superior intellect. But there are occasional and awful cases where Batgod versions of Bruce Wayne get completely out of hand so maybe. I'd still give it to Lex, though, personally.

 

[Water-T]

DC is simpler. Lex Luthor and Batman compete for top spot.

Bruce's powers of deduction are Sherlock-tier, but he's nowhere on Lex's overall intelligence level. I'd consider them even when it comes to business acumen, though.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

You know I'd somehow managed to forget about the X-Men entirely. A happy moment.

Is Black Panther supposed to be a scientific wiz? I guess there's that whole Wakandan thing. Honestly though, people who top out as martial artists shouldn't also be topping out in the genius stakes (with rare exceptions).

I'd like to disagree with you on DC and say Lex is clearly the superior intellect. But there are occasional and awful cases where Batgod versions of Bruce Wayne get completely out of hand so maybe. I'd still give it to Lex, though, personally.

tbh T'Challa's kinda like Batman in being very well rounded. Although, his IQ isn't always on show for scientific purposes, they have shown him to be adept enough to have Mr. Fantastic consult him.

Batman's a case where the writer is the cause of shit. Not that there's anything outright wrong with Bruce being super-intelligent, but we tend to get uber-focused on the Batgod shit.
DCeased did have Luthor admit that Bats was more intelligent, in some ways. I'll agree that Luthor is overall smarter.

DC has more superscience villains off the top of my head. Sure we have both Mr. Terrifics, Ted Kord, Cyborg, Ray Palmer, Ryan Choi, and a ton of the Bat-family as resident geniuses of various kinds. But the heroes usually get downplayed unless it's integral to them. How many people remember that Jay Garrick was a scientist and Alan Scott an Engineer? Hell, Tim Drake's intelligence is supposedly higher than other Bat-fam members outside of maybe Barbara.

as for villains; Brainiac, Sivana, etc. Dr. Cyber, Dr. Poison, and so on. DC's been around forever so they have a lot of the original super science guys, like Ultra Humanite.


iirc, DC goes with like

Brainiac (does he count?)
Luthor
Mr. Terrific
Batman
Choose your own A listers, even Superman counts apparently.
Blue Beetle

 

[Jetpack Himmler]

Brainiac (does he count?)

I would advise limiting it to humans. The Brainiac lineage hail from Colu, which is a planet inhabited by super-geniuses (by human standards) and the Doxes have a twelfth-level intellect that far exceeds a baseline Coluan. Same for the Guardians of the Universe, who have been alive for billions of years, or Metron who is a New God. Similarly, I leave time travelers off the list as well.

My hierarchy would be thus:
-Lex Luthor
-Batman
-Mr. Terrific (Michael Holt)
-Dr. Thaddeus Sivana
-Ultra-Humanite
-Vandal Savage
-Atom (Ray Palmer)
-Martin Stein
-Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)
-Steel (John Henry Irons)
-Cyborg (Victor Stone)
-Emil Hamilton
-Killer Frost (Crystal Frost, Louise Lincoln, and Catlin Snow)

There are dozens more that I haven't mentioned so there are massive gaps. Some I mentioned are also specialists in their field like Stein, who actually won the a Nobel Prize for his work in nuclear physics while Kord and Irons lean towards engineering. As for Vandal Savage, I include him not for his scientific prowess, but his long life make him the best strategist and tactician on the planet.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I would advise limiting it to humans. The Brainiac lineage hail from Colu, which is a planet inhabited by super-geniuses (by human standards) and the Doxes have a twelfth-level intellect that far exceeds a baseline Coluan. Same for the Guardians of the Universe, who have been alive for billions of years, or Metron who is a New God. Similarly, I leave time travelers off the list as well.

My hierarchy would be thus:
-Lex Luthor
-Batman
-Mr. Terrific (Michael Holt)
-Dr. Thaddeus Sivana
-Ultra-Humanite
-Vandal Savage
-Atom (Ray Palmer)
-Martin Stein
-Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)
-Steel (John Henry Irons)
-Cyborg (Victor Stone)
-Emil Hamilton
-Killer Frost (Crystal Frost, Louise Lincoln, and Catlin Snow)

There are dozens more that I haven't mentioned so there are massive gaps. Some I mentioned are also specialists in their field like Stein, who actually won the a Nobel Prize for his work in nuclear physics while Kord and Irons lean towards engineering. As for Vandal Savage, I include him not for his scientific prowess, but his long life make him the best strategist and tactician on the planet.

If we're including Vandal Savage, then Carter and Shiera Hall also stand a relatively good shot.

It's a shame that we never got a good scaling of the original Mr. Terrific's intelligence. Terry Sloane is said to have been extremely intelligent. I'd also have tossed The original Starman, Star-Spangled Kid, and Stripesy as being way up there in intelligence. OG Starman harnessed cosmic energy and worked on the atomic bomb. The OG Star-Spangled Kid apparently has a lot of stuff said about him in the late 90s that talked about what a genius he was. Stripesy is also known as STRIPES, the big mech suit wearing guy that's the mentor to Stargirl. He was lost in time since the '40s and ended up in the present day and still managed to build a fucking mech-suit. Dude's intelligent as hell, but it's hard to quantify it since he usually appears in team books.

Silas Stone, Vic's father, is another major candidate but he's probably at the bottom of the list. I'd put Dr. Ivo on the list 100% since the dude built Amazo and specializes in that stuff. Dunno about T.O. Morrow, because he's sort of a time traveler.

Now we do have a LOT of dudes like the OG Hourman, or even Superman himself. I just think it's also relevant to include Bart Allen because he's the only Flash able to retain everything he reads.

oh right DC also owns Tom Strong now. He's part of this shit, isn't he?

 

[GranDuke]

iirc, DC goes with like

Brainiac (does he count?)
Luthor
Mr. Terrific
Batman
Choose your own A listers, even Superman counts apparently.
Blue Beetle

Superman is #1, everything stating otherwise is a case of bad writing.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

Hulk is a character who even under Peter David just sucks.

he's better as an entity that causes disaster than as a character.

Now there I agree with you. He started as a cape-tinged horror monster and all the efforts to make him a superhero, especially in and around the MCU, have been iffy at best. Even in the MCU his role and most memorable moments were as what Banner was apparently trying to avoid: a living weapon.

Complete with "fighting's over, get back in your box".

like, that was the immersion breaker because ain't nobody lecturing the hulk, especially in universe lmao.

In this run, he'd not only take it but agree with it.

One of the few things I liked about Immortal Hulk was the reference to Hulk history, especially Peter Davids run and some of the themes that came out of that. Though it wasn't enough to make up for almost everything else.
One thing that straddles the line was giving the Hulk the personality of a woke college student - "Dumb white patriarchy* has ruined the world, I'm going to take over and fix things!" Personally I can see that coming almost directly from one aspect of Davids run that I would have toned down: Professor Hulk's temper with its self-righteous edge. Something you might expect to happen when you merge three personalities - a rational, moral adult, a raging toddler, and a surly teenager - and give them equal footing.

For a more direct example: the Joe Fixit personality told Jackie that Devil Hulk liked her, and so did he, after reading the trans rights article she wrote.

* Perhaps not in those exact words. I don't know. I skipped and glossed over a lot of the run.

There were lots of cool parts to the series. Like... Betty refusing to talk to Banner, only one of his other personalities,

Hmm.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Now there I agree with you. He started as a cape-tinged horror monster and all the efforts to make him a superhero, especially in and around the MCU, have been iffy at best. Even in the MCU his role and most memorable moments were as what Banner was apparently trying to avoid: a living weapon.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=W3GF1x0-VX0:98
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EcLfyxzV4lI:39
Complete with "fighting's over, get back in your box".

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SQDKTz9Rrqw


In this run, he'd not only take it but agree with it.

One of the few things I liked about Immortal Hulk was the reference to Hulk history, especially Peter Davids run and some of the themes that came out of that. Though it wasn't enough to make up for almost everything else.
One thing that straddles the line was giving the Hulk the personality of a woke college student - "Dumb white patriarchy* has ruined the world, I'm going to take over and fix things!" Personally I can see that coming almost directly from one aspect of Davids run that I would have toned down: Professor Hulk's temper with its self-righteous edge. Something you might expect to happen when you merge three personalities - a rational, moral adult, a raging toddler, and a surly teenager - and give them equal footing.

For a more direct example: the Joe Fixit personality told Jackie that Devil Hulk liked her, and so did he, after reading the trans rights article she wrote.

* Perhaps not in those exact words. I don't know. I skipped and glossed over a lot of the run.



Hmm.

Hulk as a straight out superhero only works in the context of extremely weird bullshit like the Doc Green/Professor Hulks, which usually turn out to be hiding a level of sociopathy/psychopathy.

I think a Hulk book could be interesting if it was just one where you had superheroes rotate in and out of a team-up book that containts/tracks the Hulk.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

extremely weird bullshit like the Doc Green/Professor Hulks

It's interesting that every time they try to make the Hulk intelligent and let him fix things his own way, you end up with something approaching the Maestro. At this point I don't even know if the last few attempts did that intentionally. It's like "true Hulkunism hasn't been tried yet."

