Tagged: incredible hulk
Comic Cover of the Week: Moonstone Messes Up The Jade Giant!
Moonstone’s one of my favorite female baddie’s and has been one of the coolest of The Incredible Hulk’s rogue gallery since way in 1978, when she first appeared in this totally rad issue! This particular comic was one of my favorites as a kid-and the fact that she could go toe to toe with the Jade Giant solidified her in my book as one of the most power female villains in Marvel comics! I always wanted to see her take on She-Hulk because as a kid it was rare to see female villains that could mess of the Hulk. This is such a great cover too, showcasing why Herb Trimpe and Bob Mcleod could get the job done for a smashing cover that is reminiscent of the powerful “Sal Buscema punch”-such a classic cover, it really makes me miss a good old fashioned Hulk adventure!!
RIP Marvel’s MODOK: The FINAL Nail in the MCU Coffin for Me!
The Disney MCU just continues to think MODOK is so damn funny, but us comic book fans haven’t been laughing! You bet I’ve seen the latest take on MODOK from the new MCU ‘Ant-man: Quantumania’ and it’s worse than I’d ever imagined possible. They again blow the chance to make an awesome villain into “live action”. The MCU always had a problem in my opinion bringing classic villains from the comic books onto the big screen. However I’ve really never seen a more pathetic attempt than THIS. Perhaps things have gotten considerably worse in the “Disney” MCU phase? It certainly seems so to me. I’ve found myself over the last couple years being less and less engaged in the whole shebang. I haven’t seen the last three theatrical releases and I’ve barely been able to make it through any of the Disney Plus streaming shows. Whatever the formula is, I’m no longer interested. This MODOK controversy seals the deal. The MCU………OVER IT! Let’s compare the MCU “MODOK” to the comic book version…
Why does everything in the MCU now seem like it’s some snarky joke? The problem is, whatever snarky comedy they once had has definitely worn out it’s welcome. Instead of giving us the truly classic and bizarre version of one of Marvel Comic’s most terrifying weirdo supervillains, we got another pathetic attempt at a joke.
MODOK could have been a vile, unsettling freak of a villain one that’s creepy and threatening and can instill true fear into characters like The Abomination and go one on one with The Hulk.
I’m so burnt out on this sort of factory filmmaking and pumped off the assembly line MCU / Disney Plus streaming “content”. But the funny thing is I never imagined MODOK would be the final nail in the coffin, at least for me. It’s really strange to me as well because even more recently in the comic books they portrayed the character in quite a revolting, serious way as a real threatening villain. But of course recently they also decided at some point to make a ridiculous stop motion animation series about the character as well, further pushing the joke they seem to think it’s so funny that is MODOK. That’s another thing with the current MCU they think they are way more funny than they actually are in reality. Here below is a more modern portrayal is totally on point and I wish they would’ve just stuck with something like this, but hey everything is now apparently a snarky super funny joke!
I’ll take my 80’s comic books for another re-read and call it a day!
MCU’s M.O.D.O.K. Misses the Mark!
After getting a good look at what is supposedly the MCU design for iconic Marvel Comics villain Modok I can honestly say my childhood fantasies have been smashed! Easily one of my favorite villains of all time for his bizarrely offputing look, Modok deserves so much better than THIS!
That is what is supposedly his design for the upcoming Ant-Man movie. His big movie debut look unfortunately does not feature any of the grotesque charm of the classic villain.
My hopes here are that he is merely wearing some sort of protective helmet. I’m also fairly certain that they will be featuring the character as some sort of ridiculous joke Instead of utilizing him as a terrifying monstrosity that he truly is.
I also think if they were to have designed the character using practical animatronic effects just how amazing he could really be on the big screen. Time will tell but in the meantime here are a few of my favorite images of one of Marvel’s most grotesque creations!
Comic Cover of the Week: Walt Simonson’s Savage HULK Rage Rainbow!
Anyone have those oh so fond memories of ‘The HULK’ magazine from the 70s/80s?! They were larger than your average comic cover and had insanely epic covers & also featured a BONUS Moon Knight story in every issue. There was also ‘The Rampaging Hulk’ which was another larger comic version with amazing hand painted colors. THIS issue #23 from 1980 features the icon, Walt Simonson (as seen with his unmistakable signature) with his Banner/Hulk “rainbow of rage”.
