A great fight scene for Marvel’s top TV heroes of the late seventies, Spider-Man and the Hulk! OK, first twenty-five minutes of story sets up Banner being kidnapped to the Rosslyn Hotel in NYC. Peter’s looking for tips about the famous research scientist who has supposedly turned up in the Big Apple. At this point, Spider-Man’s spider-sense begins bringing him closer. He changes, climbs to the top of the hotel, and continues homing in on his signal. That danger sense grows when Dr. Banner is pushed too far and Hulks out. Now, we’re setting them up to meet in the hallway- and cut to commercial! Wow! Imagine what might happen next! Well, as I have no concern over the health of stunt men nor of a budget at risk, here’s what I picture, using their television counterpart power levels. Ok, FADE IN: Hulk roars. Spider-Man uses his ability to do the unexpected: leap onto the ceiling. This confuses and infuriates the Hulk, which provokes a kick in the face. This doesn’t do too mu...

Here’s a story inspired by seeing a vintage Hulk pinball machine during an annual camping trip with my family. I'd have run off to play alone, and make up, page-by-page, a comic book. I think the story works fine without a massive back knowledge of Marvel, and will present it to some people with no hint about the dual identity of the protagonist, who's introduced, in the fashion of the popular CBS TV show from 1977-1982, as a brilliant man, living anonymously and seeking peace, while harboring one big, green response to self-doubt. I love the plot, now that I see the poetry in the antagonist's plan. I would've loved this story as a kid, and that's the kid I'm focusing on this week. The plot? The first third is based on: Page one and two are set on a bridge, leaving a park for a hillside trail to a brilliant mountain peak, not too far above. They speak as they ascend the first of the trail up. A man with a certain maniacal glee in his eyes leads ...

I only had a single issue of Hulk - #217- for a long while. "The Circus Of Lost Souls" was similar in theme to the epic where he finally loses Jarella- an echo, through a one-shot character. I came into the Jarella stories later. Jarella's passing and the epilogue with the Defenders are just heartfelt enough to move you beyond the usual Triumph and Tragedy in the Marvel Manner. I wrote that Marvel marketing cliche before seeing the cover again, editing- it left a strong impression, as slogans are meant to do! Welcome back to the legendary twilight land of the Bronze Age, a.k.a. the affordable old comics, growing up. This one ran my folks no more than cover price- they may've cut a deal for the three dozen they picked off the racks at D & L Salvage Supply, for my single most memorable Christmas present, in 1981. We get to know Rex, Stilts, Blossom, and the Major a little by the fire. There's many ways the Hulk finds happiness for a time, and he enjoys ...

Comically Bad: the Origin of Doc Samson Yet again, we dig into the highs and lows of Marvel Comics circa 1980. Now, if you’ve never been embarrassed by a comic book, are you a true comics fan? That mixture of eye-widening wonder and face palming shame is the hallmark of championing old comic books. Sure as Thor is the prince of Asgard, it’s your birthright! Face front, True Believer! Some of the dissonance, this time, can be attributed to Marvel Super-Heroes #92 being a relic of a decade before. This is a reprint from 1971- where the Silver Age meets the Bronze Age, the times when new writers and approaches outside of the Stan Lee script were only beginning, as in the hands of Marvel Universe architect Roy Thomas. Roy did so much to make the story world of Marvel coherent (and yes, sometimes incoherent), connected, gave it rules and editorially guidance to help enthusiastic young writers and artists. His efforts on Conan The Barbarian gave Marvel a new Top Five book arou...

Marvel Comics Group- in its phase as a slightly anarchic bastion of experimentation and creativity- published the comics reprinted here from 1976 to 1978, Leading off this volume we have the second half of Steve Gerber's run. The Steve Gerber stories are SO creative and smartly-written, with Buscema's competent layouts and nice superhero art. The ideas are so weird and original! The inks vary a bit in their outcome, but overall I like the Buscema/ Janson combo. If anything, a bit more subtlety in the art would better compliment Steve's restless wit and canny observations. These are not standard sorts of stories on the whole- the villains are strange but thought-provoking. Plots are both bizarre and driven by commentary about the modern world and individual struggles for identity in sublime pop form. Steve Gerber continued writing in comics and cartoons; after he authored Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown, Man-Thing, and the team-up adventures of the Fantastic Four...

Bill Mantlo's prolific Marvel Comics Group comic book work holds many personal kid memories for me. ROM #24 is one of the first two comic books I ever bought with my own money It’s a nice way to tie up the Nova series, though I’m glad Erik Larsen and subsequent creators like Abnett/ Lanning continued his story. (Wolfman left for DC just before ROM #24 was created so it was a way of tying up the character’s legacy for the time being.) Now when I came on to assist Joe Phillips for a brief while, one of our first conversations was how interesting it was to bring Rich Ryder back to Earth sans powers. That one idea sparks a corner of my own creative universe: it’s like Howard the Duck’s “What to do the Night After You Save the Universe?” story, that kind of quiet interface that makes the comic book world merge so readily with our own, especially when we are the young “secret identity” ! (You're welcome to check out my 'Sunstrike' posts in Be Chill, Cease ill, our siste...

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/07/comic_con_2011.html Comic Con's the big news in San Diego downtown. But at the core of all its Hollywood spectacle and major product release frenzy, amidst the swirling robes of wizards and the sound of clanking Storm Troopers, San Diego International Comic Con was a celebration of fans of comic books, and easily, one of the most iconic, the most representative, of all super hero comics, it's Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's two issue battle featuring the Hulk and the Thing, as presented in early 1964! Yep, before the Beatles were even off the plane, Marvel's greatest monster men were smacking each other through a hapless New York City! After a decidedly offbeat issue before (following a classic struggle with Doctor Doom), now we get to the place where the modern world of super hero comics evolves. Not only does the Hulk react in anger to a newspaper announcing Captain America joining the Avengers, but in the brutal revenge sch...

“That’s right,” says the nebbish man, fist clenched, other hand outstretched; despite his sawed-off frame, he is every inch the villain. Some self-help seminar! He’s just tactlessly suggested his audience cover their desire to improve with self-loathing. Oh sure, you might think you can debase yourself and who you have been up till now, as part of the road to change---but however much you might need to clean the slate, so to speak, are you willing to embrace that you are completely ridiculous? In this case, the villain’s real thoughts about humanity show through, dictating his self-righteous approach to helping humanity “save” itself. So, is he doing it for money? Oh, no---he’s actually just doing this because, after his last defeat (despite superhuman “dimension spanning” powers), he was discovered by, and indoctrinated partially by, the Lubderdite race. Upon telling about him, Marc remarked: “he sounds like one of those missionaries that would come to tribal people, kill their ...

In a series of adventures beginning with the shrinking of the Hulk in #154, the emerald behemoth has encountered the enigmatic Shaper of Worlds (#155), who needs the dreams of others to find a focus for his powers. The Hulk's heart's desire has directed the Shaper to guide the quickly-reducing hero to the microscopic world of his choice, one readers had visited the year before through the words of legendary science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who gave us the world of K'ai...and green-skinned princess Jarella, who loved the Hulk. Specifically, Jarella, leader of her people, loved a form of the Hulk created by the magic of her wizards, Holi, Moli, and Torla. This Hulk has Bruce Banner's intelligence---so as you may know, that's Hulk's human alter ego, the man whose Gamma Ray device accidentally changed his body for life. That same spell begins working once more, as Bruce/ Hulk realizes immediately upon arriving on K'ai. That's to his initial disadvan...

Remus Sharptooth attempts his escape in a Gnomlin-built craft---it lifts vertically for take-off, as the Defenders attempt to strike it from the air. The creature Anomaly watches from behind a smoking data base; standing at the precipice, Corpse Flower wonders if Sharptooth’s decision is influenced by the Viking Captain, Ray Awen, who still makes up his subconscious mind. Hulk’s skips, powered by his mighty legs, give him velocity to match the launching craft. The fleeing sorcerer-wolf turns to hurl bolts of blood-red lightning at the clutching emerald behemoth, whose bulk is nearly half that of the escape craft! As all the heroes pursue Remus Sharptooth, abruptly, they observe what he has forgotten about all crafts built by Gnomlins: in the end, they stop and they explode!!! Just before this explosion, the Wolf Oversoul appears to Remus Sharptooth. He promises the sorcerer another existence to come, an incarnation in the world of Semeicardia. Thus he achieves a strange peace as...

The effect of our feelings upon our destinies. : With her psychic sensitivities, Patsy (Hellcat) realizes the key to stopping the Tranz-Rupture effects within the minds of humanity lies with Nighthawk, who has once had the awareness of his brain being separated from his form. NIGHTHAWK: There’s a place in ourselves where we are as truly alone as possible, and sometimes it seems like I’ve lived most of my life at that address! But underneath the heartbreak hotel, fundamentally beneath our brain and its business, down below where we start and live each day, we exist---and no one knows it better! Those twisted Headmen took my brain from my head and suspended it in reserve---but they gave me a gift of being alone with my thoughts! HELLCAT: Right now, Kyle, there will be peace on Earth a moment...if we can just share that detachment with the flow of memes. HULK: Hulk wants Bird Nose to make the minds shut up a minute! VALKYRIE: We all share your sensations, Nighthawk---the freedom fr...

(Day 7): As the Valkyrie, atop her winged steed Aragorn, flies into the jaws of dread, the Flames of Faltine light the presence of two time lost Vikings connected to the great change---and fly they must. Only inside the jaws of utter destruction can they find their way to the mystery of this conjurer...only so may they reach the humanity captured within! Before the eyes of those assembled to fire fight, Nighthawk and the Hulk begin to disappear in the physical sense...yet the darkness into which they reappear is present before everyone! They watch this central event, as thought forms of all the Defenders surround the Sharptooth sorcerer. From the shadowy reaches of the violet arena of space surrounding Sharptooth, three mysterious forms of indigo observe a towering man-form, crackling with power, robed with sharp, probing angles that reach like a castle of doom from his shoulders and head. Before him appears a blond, beautiful enchantress dressed in emerald and black, leer...

West Coast Corporation boss Jackson’s pleased to hear the Hulk seems likely to dismantle Machine Man, and with a pair of “hyper-binoculars” he can watch, from the top of his 80 story skyscraper. As Roger Stern describes ala caption Trish Starr—“free thinker, former model, and hostage---“ musters courage to continue challenging Jackson’s bloodthirsty pleasure. He warps murder into “business efficiency---and advancement!” He recalls Machine Man’s resistance to analysis and replication, chronicled in #8,9 of his series, so his revenge is business. He counters Trish’s question---“do I get ‘recalled’ as well?” ---by complimenting her profiled skills, but now sees the Hulk at a distance, pondering his use in “other...endeavors!” Aaron Stack, a.k.a. Machine Man “cancels the gravity equation!” He soars out of Hulk’s reach, hovering. One thousand pounds of raging fury springs towards him, but MM sends him earthward with a kick! The crash shakes Central City; at “nearby Camp DeSprague” (p...

Hang on ! “Hulk has carried many this way.” About twelve miles past Modesto, Freddy checks the road map for Spalding’s “Central City hang-out.” The Forest Ranger who spots them is working for Jackson, stogie-sporting fat cat and West Coast executive of the worldwide Corporation. Trish Starr asks what Jackson has to gain by kidnapping her; she’s a pawn, he tells her, to bring two foes who’ve interfered with the Corporation destructively together, as the Hulk believes Machine Man’s responsible. This would make the Hulk a murderer, Trish thinks, “...and I’ll be ...what?” Glide with us past the billboard announcing the ‘birthplace of the Fantastic Four’ here in Central City; follow us to the Mariposa hotel, and the silhouette of “a guest so unique---that his very humanity is in question. It’s the sole survivor of the thinking machine secret project, visited now by his friend Dr. Peter Spalding and his recent nemesis, Colonel Simon Kragg---amused and amazed, respectively, to find him ...