I only glanced at it, but didn't Peter David's own recent Maestro miniseries try to justify his tyranny? I remember a scene where he broke down and sobbed over a dead deer, which totally meant the suffering remnants of humanity had to be crushed under his heel. And we all know who else was sensitive to the mistreatment of animals.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

It's interesting that every time they try to make the Hulk intelligent and let him fix things his own way, you end up with something approaching the Maestro. At this point I don't even know if the last few attempts did that intentionally. It's like "true Hulkunism hasn't been tried yet."

I only glanced at it, but didn't Peter David's own recent Maestro miniseries try to justify his tyranny? I remember a scene where he broke down and sobbed over a dead deer, which totally meant the suffering remnants of humanity had to be crushed under his heel. And we all know who else was sensitive to the mistreatment of animals.

honestly i would like more exploration of Maestro's mental unhingedness

how fucked up would Maestro as the big bad of a major event be? well it wouldn't be possible these days.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

Maestro as the big bad of a major event

 

[Alexander Thaut]

View attachment 2672269

ending was kinda weird to me ngl

 

[jspit2.0]

No. That bit is crap along with a few other parts.

Nah, it was every fucking issue with Ewing's politics. Whether it was police officers just randomly beating the shit out of a non-white guy for keks or some weird troon shit.

Climate change doomerism!

I wonder if Hulk will take on the worst polluter, China?

Yeah, if that sounds familiar it's because Alan Moore did it back in the '80s in the Killing Joke and Watchman. Which dovetails too...

Also, I could look past the terrible propaganda if it was good. But verbal diarrhea. From issue one forward. Lots and lots of talking.

As I said, it started going downhill around the midway point. What I DID like was the things I already mentioned along with a deep delve into the Hulk continuity bringing out older personalities like Joe Fixit.

View attachment 2669742

forgotten villains like Xemnu from the magic planet (a fun and horrifying mini-arc).

View attachment 2669748View attachment 2669749

Except other people have done that.

There were lots of cool parts to the series. Like Banner unable to transform fighting for his life (and relying on his intellect and capacity for callousness to do so), Betty refusing to talk to Banner, only one of his other personalities, lots of little things like that plus some great art.

Greg Pak literally did all of that not ten years ago. I know what this is. It's the same shit when everyone was talking about how amazing Tom King was.

Stop me if you heard this before. Disheveled character angst; the world is shit, people are shit. It's embarrassing. It's what Vertigo catered to. As I stated above, it's all incredibly embarrassing. Life sucks so much? Euthanasia. Seriously. If you think the world is that awful, end yourself. Except most, like Ewing and his Vertigo audience won't. Because it isn't.

I mentioned the Killing Joke/Watchman above. Know what made those stories bearable? Because when Joker talks about nukes and shit; Batman tells him to fuck off. Not everyone is ugly and worthless. In Watchman, when everyone is willing to embrace mass carnage for a shitty lie; Rosarch tells them to fuck off.

It may not have been Moore's intention, but his negativity was balanced by characters who rejected it.

View attachment 2669754View attachment 2669755View attachment 2669756

and the aforementioned mysticism which I enjoyed.

Covers.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Nah, it was every fucking issue with Ewing's politics. Whether it was police officers just randomly beating the shit out of a non-white guy for keks or some weird troon shit.

Climate change doomerism!

I wonder if Hulk will take on the worst polluter, China?

Yeah, if that sounds familiar it's because Alan Moore did it back in the '80s in the Killing Joke and Watchman. Which dovetails too...

Also, I could look past the terrible propaganda if it was good. But verbal diarrhea. From issue one forward. Lots and lots of talking.



Except other people have done that.



Greg Pak literally did all of that not ten years ago. I know what this is. It's the same shit when everyone was talking about how amazing Tom King was.

Stop me if you heard this before. Disheveled character angst; the world is shit, people are shit. It's embarrassing. It's what Vertigo catered to. As I stated above, it's all incredibly embarrassing. Life sucks so much? Euthanasia. Seriously. If you think the world is that awful, end yourself. Except most, like Ewing and his Vertigo audience won't. Because it isn't.

I mentioned the Killing Joke/Watchman above. Know what made those stories bearable? Because when Joker talks about nukes and shit; Batman tells him to fuck off. Not everyone is ugly and worthless. In Watchman, when everyone is willing to embrace mass carnage for a shitty lie; Rosarch tells them to fuck off.

