Forum

Welcome Guest 

Show/Hide Header

Welcome Guest, posting in this forum requires registration.
Pages: 1 [2]
Author Topic: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
dan2448
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 904
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: April 28, 2012, 11:58

I've now read through issue 11. Interestingly, at issue 10 the entire magazine underwent a radical change, apparently in connection with the premier of the TV series.

Out went the 9-issue storyline that picked up where the short-lived 1963 comic book left off. This storyline evidenced all the worst aspects of Marvel's obsession with its own continuity. Why publish a storyline in 1978 that is set in 1963, featuring 'old' versions of the Avengers, including the version of Iron Man that looked like he was wearing a hot water heater. And then the evil aliens set up a base in Queens underneath the site of the 1964 World's Fair. This event had taken place in real life 15 years earlier, and yet the story kept referring to it as a future event. And then, the last story in this omnibus, published later in the real Incredible Hulk comic book apparently, explains that the whole story was merely a dream and not really part of Marvel continuity at all. Crazy! (And a bad story to boot, one that went on way too long.)

Then, with issue 10, the magazine changed from B&W to color, re-titled itself just "The Hulk" instead of "Rampaging Hulk," and began a much more approachable storyline with Banner a wandering loner, like in the TV series, who stumbles on a corrupt mining operation. This issue was great and I would have loved it as a kid in particular.
dan2448
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 904
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: May 6, 2012, 08:15

I've now finished volume 1 (up through issue 15). I liked final five issues (that paralleled the then-current TV show) much more than the earlier ones, which were intended to pick up where the short-lived 1960s comic book left off.

I thought I'd note here two aspects that might be of interest to some of you, even if you haven't read these issues.

1. In one of the issues, Banner asks to sit in the 'non-smoking' section of a commercial airplane. Wow how times have changed since 1978.

2. In another issue, set in the South Side of Chicago, which intentionally focuses on the fact that Banner is a white man in a predominantly black neighborhood, several of the African-American residents use the "n word" in casual conversation with each-other multiple times. I'm no fan of that word myself. But I've also thought it sort of bizarre that, over the last decade, it's become this magic word that can never be spoken aloud. I can't think of any other word that our society treats this way. Nonetheless, seeing it thrown around so casually in this 1978 comic book was really quite shocking to me, as a modern reader in 2012. I was also a little surprised that Marvel elected to leave at all in this modern reprint volume, unexpurgated...
Majestic
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 2370
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: May 6, 2012, 14:49

I watched a hilarious comedian on Netflix the other day (Jake Johannsen's "I Love You") who did a riff on the racial tension that exists around this word. He pointed out how it's the only word we use a letter for (but nobody says "Hey, n-word!"), and made other jokes about it (the w-word, how "white" people are truly more pink and blotchy, etc.). :)

V&V GM and player since 1982 (my current campaign is 22 years old); also run West End Games d6 Star Wars monthly, as well as the occasional The One Ring and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game
dan2448
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 904
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: August 2, 2012, 22:16

It's taken me the better part of 6 months, but I finally finished reading the two volumes of "Essential Rampaging Hulk."

To be honest, I can't really recommend the collection.

I already posted in April (above) about volume 1. The plot of my favorite story in volume 2 could be summarized more-or-less as 'The Hulk vs. Three Mile Island.' My least favorite story in v.2 was probably the one (written by Jim Shooter in 1980) in which Banner takes a room at a YMCA in NYC and is 'assaulted' (to put it euphemistically) in the showers. Jim shooter wrote on his blog earlier this year about having rented a room in an NYC YMCA for a time when he was working for Marvel in the 70s, which frankly made the scene creepier when I read it earlier this week for the first time.
R_Mortisse
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 307
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: August 8, 2012, 15:01

I preferred the Bloodstone backup feature, presented therein. Otherwise it was a largely forgettable read.
greycrusad-
er
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 102
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: August 8, 2012, 20:09

The end to the Bloodstone story was just too depressing for me back then. I was a wee little kid and NOT used to seeing heroes die (not common in the early Bronze Age), even if they still stopped the villains in the end.

It was also sad Bloodstone had been manipulated for thousands of years, never recognizing his real enemy until his life was at an end.

But it was even worse when Marvel decided his daughter should become a faux-Buffy (this is when Marvel tried to ape Buffy, Charmed, and even the short-lived Dark Angel because "girl power" was a hot trend).
R_Mortisse
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 307
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: August 9, 2012, 13:14

Which is ironic... because 'Dark Angel'... first season at least... was a direct 'rip' of the first 30 or so issues of Marvel's 'Spider-Woman' comic. (She even had the 'crippled male love-interest, who got the suit that helped him to walk' -thing going on.)

Personally, if you look really closely, you can see that the whole 'Death of Bloodstone' thing was not what John Warner had intended for the character. He apparently had stepped on a few toes with his storyline, and Marvel brought in Steve Gerber to do a ('rather typical for them') speedy wrap-up.

I *LOVED* the idea of the 'GIANT MONSTER HUNTER'!! Everything else was just 'gravy' to give that concept 'flavor'. (The C'thulhu overtones did work nicely tho.)
I often wonder what Warnwer would have done with the character if the series had continued.

Frankly, I've always felt that Gerber's conclusion left us with more questions than answers. (For instance, why was the last of Centurius' Animen... the one that killed Brad Carter.. able to speak, when NONE of the others were ever able to? And, what was Centurius' deal, anyways?)
greycrusad-
er
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 102
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: August 9, 2012, 19:35

I never learned about the last-minute change up in writers...though looking back it should have been obvious even to a kid the ending didn't match the story up to that point...the conclusion just came out of nowhere, with Bloodstone suddenly reverting to his caveman persona after losing the bloodstone and then developing psionic powers which let him defeat Centurius and the others, dying in the process.

But-yeah! A superhero dedicated to battling monsters! giant monsters! That was the hook.

Actually, the earliest Spider Woman run didn't feature the love interest in the wheel chair; that was one of the worst arcs in the series history, with Spider Woman abruptly ditching her old San Francisco digs and supporting cast, and gaining a bunch of ridiculous new enemies like Buzzsaw and Turner D Century. