Mean Green-Machine

-

INCREDIBLE HULK 235 Roger Stern, Sal Buscema, Mike Esposito

Unca Rog really delivers Machine Man straight from Jack Kirby’s book! Oh, there’s a power or two that doesn’t come up but things like the “instant hypnosis” that worked on the Autocron perhaps don’t work on rampaging emerald behemoths? After the first issue set up, there’s a bit of plot advancement but the second issue is a pure super being brawl.


The Corporation, from Machine Man #7 & 8, provides the villainy. Anyone recognize Trish Starr? The last name may be familiar to longtime Marvel fans---no, not Ringo, but Elias, the one who can’t keep a beat and invents death devices, Egghead. Trish is the hostage, trying to work the villains while captive. Said captivity’s been perpetuated by an ersatz Machine Man, leading the Hulk and his new friend to Peter Spalding’s door. Sure, I’d love to see her role expanded to reflect even more of that trademark intelligence---it’s referenced---but the real Hulk fan wants a no-holds barred slugfest, and this team delivers! Meanwhile, your Machine Man fan gets a faithful rendering, even an appearance by reporter Trish Tilby, as well as Colonel Kragg. Thanks for throwing them in, Unca Rahj!


Stern’s set things up dipping back into Defenders #41 and the commune where Doctor Strange and Nighthawk last left Trish. In #234, the Corporation took her hostage. Now Hulk and Fred bound towards Central City, and Roger and team actually take the time, from Fred’s precarious perspective, to make those leaps visceral, jarring---earth-shaking. The physical impact of the Hulk is something I remember Roger writing very well. With Hulk’s steady hand, Fred hangs on...and if you hang on, too, I’m working from memory of a comic I just discovered this afternoon, and I don’t want to leave out a thing!

Comments

  1. Bigby WolfNovember 27, 2010 at 3:50 AM

    Ersatz? Is that one of Colonel Kragg's henchmen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CeaseNovember 27, 2010 at 1:58 PM

    No; one of the creatively-named Corporation's henchmen..."Ersatz, I want you to smash them---and let them know it was I who paid for you!"
    Wasn't Dr. Ersatz the one who created the Stupid Soldier Serum? Or am I getting it mixed up w/ the name of the mouse that hit Felix with a brick?;-D

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition- this day, 1985!

-
Image
Thirty three years ago, today! (That is, August 27th, 1985) Oh, the stories these opened up for me. Alphabetically, fans could find every character still living who'd made at least three appearances, as well as many brand new lights. Origins, major life events, stories from twenty-five years of great Marvel continuity. You could even find out how tall, how heavy, or what color eyes the character should have, which sort of personalizes them and makes them all the more easy to imagine. You could find some description of every single power a character has, and often, see an Eliot R. Brown- illustrated blueprint for their best known weapons, vehicles, and acoutrement. But what could ever be more fuel for debate than : STrength Level! I was eleven when the series started, so of course I still found this part cool and interesting. Fans have been debating the strength levels of their favorite heroes and villains since comics began, so here was the sometimes controversial but
Read more

Lost World of Apes: the Bili and Mangani

-
Image
Mangani is the name of a fictional species of great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and of the invented language used by these apes. In the invented language, Mangani (meaning "great-ape") is the apes' word for their own kind, although the term is also applied (with modifications) to humans. The Mangani are represented as the apes who foster and raise Tarzan. Dr. Peter Coogan wrote a page on the synthetic language created for the Mangani and Tarzan, provided here in pdf: http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Mangani.pdf The language of the great apes of Africa that Edgar Rice Burroughs depicts in the Tarzan novels is not some simple, made-up collection of sounds substituting for English. It is a representation of a deeply structured, complex linguistic sign system with a grammar and syntax of its own. This grammar has never been worked out because its last living native speakers (with the exception of Tarzan himself) went extinct in the last century. Unfor
Read more

Eminem's Rap God sample: that's Captain America and the Falcon, from Power Records!

-
Image
What do Eminem and most Integr8d Fix readers have in common? Comic books, man. As a boy, I had two Power Records, a brand that released dramatized versions of comic books on 45 rpm, complete with a book sampling most of the comic's artwork. The first was a stand-alone Superman adventure I think was written by Elliot S! Maggin, where aliens fell to earth in the form of silver-hued bullets. The second one, I only had the record, but it was intense: Captain America and the Falcon confront the mystery of The Phoenix, a man whose thirst for revenge is born from Cap's battles in the world war before his frozen suspension. I didn't get hooked on Eminem's 2013 release "Rap God" until I was putting together a hip hop playlist this September. Not unlike when Anj and I discovered Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre back in college, I was wrestling with an angry mood over someone who cheated me of recording time after I gave up eleven Sundays of my life to give...his initials
Read more