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Post by imperiusrex on Apr 17, 2007 12:37:13 GMT -5
That's a bit of a two-handed slap on the back though, rex. He admits that the alternative is "preposterous", he just thinks it's a large can of worms. Which is fair enough. Well he also says, he can't subscribe to that thinking. That's pretty clear. As for the alternative being preposterous well so is a man gaining two tons of muscle and leaping a quarter mile. Preposterous is a fairly easy to toss around word when dealing with comics... And I believe I said earlier that it is indeed highly unlikely that no one was killed by the Hulk, but storywise in order to have a character who is still a hero he can't be causing wanton murder in his wake.
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Post by balok on Apr 17, 2007 14:58:11 GMT -5
CAN'T SAY AS I SUBSCRIBE TO THAT THINKING. I MEAN, I KNOW IT SEEMS PREPOSTEROUS THAT THE HULK COULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYING AS MUCH AS HE HAS ALL THESE YEARS AND NO ONE HAS DIED. BUT THAT'S NOT A CAN OF WORMS I WOULD HAVE OPENED. That, right there, has been a trope of comics right up until the recent push towards modernization. Sure, in the "real" world these battles could not take place without all kinds of collateral damage. These folks toss buildings at each other, use blasts of energy that can shatter busses. It is literally impossible to fathom how, in the real world, such events could take place as often as they do in the Marvel universe without an aggregate body count in the high five figures somewhere. Hell, look how much manpower they put on a serial killer who makes it to double digits. Look how much news coverage the Virginia Tech killer has received so far. Now ask yourself how much law enforcement there would be trying to stop Frank Castle, who has, by most estimates, a four figure body count. But up until that push towards "realism" all of this was ignored. A decade or so ago there was a role playing game titled "TORG" and in it, various invaders established beachheads on earth from different realities. Inside of these beachheads, reality worked differently. Some of them had special rules that applied only there, called world laws. Comics were like that. It was assumed that bystanders got out of the way or evaded harm in some other fashion, except in certain situations where the story needed the hero to rescue them. Unrealistic as it was, it was one of the things that made comic books great escapist literature. And then came the push for realism, and the assertion that high body counts were really there all along, and Stamford put a cap on that. And now comics, at least Marvel comics, are soaked in the blood of all the people we assumed escaped danger, or were saved in the last seconds, or just didn't worry about. I don't consider it an improvement.
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Post by Doctor Bong on Apr 17, 2007 15:12:28 GMT -5
If we want that, we only need to turn on the tv or read the newspapers, and THEN we finally achieve true realism, as there are no capes, no flying people & no 100-ton benchpressing monsters... I agree wholeheartedly with you, Balok!
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Post by Nutcase65 on Apr 17, 2007 15:23:09 GMT -5
three agreements with Balok in a row.
Also exalt for the true sentiment expressed in your post.
Comics, for many of us were an escape.
I'm not saying that things being different is exactly a terrible thing, but I do miss the more innocent mayhem.
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Post by Alchemist-X on Apr 18, 2007 12:33:20 GMT -5
Well I'm not saying everything should be retroconed like the Hulk to show piles of corpses, but at the same time I'm not completely against having some realistic colateral damage from time to time.
To be fair as well, compared to the Hulk no other Marvel character has caused quite as much wholesale destruction, he is probaly the most belivable to have such a high colateral damage body count. And it isn't like he murdered people. I think all his victims were the trapped in colapsed subways and such and that he wouldn't know about that at the time to do antything about.
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Post by balok on Apr 18, 2007 15:37:14 GMT -5
Sure, the Hulk is going to be one of the more dangerous characters in the Marvel Universe, and if one assigns bodycounts, his would be among the highest, because of his sheer power added to the fact that he's very often not entirely in control of it and the fact that the government hounded him relentlessly, which makes about as much sense as covering yourself with honey and wandering into a bear's cave.
But a lot of the folks in the Marvel universe, according to these rules, would likely have three figure body counts. Even Spider-Man, whose books routinely showed him struggling to keep people from being hurt, probably has some fatalities associated with his fights.
