World War Hulk

[Velorath]

World War Hulk Prologue:  World Breaker was released a couple days ago.  If there's one problem that I'm going to have with the story it's this:  We have Hulk, armed with a sword and a particularly murderous attitude towards certain individuals.  Realistically Marvel can't have Hulk kill those individuals.  Well maybe they'll offer up a couple of sacrifices for publicity.  Black Bolt and Dr. Strange are fairly expendable at the moment or maybe they'll go for more Captain America style shock value and off Tony or Reed.  Point is that Hulk isn't going to get a chance to kill all these people.  And he should.  He really really should.

[Margalis]

I know nothing about this.

Why Hulk mad at puny humans? Why Hulk have pointy metal?

[Tebonas]

Puny humans tricked Hulk and shot him to another planet in a rocket. Hulk learned to use pointy metal as Gladiatior on that other planet.

[Velorath]

I know nothing about this.

Why Hulk mad at puny humans? Why Hulk have pointy metal?

Reed, Tony, Dr. Strange, and Black Bolt decided that they were tired of the Hulk rampaging around Earth.  The told him they needed his help for something (forget what but it involved going into space), and after he got in the rocket ship, they proceeded to tell him that they tricked him (smart move guys) and were really blasting him off to some uninhabited planet where he could live out the rest of his days.  In his anger he started beating the shit out of the inside of the ship, sending it off course and causing it to crash down on a different planet.

Here he became a Gladiator, made friends with some of the other Gladiators, replaced the Emperor there, got a wife, and had a kid on the way.  The rocket ship then exploded wiping out millions of people including his wife.  Now he's on his way back to Earth, and obviously pissed.  Reed and Tony are supposed to be geniuses, but not only did they tell the Hulk that they tricked him, not only did they send him in a rocket ship that apparently could be easily diverted from it's course by a rampaging Hulk and then stupidly caused the Hulk to do just that,  but their rocketship has apparently just wiped out more people than Hulk ever did by an order of magnitude.  So yeah... rootin for the Hulk here.

[HaemishM]

I haven't read it yet, but if the Hulk DID kill Tony Start and Reed Richards, I'm not sure there'd be too many people that didn't cheer. These two characters have become the least sympathetic hero characters ever.

[Velorath]

Hulk might as well kill Cyclops too, just as a bonus.

[Kitsune]

Dude no, Joss Whedon's been doing good things with Cyclops.  Most importantly: making him not suck.

As for everyone else, yes, I would be very very happy if Hulk killed the hell out of Stark and Richards.  Hulk FINALLY got everything in his life sorted out and was set to live happily ever after as king of a planet, and their rocket blows up and kills everyone on the planet.  They really have it coming.

[schild]

You can make Cyclops not suck? What a crock of bullshit.

[Teleku]

Is "Cyclops Sucks" going to be the new official running joke of F13?

[TenaciousMike]

Dude no, Joss Whedon's been doing good things with Cyclops.  Most importantly: making him not suck.

As for everyone else, yes, I would be very very happy if Hulk killed the hell out of Stark and Richards.  Hulk FINALLY got everything in his life sorted out and was set to live happily ever after as king of a planet, and their rocket blows up and kills everyone on the planet.  They really have it coming.

Actually....

ASTONISHING X-MEN SPOILER ALERT:




Joss just killed Cyclops. Yay!

[Kitsune]

Killed Cyclops my ass.  Whedon 'kills' characters left and right and they keep managing to pop back up, as any Buffy viewer could tell you.  He'll be fine in an issue or two.

But yes, he made Cyclops not suck.

Step 1: Take away his power so he isn't a walking turret anymore.
Step 2: Make him go fucking crazy.
Step 3: Make sure he finds a pistol somewhere.
Step 4: Rather than use his 'super powerful but never seems to kill anyone' eye beams, have him use the pistol to solve problems, while having an, "I'm fucking crazy and don't care anymore." attitude.

Voila, Cyclops stops sucking.

(Example of Whedon making someone awesome simply by giving them a pistol and nothing left to lose here.)

[Velorath]

Is "Cyclops Sucks" going to be the new official running joke of F13?

I just make comments about killing off Cyclops in order to piss off Haemish.

Actually....

ASTONISHING X-MEN SPOILER ALERT:


Joss just killed Cyclops. Yay!

It's a little early to say that.  I don't think he's quite dead at the end of the most recent issue.  Mind you I've been predicting that he dies in this arc, but as of yet he still seems to be alive.

[HaemishM]

Killing Cyclops isn't quite an SB.EXE moment for me, so long as the death is a decent one. But then, someone's already killed Cyclops once in the X-Men's run so really I won't believe it til the arc is over.

[Velorath]

Cyclops killing aside, Planet Hulk made a pretty good case for Hulk basically being the hero in World War Hulk.  Reed and Tony's stupidity relsulted in most of the life on a planet to get wiped out.  Even if the malfunction that sent Hulk off course was a one in a billion chance, why send out a space ship with a warp core powerful enough to wipe out millions of people if it should somehow get breached (and thus could have acted as a pretty potent weapon if some space traveling race had come across it at some point)? 

Bendis, Millar, JMS, and others have made a point recently of showing that Reed and Tony are so smart they can come up with equations to predict the future or can see specific events coming far in advance, so why couldn't they figure out something simple like blasting Hulk off into space + incredibly dangerous warp core + guidance system in space ship easily thrown off course + actually telling Hulk you betrayed him =  fuck up of epic proportions?

[Margalis]

What is Hulk like these days anyway? Is he smart? He was dumb and green, then clever and gray and weaker, then was big and smart and green - now what is he?

[Velorath]

What is Hulk like these days anyway? Is he smart? He was dumb and green, then clever and gray and weaker, then was big and smart and green - now what is he?

Personality-wise he's closest in tone to Mr. Fixit.  He's intelligent, but he's not at Banner's level of intelligence.  He's also Green and pretty strong (there's an energy draining field around the planet Hulk landed on that sapped a lot of his strength but he regained it pretty quickly).  Throughout Planet Hulk he only reverted back to Banner a couple of times (and never in front of any of his friends, nor has he really explained to them the whole Banner/Hulk thing).  He still seems to have quite a bit of disdain for Banner, but it also seems like their personalities aren't really fighting each other at the moment.

[Teleku]

Well, I can understand why they told Hulk they betrayed him.  They still felt he was a friend, and it would have been really bad just to shoot him off into space for no apparent reason.  They wanted to let him know it was they that were doing it, in the best interest of him and everybody on earth, and this was for the best.  Now, you can say that was naive and stupid of them, but I can understand wanting to come clean and let your friend know exactly whats going on, instead of going for a full stab in the back.

[Kitsune]

Hulk's intelligence seems to be on the high end of average at the moment.  He's done a lot of clever things, but hasn't shown much in the way of nuclear physicist smarts.  Whether he's not that smart or he has the smarts and simply hasn't demonstrated them is unclear.  He was also very bitter but seemed to have a good handle on his anger issues, right up until some jackass blew up his planet.  As for Banner, during his brief appearances it seemed that he had become the bitch of the relationship, with Hulk firmly in control.  You can bet, however, that it's Banner who'll keep Hulk from killing important Marvel characters.

[WindupAtheist]

Well, I can understand why they told Hulk they betrayed him.  They still felt he was a friend, and it would have been really bad just to shoot him off into space for no apparent reason.  They wanted to let him know it was they that were doing it, in the best interest of him and everybody on earth, and this was for the best.  Now, you can say that was naive and stupid of them, but I can understand wanting to come clean and let your friend know exactly whats going on, instead of going for a full stab in the back.

That's why you put in a recording that plays as the ship lands, far far away.

[HaemishM]

I haven't read Planet Hulk yet, but I read the preview.

When even Peter David can't make a storyline like this interesting, something's wrong. You can tell there's parts of the story where he knows he's just aping editorial directions. Especially the part with Jen and Samson, which was just pages long "This is what's happened" exposition. Yeah, I think Black Bolt is going to get capped in the story and Iron Man and Reed Richards will come off unscathed. What a waste.