An amazing colorful piece of gamma charged work that makes me again wish that Walt had spent more time drawing The Hulk!
SHE-HULK #1 Misses the Charm of the 1980s!
It’s been quite a while since I visited my local comic book shop (Cosmic Monkey in PDX!!) but but the new ‘She-Hulk’ series I’d heard about gave me enough ammo to figure it would be worth finally stopping in for a visit again. I was pretty pumped to hear that She-Hulk was supposedly going back to her “roots” finally, something that’s been presented as more of a return to form to the original John Byrne series of the 1980s. Count me in!
First I must admit, the cover(s) art for this debut issue is awesome and truly does remind me of the classic She-Hulk I grew to love back in the late eighties. I’m actually quite surprised that Marvel Comics seemingly decided to go back to the “sexy, flirtatious” version of Jennifer Walters. Especially since more recently this version of the character was to an extent considered is somewhat offensive to many.
People claimed that she was only used as a sex symbol by male writers & never truly fleshed out as a character, something that I actually highly disagree with.
Nonetheless I was excited to see exactly what they were going to bring to the table in 2022. Unfortunately my hopes for this debut issue were squashed pretty quickly by what I consider to be weak and somewhat uninspiring storytelling.
Most of the issue revolves around a rather pointless fight with her classic nemesis Titania, that I assume they were trying Inject some sort of witty comedy into. The rest of the issue spends a few pages getting into Jennifer Walters more personal problems as she moves back into her former apartment. That’s really about it in a nutshell. I didn’t really find much of anything to be memorable here, the dialogue was pretty flimsy and the artwork at some points was impressive and at others felt a bit rushed.
I guess a part of me had built up this return to form as possibly being a consisely comedic version of the character and her absurdly over the top adventures of years ago. Instead what I ultimately ended up with was yet another safely generic Marvel Comics relaunch. I guess in a way it was kind of what I was expecting and it’s certainly not the spark that’s gonna get me going back to drop another $4 to $5 on a comic book that literally takes just over 5 minutes to read in it’s entirety. I’m somewhat astounded that as comic prices dramatically increased the panels grew exponentially in size and now only take a matter of minutes to read. I would have hoped that the opposite would have occurred, If you’re gonna charge 5 bucks for a comic book you’d better be bringing more bang for your buck!
I can’t say I’ll be going back for more She-Hulk anytime soon, yet it has inspired me to dig out my old late eighties back issues. Who knows maybe I’m being too damn hard on things and perhaps my memory of the “golden era” of She-Hulk is something that won’t hold up in 2022. If this is any indication though of what the live action MCU series is going to be like I guess I’m gonna be pretty disappointed. There’s so much fun to be had with She-Hulk, a more of a classic “Sex in the City” style approach to the series with some clever writing is what I was hoping more for. I’ll save my true anticipation for the series launch on Disney Plus this year with my fingers firmly crossed....
1978, the Year of The Incredible Hulk’s Elastic RAGE?!!
I’m all about some Hulkin’ out retro style! So I ran across this awesome old 1987 Incredible Hulk “Rage Cage” toy commercial where you literally pump the Hulk up to get his aggression level maxed out so he can break himself out of damn cage. Like even the calmest Hulk would be able to bust those bars, but hey it’s the effort here by the toymaker here that’s so charming. They just don’t make em like this anymore true believers! Check it out!
Ok well still not satisfied? Let’s check out this one, where for some reason The Hulk & Spider-man are endowed with the elastic super power of Reed Richards?!! Ok well whatever-this commercial is what it’s all about when it comes to simpler times! Check THIS shit out!!
VHS Verdict: 1994’s ‘Mirror Mirror 2: Raven Dance’ Introduces MARK RUFFALO?!
I for some damn reason checked out this shoddy sequel to the 1990 horror flick ‘Mirror Mirror’ the other night & the one surprise greater than anything this film could muster up was Mark “Incredible Hulk” Ruffalo in his first “real” movie appearance! So ‘Mirror Mirror 2: Raven Dance’ came out in 1994, though it really feels much more like a mid 80’s movie with it’s special fx work/plot. It starts off pretty strong actually, showing a lot of cheezy promise, that is if you’re a fan of low budget 80’s horror stuff. We’ve got creepy nuns in a convent along with a “terrifying” giant vintage mirror that’s some sort of portal to another dimension of evil. It emits that 80’s style energy electricity fx I love so much, all over the damn place turning a bunch of nuns into piles of burnt ash, it’s admittedly a pretty sweet opening making me for a second think I’d unearthed some sort of forgotten gem of a horror flick!
Well we then switch to “present day” 1994 where we meet a bad ass alternative rock band on tour, who seem to be channeling the Red Hot Chili Peppers and for some reason they’re rehearsing for a gig in town at the old church. There’s a random teenage girl there hanging out with them, who ends up being the main focus of the movie and of course the douchey band members can’t resist uncovering the giant haunted mirror & are sadly destroyed all too soon by the evil mirror’s supernatural energy blasts. I was hoping these idiots would be present most of the movie but alas…Anyway Roddy Mcdowell also stars in one of his most boring roles and the movie slogs along at a snail’s pace until Mark Rufflo emerges as some sort of “mysterious” character who might be evil but it also some sort of “sexy” love interest. That actually was pretty unexpected!
Throw in a weird crazed handyman, a useless subplot with a greedy stepsister trying to extort some big money from the main character and eventually about 30 seconds of a pretty cool monster, more energy bursts from the mirror and well….ah…ok…who gives a shit, let’s not waste anymore time trying to explain this crappy ass mess, so here’s Mark Ruffalo’s first movie appearance in this boring pile of shit waste of time horror flick!!
Odd Moments in Comic Book History: Incredible Naked Angry Showering HULK!!
I love those weird ass moments in comic book history that catch you by surprise (especially as a kid) and kinda make you chuckle! Today I wanted to add an odd moment from The Incredible Hulk #294, this was back when the Banner could “control” the Hulk and he dressed like banner and even combed his hair the same way. The most nerdy version of the green goliath off all time for sure. I love it. Well this Banner Hulk didn’t last long soon he would lose total control again only to be banished to a different dimension by Doctor Strange. But I digress, well in this issue they are doing some gamma tests on an injured dog and at first the testing appears to have some nice results. After Banner decides to take a nice hot shower, only problem is he’s been having some intense nightmares lately. The over tired Banner starts having a waking nightmare and well, in mid shower transforms into a very naked but squeaky clean Hulk!! Good thing for well placed shower steam! Right after this happens he squares off against Boomerang, a truly classic story line well worth revisiting and of course wonderfully drawn by perhaps the best Hulk artist of all time Sal Buscema!!
Sorry Ladies & Gay men all over the planet you’ll have to keep on wondering about the Hulk’s other incredible big green asset!
The Incredible Hulk’s Vintage Commercial Career!
Did I mention before how much I love The Incredible Hulk?
Well it all started back in my childhood and I had to take a quick moment here to post a few new old vintage Hulk commercials from back in the day! The first is a cool one featuring Lou Ferrigno and the second is just a great late 1970’s Hulk “Rage Cage” Commercial! Enjoy!!
Rage Cage!!
Lastly the amazing Incredible Hulk Sega Genesis game from 1994-I forgot how RAD this one was-I need to play this again ASAP!!
The Indestructible Hulk and Walt Simonson!
I had to take a second here just to say how pumped I am that starting with issue #6 of The Indestructible Hulk we will be getting an old school artist taking the reigns. Yep Walt Simonson will be doing a three issue arc of the book which is also going to feature his old buddy The Mighty Thor which Walt is most famous for! So there’ve been a few preview panels / covers on the web so I thought I’d post ’em here as well. I’m excited about this as Simonson has been a fave of mine since I was just a kid. I’ll admit that his most recent work on The Avengers with Bendis seemed pretty rushed and sloppy. This however is a three issue stint and hopefully he took his time with the art. So far so good I would say though, wouldn’t you?
Simonson used to do some Hulk artwork in the old days too, mainly for The Rampaging Hulk, a Hulk magazine comic book which was one of my all time favorite reads..
Universal Dork 