So let's be completely realistic about this: such activities wouldn't be tolerated at all in the real world. Technology would be devised, and the government would kill as many capes as it could (and that would be pretty much all of them except the most powerful). All of the powerful capes, realizing their fate if they're captured, would band together and establish a small enclave somewhere to live their lives. They're periodically raid neighbors to get what they needed, or to take bloody vengeance for acts of aggression committed against them. It would be a perpetual cold war, metahumans against normal humans. Emerging metas would soon realize that on discovery of their powers they have basically two choices: find that sanctuary (doubtless run by someone like Doctor Doom) or wait for the government agents to kill them. Most of the heroic metahumans, unwilling to do violence upon normals, would die in the early skirmishes. Those in the sanctuary would be the most powerful of the villains, with a few heroes turned villain and a good sized portion of merc types, all under the authority of whichever villain was most powerful. Their neighbors and the world would live in perpetual fear of them, but no one would try anything because of their very real fear of what would happen if it didn't work.
THAT'S most likely what you'd get in "the real world."
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Post by Doctor Doom on Apr 18, 2007 15:45:57 GMT -5
But that's jut it, Balok, it's NOT "All or Nothing." We don't say "TOTAL realism or NO realism!" We extend a degree of realism, a greater degree than the Distinguished Competition as it always has been, and one of the most obvious things is that Hulk WOULD have killed people. There would have been casualties, it makes sense. And that's not to say there aren't scattered casualties of Spider-Man as well. But it's not ultra, it's not ALL OR NOTHING, ti's a compromise because compromise usually works best in these situations. I don't think you can quite get your head around that.
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Post by balok on Apr 18, 2007 16:50:54 GMT -5
But that's jut it, Balok, it's NOT "All or Nothing." We don't say "TOTAL realism or NO realism!" We extend a degree of realism, a greater degree than the Distinguished Competition as it always has been, and one of the most obvious things is that Hulk WOULD have killed people. There would have been casualties, it makes sense. And that's not to say there aren't scattered casualties of Spider-Man as well. But it's not ultra, it's not ALL OR NOTHING, ti's a compromise because compromise usually works best in these situations. I don't think you can quite get your head around that. No matter the level of fatalities, people would get tired of it quickly, a Miriam Sharpe would emerge, and people would demand the government do something about it. And the government, always eager for votes, would do something about it - something fatal. Because government is usually much better at getting votes than it is at solving problems. In fact, almost everything government does is done poorly and inefficiently - except make war. THAT, it's relatively good at. Although that may be illusion since we have not seen whether a private mercenary army could exceed government's performance. Given that government is best at killing people it doesn't like, is it that hard to imagine that this would be the fate of metahumans, after a few of their legendary battles killed people? It probably wouldn't even trust the ones who actually wanted to work for it, because they'd still, in many cases, be too powerful to easily control. If you want realism, then the government would kill them unless it thought it could control them absolutely. And it would always be too afraid of them to think that. And Joe Citizen would be perfectly alright with that, because when it comes down to it, we're quite willing to kill people simply because they have the "wrong" color skin, or religion, or national origin. We - the human race - excel at it, and have centuries of practice. And there's few things more "different" than people with abilities beyond those of ordinary men. A few would escape detection. Most would try to flee and of these, the most powerful and the luckiest would succeed, and all others would die. For sheer self-preservation, those few would band together under the most ruthless of their number and declare covert war on humanity.
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Post by Doctor Bong on Apr 18, 2007 17:44:22 GMT -5
If I'm not mistaken, aren't you a fan of the Wild Cards series, Balok...? If you are (or at least if your're familiar with it...), did it ever end...? And if it did, what was the conclusion...?
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Post by balok on Apr 18, 2007 19:00:22 GMT -5
If I'm not mistaken, aren't you a fan of the Wild Cards series, Balok...? If you are (or at least if your're familiar with it...), did it ever end...? And if it did, what was the conclusion...? I was a fan of it in the early going. Then it got very mean-spirited and it was difficult to read the books. Among the things that occurred in the last arc was a worldwide plot to murder all of the aces, deuces, and jokers with a designed virus that targeted wild card mutates. I can't remember who was the architect of that plan, but I seem to recall the World Health Organization murdered hundreds of people in the course of developing the virus. It's been at least a decade since I've cracked a cover. I still have them, somewhere, but space considerations require me to pack a lot of stuff up where it's not readily accessible. Martin is said to be working (with other writers) on a revival.