It may not have been Moore's intention, but his negativity was balanced by characters who rejected it.



Covers.

i think the thing is that if the series had a proper standard hero chase after the Hulk, it'd have provided that balance against negativity.

Like, sure Doc Samson takes that role for a hot moment and then gets sidelined. Nobody else tries to be the voice of optimism for any long term period.

NGL, this would have been the perfect time to have Amadeus try and be that positive force again. Or Namora, or Hercules, or fucking anybody. Hell, they've been working up to the Eternals, so an Eternal trying to track Hulk down and prove that it isn't all just a doomed world would have been a far better idea than this wanking.



also, a Hulk MAX comic would probably work but Ewing is too much of a "teller", not a "shower". He got hard carried by the grotesque horror aesthetic of this book, which is hella memorable.

 

[DaBigBopper]

It's interesting that every time they try to make the Hulk intelligent and let him fix things his own way, you end up with something approaching the Maestro. At this point I don't even know if the last few attempts did that intentionally. It's like "true Hulkunism hasn't been tried yet."

I only glanced at it, but didn't Peter David's own recent Maestro miniseries try to justify his tyranny? I remember a scene where he broke down and sobbed over a dead deer, which totally meant the suffering remnants of humanity had to be crushed under his heel. And we all know who else was sensitive to the mistreatment of animals.

I'll be honest Peter David is one of those guys who writes good for one character and terrible for others. Banner and Hulk has always been a story of how Banner deep down is a terrible person, and the Hulk is that bit of him that recognizes it. Rather than unleash the monster that is Banner, the Hulk wants to be left alone. I know a few of the retconned origins Banner was going to irradiate his Highschool, but I may be confusing Ultimate where he's a giant angry cuck, but even Maestro was boring. I don't find Hulk interesting and Ewing just attracts the worst types of fans for the characters he uses/ creates. The only Hulk fans I know of are Hulk Hogan fans and that's mostly because of WWE and killing Gawker.

I'm fine with people liking a character, but Hulk narratively just doesn't really fit as a hero. Hulk's in general were repressed desires and it's why She-Hulk worked. Jen didn't want to smash her problems away, she wanted to be a Giga-Stacy. Having the gamma stuff be some mystic bs just feels like opening the door to ruin the character and extended cast, which from when I read Immortal Hulk that my friend said were really good, just read like shit and a lot of filler. The artist deserves a lot of credit and I'm glad that faggot Ewing pissed people off. It's like when Bendis or Gillen said that Stark is the result of aliens or adopted or some shit, it serves no purpose other than some Ocean's 11 bullshit story.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I'll be honest Peter David is one of those guys who writes good for one character and terrible for others. Banner and Hulk has always been a story of how Banner deep down is a terrible person, and the Hulk is that bit of him that recognizes it. Rather than unleash the monster that is Banner, the Hulk wants to be left alone. I know a few of the retconned origins Banner was going to irradiate his Highschool, but I may be confusing Ultimate where he's a giant angry cuck, but even Maestro was boring. I don't find Hulk interesting and Ewing just attracts the worst types of fans for the characters he uses/ creates. The only Hulk fans I know of are Hulk Hogan fans and that's mostly because of WWE and killing Gawker.

I'm fine with people liking a character, but Hulk narratively just doesn't really fit as a hero. Hulk's in general were repressed desires and it's why She-Hulk worked. Jen didn't want to smash her problems away, she wanted to be a Giga-Stacy. Having the gamma stuff be some mystic bs just feels like opening the door to ruin the character and extended cast, which from when I read Immortal Hulk that my friend said were really good, just read like shit and a lot of filler. The artist deserves a lot of credit and I'm glad that faggot Ewing pissed people off. It's like when Bendis or Gillen said that Stark is the result of aliens or adopted or some shit, it serves no purpose other than some Ocean's 11 bullshit story.

stark being the result of alien and whatnot was fucking funny ngl


to be fair I think there's a point where you can tell how competent a writer is.

Shit writers are obviously shit.

Writers that piss people off by
-introducing unnecessary retcons that don't pay off
-keep trying to do "something new" that doesn't pay off
-get ham handed and turn a hulk comic into walls of text

ngl I miss james robinson and geoff johns with their continuity sperging. i wish they'd do more marvel stuff once in a while. marvel has too many writers that want to just get some stupid "milestone" and then get absolutely BTFO'd when the newest LGBT, gender, or race grift doesn't get that much love because it's either boring, insulting, or a bad retcon.