The satire story they had in there was better than the main story.

[shiznitz]

Why does a sword add to Hulk's lethality? His punch is like having a bulldozer dropped on you. A sword cannot compete with that.

[Lantyssa]

Because then it's like a bulldozer pushing a razor thin piece of metal though you.  Less surface area means greater pressure per square inch.

Also someone mentioned the planet sapping his strength.

[Llava]

Also, he doesn't need it.

"There is no air in space.  Because of that, he could not ask them who they are.  As it happens, he has no need of their names either.  He wades through them with a sword he also does not require.  He is the eye of anger... the World Breaker... the Green Scar... Two-Hands, Harkanon, Harrg, Holku.  He is Hulk."

But swords are cool and the Hulk looks like Conan now.

[Furiously]

Why would they do that?

[Velorath]

Also, he doesn't need it.

"There is no air in space.  Because of that, he could not ask them who they are.  As it happens, he has no need of their names either.  He wades through them with a sword he also does not require.  He is the eye of anger... the World Breaker... the Green Scar... Two-Hands, Harkanon, Harrg, Holku.  He is Hulk."

But swords are cool and the Hulk looks like Conan now.

That part served to remind me how much I hate that they gave Hulk the ability to survive in space without any sort of oxygen supply.

[Llava]

Suffocation just makes him angry.

[Velorath]

When even Peter David can't make a storyline like this interesting, something's wrong.

What do you expect?  It's a major crossover where heroes fight each other, and thanks to delays of the last couple of issues of Civil War, it's coming out right on the heels of a major crossover where heroes fought each other.

[Fordel]

The Hulk can't fly, right? So why didn't they just blast him into the sun? Am I simply not suspending my disbelief enough? 

[NowhereMan]

Because he's their friend and they don't want to kill him.

Cause y'know, firing him off on a rocket randomly into deep space would have been just peachy. I'm sure he had enough food and water on board to last him for the rest of his life.

[Tebonas]

To their defense they tried to shoot him to a lonely planet where he could survive on his own and be kept in peace like he always wanted.

Thats the only defense the cabal of the dumbest geniuses ever get from me, though.

[Velorath]

To their defense they tried to shoot him to a lonely planet where he could survive on his own and be kept in peace like he always wanted.

Thats the only defense the cabal of the dumbest geniuses ever get from me, though.

Yeah, but I just don't see how these guys couldn't forsee the possibility of the guidance system going off course when the Hulk gets pissed off and starts hitting stuff (as they had to have known he would).

[Trippy]

I'm just waiting for the panel where Reed goes "BANNNNERRRR!!!!!".

[Llava]

Cause y'know, firing him off on a rocket randomly into deep space would have been just peachy. I'm sure he had enough food and water on board to last him for the rest of his life.

The dude doesn't need air. I think he's probably okay without food or water.

[HaemishM]

To their defense they tried to shoot him to a lonely planet where he could survive on his own and be kept in peace like he always wanted.

Thats the only defense the cabal of the dumbest geniuses ever get from me, though.

Yeah, but I just don't see how these guys couldn't forsee the possibility of the guidance system going off course when the Hulk gets pissed off and starts hitting stuff (as they had to have known he would).

Especially considering Reed's revelation that he helped engineer the entire fucking Civil War mess because he was able to forsee an even worse set of events with his predictive algrebra or whatever that retarded plot device was called. I mean, you can predict a cataclysm because you don't reign in super-heroes, but you can't predict mechanical failure or the Hulk bashing the shit out of a rocket?

The whole thing is predicated on everyone involved being a complete dumbass.

[Trippy]

Especially considering Reed's revelation that he helped engineer the entire fucking Civil War mess because he was able to forsee an even worse set of events with his predictive algrebra or whatever that retarded plot device was called. I mean, you can predict a cataclysm because you don't reign in super-heroes, but you can't predict mechanical failure or the Hulk bashing the shit out of a rocket?

The whole thing is predicated on everyone involved being a complete dumbass.

Sounds like somebody has been stealing ideas from the Foundation Trilogy.