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Post by imperiusrex on Apr 18, 2007 22:43:11 GMT -5
But that's jut it, Balok, it's NOT "All or Nothing." We don't say "TOTAL realism or NO realism!" We extend a degree of realism, a greater degree than the Distinguished Competition as it always has been, and one of the most obvious things is that Hulk WOULD have killed people. There would have been casualties, it makes sense. And that's not to say there aren't scattered casualties of Spider-Man as well. But it's not ultra, it's not ALL OR NOTHING, ti's a compromise because compromise usually works best in these situations. I don't think you can quite get your head around that. But the problem is marvel has moved from mostly emotional reality to mostly situational reality. For example, both Jim Shooter and Kurt Busiek have likened comic writing to fairy tales. The reality of the situation doesn't matter. Today you're in the 25th century, tomorrow you're on Arkon's world, the day after in Dormmammu's Dark Dimension. You don't have to explain the flying horse, you don't have to explain the giant moving rock man, the man who can turn into any animal or go on fire. You do have to care about them, though. So DC used to have cookie cutter heroes like the silver age Flash and GL who wore the same suits, had the same haircuts, never worried about money and had the same romantic problems as Archie did. Peter Parker was a teenager with angst, no money and a social outcast. Not really different than Cinderella, really. But you had empathy with him. Stan didn't need to show Aunt May in the throes of poverty (which could be illustrated much worse than it was), your imagination filled in those holes. Now with the Hulk for example. Before he was this poor man trapped by a curse (or a spell like an old fairy tale) doomed to lose his love and never have a happy life. But you felt empathy for him because he was a tortured soul who would never hurt an innocent. The fact that his rampages are less real because of it matters little to much of the audience because the character has proven immensely popular over the years. How can you feel empathy for him now? How? There are dead children because of him. Maybe thousands. How could anyone call himself a hero and let him walk the planet and not try to end his life? How about all the times they saved his life or didn't try to exile him? How about all the times Bruce was in control of himself and didn't exile himself for fear of eventually reverting back to the savage Hulk? This is the most important question-how could the marvel universe exist as it has for the entire lifespan of the Hulk without commiting themselves to stopping his mass murder spree? There's not one bit of reality in that situation. It is just as ridiculous if not much more ridiculous than the idea of Hulk not killing any innocents. And it strips the character of any shred of nobility and courage. The situation is more real, but does it connect emotionally with the reader? especially long time Hulk fans who now have to contend with the idea that their hero is the bloodiest killer in the entire Marvel Universe? To me that causes emotional disconnect. It's not the hero I knew. So it's more real in one way, but it takes me away from the character in another. But we'll see how this all falls out in a few years. sales booms die down and when they do, the ideas they spawn often go with them...
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Post by Doctor Bong on Apr 18, 2007 23:51:55 GMT -5
I must commend you for being able to express in such an articulate fashion the feelings many of us have here, rex... For your ability to mold them with such precision into words...
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Post by balok on Apr 19, 2007 10:09:05 GMT -5
More and more, I am convinced that Marvel felt that by applying the hyper-reality of the Ultimate universe to its entire line, it could garner similar sales levels. So far, it's working, so maybe they're right.
But at this point I must hope patiently for the kind of sales slump that will see the architects of this dismal idea ushered out the door: Quesada, Millar, and Bendis at the very least need to go.
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Post by Tana Nile on Apr 19, 2007 13:14:23 GMT -5
Just wanted to add my appreciation for Rex's comments. Well said.
I can accept the Ultimate Hulk as being a killer because that is how he was initially presented. The Ultimate Hulk is not a hero by any means, although he may at times work on the side of good.
The regular MU Hulk though, was considered a hero, or at the very least, an anti-hero. His innate goodness is what kept the Hulk from being a true monster. To now say that he is responsible for thousands of deaths completely negates his heroic past.
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Post by Doctor Doom on Apr 19, 2007 14:30:28 GMT -5
I honestly don't feel it does. First, I'd say hundreds, not thousands, secondly I've ALWAYS considered Hulk responsible for deaths. Even as a kid, I just assumed people died.
This site seems to be getting increasingly black and white: Either Iron Man IS a hero or he IS a villain, either Hulk IS a hero or he IS a murder. The reality is, that like... reality... everyone is a shade of grey and it IS possible to find a middle ground in all these cases.
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Post by imperiusrex on Apr 19, 2007 16:52:20 GMT -5
I honestly don't feel it does. First, I'd say hundreds, not thousands, secondly I've ALWAYS considered Hulk responsible for deaths. Even as a kid, I just assumed people died. This site seems to be getting increasingly black and white: Either Iron Man IS a hero or he IS a villain, either Hulk IS a hero or he IS a murder. The reality is, that like... reality... everyone is a shade of grey and it IS possible to find a middle ground in all these cases. Well this is an even sillier argument. Shades of grey are one thing. But being responsible for even one child's death due to your anger manifesting itself as direct physical violence towards that child pretty much eliminates you from the heroic side. Please supply a list of mass murderers who are also considered heroes. Heroes of legend and honor. Even soldiers in war zones are looked at as lesser men when they kill children. And if the Hulk rampaged through some town and smashed through a daycare center, then he is wholly and totally responsible for whatever happens. Even at his most childlike, the Hulk is still rational, he still possesses reasoning and a certain amount of Bruce banner's genius intellect. Honestly, how does not wanting a hero to kill even one child through purposeful and malicious acts make any of us irrational? This isn't like the Stamford incident where a sequence of events culminated in a number of deaths. here's what happens with the Hulk: Bruce Banner gets mad, he multiple personality disorder manifests, he gains virtually unlimited strength and lashes out. In current Marvel lore that means he could get agitated after being thrown out of shelter trying to hide out and then gets so mad that he brings down the entire shelter, killing dozens which might include children. Now Bruce's getting agitated and killing people is wholly foreseeable; he knows what'll happen, he knows his capacity for violence, he knows how unstoppable the Hulk is. So he knows every minute of his life he could easily kill hundreds. How is that in any way a shade of grey? There is no good he could do to counteract that threat. period. Truth to tell I'm trying but I don't even know how to respond to this argument. If you think this is a story about shades of grey and aren't just being contrary, I'm at a loss...
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Post by balok on Apr 19, 2007 17:05:29 GMT -5
Banner may not be wholly responsible for what happens when he's the Hulk, but if he has killed a lot of people he cannot be a hero. At best he's a force of nature (like a hurricane or a flood), and at worst he's a villain. There may be shades of grey in nu-Marvel but this is not one of them.
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Post by Doctor Bong on Apr 19, 2007 18:30:44 GMT -5
Yep... Thank you, current Marvel...! 1st you ruined (for me) my very favorite comic book character & now you're doing the same to subject #4 on my list...!!! Sigh...!
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Post by imperiusrex on Apr 19, 2007 20:44:19 GMT -5
Banner may not be wholly responsible for what happens when he's the Hulk, but if he has killed a lot of people he cannot be a hero. At best he's a force of nature (like a hurricane or a flood), and at worst he's a villain. There may be shades of grey in nu-Marvel but this is not one of them. Well he's not wholly responsible when he's the Hulk, but he's not always the Hulk. banner knows what he does and is responsible because he made a bomb that allowed him to release his powerful side. He's also not a force of nature. A force of nature doesn't have a brain. Hulk's anger is a focused unleashing of force. He gets mad and Hulk smashes. That's cause and effect. Look most murderers and psychopaths could technically say their actions are due to impulses they can't control. And their evidence would be only someone insane would kill so many people without cause. Or an alcoholic who has a compulsion, blacks out and kills someone during their alcohol induced state. Even if you feel compassion and pity for these people, you will still demand they be punished. And it's happened to doctors, policemen firemen et al and we no longer consider them heroes once they've done something that causes the death of an innocent that was within their foreseeable power to prevent. And that's in the real world. There's just no justifying the existence of the Hulk in the Marvel Universe now. If he's someone without control but still the cause of loss of life, that doesn't free him from the responsibility of his actions. And the only response to that sort of action would be to stop him much earlier than they did now.
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Post by Nutcase65 on Apr 19, 2007 21:17:34 GMT -5
And the only response to that sort of action would be to stop him much earlier than they did now. and that is the argument SHIELD used with Stark that caused him to bring the Illuminati to bear. and it's absolutely right, I think.
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Post by imperiusrex on Apr 19, 2007 22:02:47 GMT -5
And the only response to that sort of action would be to stop him much earlier than they did now. and that is the argument SHIELD used with Stark that caused him to bring the Illuminati to bear. and it's absolutely right, I think. Well doesn't it sort of fly in the face of hundreds if not thousands of existing Marvel comics? And not just a little bit. I mean what about when the Hulk got his pardon? The several times he was asked to rejoin the Avengers? If I sit here for five minutes and think about it I'll have hundreds of points where this just completely disrupts the fabric of thousands of stories. Not only that, it makes Thunderbolt Ross the good guy now, doesn't it? Thus forever changing the way we look at probably the entire run of the Hulk up until Peter David's run. I like interesting changes. I like what Peter did with the Hulk-creating all three personas, interchanging them. That was based off some interesting concepts and made the book more compelling. But changes that just make the character more dark and unredeemable aren't good in the long run. Really, what's next? Will Cap have had sex with Bucky? To give him shades of grey? he can still be a hero and a child molester, right? Don't laugh about the concept of superhero sidekick sex that was pretty much the argument that Fredric Wertham used to try and topple the comic industry. Like I said, let's see the fallout in five more years. The problem is of course, they know they can retcon and reboot anytime, so there's no real risk in doing these ridiculous changes.
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Post by Doctor Bong on Apr 19, 2007 23:09:00 GMT -5
Just like I can't look at Gwen Stacy the same way since that ridiculous "Sins Past" storyline, rex.. Except this is even worse because it involves a character who's still alive today, is extremely popular, has his own book & has been a pillar of the MU for 45 years...
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Post by Tana Nile on Apr 20, 2007 0:31:36 GMT -5
Just like I can't look at Gwen Stacy the same way since that ridiculous "Sins Past" storyline, rex.. Except this is even worse because it involves a character who's still alive today, is extremely popular, has his own book & has been a pillar of the MU for 45 years... Ugh, I know what you mean Bong. That was a huge mis-step by Straczynski and Marvel. I've generally liked what little I have read of his Spider-Man, but that just revolted me. It was completely out of character for Gwen.
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Post by Nutcase65 on Apr 20, 2007 6:46:00 GMT -5
and that is the argument SHIELD used with Stark that caused him to bring the Illuminati to bear. and it's absolutely right, I think. Well doesn't it sort of fly in the face of hundreds if not thousands of existing Marvel comics? And not just a little bit. I mean what about when the Hulk got his pardon? The several times he was asked to rejoin the Avengers? If I sit here for five minutes and think about it I'll have hundreds of points where this just completely disrupts the fabric of thousands of stories. Not only that, it makes Thunderbolt Ross the good guy now, doesn't it? Thus forever changing the way we look at probably the entire run of the Hulk up until Peter David's run. I like interesting changes. I like what Peter did with the Hulk-creating all three personas, interchanging them. That was based off some interesting concepts and made the book more compelling. But changes that just make the character more dark and unredeemable aren't good in the long run. Really, what's next? Will Cap have had sex with Bucky? To give him shades of grey? he can still be a hero and a child molester, right? Don't laugh about the concept of superhero sidekick sex that was pretty much the argument that Fredric Wertham used to try and topple the comic industry. Like I said, let's see the fallout in five more years. The problem is of course, they know they can retcon and reboot anytime, so there's no real risk in doing these ridiculous changes. again you are 100% right. It's almost like they use the retcon as a safety net now. They can take these characters and go along any tangeant they want to and if it doesn't work we'll retcon. But what alternative do they have. I keep coming back to aging in the MU. If they are going to be sooo focused on reality in Marvel, maybe they should let the characters get older and have their progeny develop into main characters. This would slowly phase out most of our favorites, I know but would that be better than the tendancy to retcon them?
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Post by von Bek on Apr 20, 2007 9:48:31 GMT -5
I don´t think letting the character get older has anything to do with missing the whole point of the character (loke Marvel now is doing with the Hulk) and later having to retcon everything because the character doesn´t work anymore. What made the Hulk work was that he was misunderstood, everybody (in the MU) thought he was dangerous but we (the readership) knew he was just trying to find inner peace (both as the Hulk and as Banner). The joy of the 70´s and early 80´s Hulk stories came from the fact that when Banner turned into the Hulk, even if the other characters in the story thought someone might get killed or seriouly hurt we, the readers, were supposed to expect that the Hulk was there to save the day, even if after the fight nobody would give him any credit or thank him. So yes, he was an anti hero. To change that is to destroy the character most basic trait, leaving us not with a force of nature, bot with a selfish man (banner) who cannot deal with his inner anger (the Hulk).
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Post by Tana Nile on Apr 20, 2007 13:02:02 GMT -5
That's a really good point Von Bek, how we as readers knew Hulk was actually the hero, not a monster. It created a special relationship for the readers with the character, that I think was unique among comics heroes.
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Post by Nutcase65 on Apr 20, 2007 13:16:40 GMT -5
I have a question. We all know that there is logically many deaths attached to the Hulks actions.
But how many of those deaths could have been avoided if others had just left Hulk alone? Didn't he go out into the desert repeatedly so he wouldn't be a threat only to be chased into some situation by some butthead like Thunderbolt?
Don't the people who get him stirred up share a portion of the blame, maybe even a large portion? They know what and who he is.
Like we say down here in the sticks "You knew it was a snake before you picked it up, don't complain cus' it bit you"
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Post by balok on Apr 20, 2007 13:47:26 GMT -5
It's a very grey area. If I hand you a gun and tell you to shoot someone, are you responsible, or am I? I'd contend that I'm not, as long as you're mentally competent to make your own decisions, and I'm not coercing you (shoot him or I will kill your girlfriend, for example). But the Hulk operates mostly emotionally. He has a minimum level of control, but only a minimum. If I handed a five year old a gun and something tragic happens, I do bear a big measure of responsibility because I have handed a dangerous tool to someone unqualified by maturity, skill, or temperament to use it properly.
About the safest thing they could have done with the Hulk is immobilize him until he reverted, and then kill Banner while he slept. Anything else, in the context of nu-Marvel, is dangerously irresponsible.
Nu-Marvel. The Coors of Comics!
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Post by von Bek on Apr 20, 2007 14:09:21 GMT -5
In the 70´s and 80´s the Hulk only attacked when someone (one of his foes, the army or even another superhero) attacked him first, so it could be seen as a form of self-defense. And many of his fights took place in the desert or other dimensions or remoted places, I think that might have been a way the writers used to prevent exactly that argument that it would be very difficult that no bystander got hurt or killed during the fight.
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Post by Doctor Bong on Apr 20, 2007 18:43:16 GMT -5
But in the end it was another comic book convention, which one had to suspend his/her disbelief for: just like the marvels lived in a world which allowed them to operate as defenders of the innocent & stage continuous battles with supervillians, who were never executed for their crimes, just like the heroes managed to keep their secret identities again & again (if they had them), even though many of them had such poor excuses for masks... So, too, the Hulk somehow managed to go through life without hurting innocents.. Besides, wasn't there a mini some years ago, by Jones (I think...) where it is discovered (actually, SUPPPOSED to be disvovered,as it turned out...) that during one of his rampages the Hulk had accidentally caused the death of a child...? I think it was titled "Banner"... On it Bruce has to struggle with his concience when he "learns" this... Now, obviously, the whole shocker about the scenario presented by the mini was the fact that, up until then, the Hulk was not supposed to have caused, to anyone's knowledge, the death of any innocent people... So Marvel is pretty much contradicting itself after only a relatively short period of time... Because the ability to retconn (which, of course, always existed & was often used...) seems to be taken more & more lightly & for granted, it seems that the writers & the creative teams are getting more & more careless & sloppy, allowing bigger & bigger holes when it comes to characters' backstories & characterizations... And whenever something is challenged by people who actually are familiar with the characters in question, then of course the answer must be (in the case of characterization) character development... For more on inconsistencies to plot & backstory, I'll refer you to one of the storylines I have loathed the most: "Sins Past"; go to the article on Gwen Stacy in Wikipedia & read what it has to say about that one...
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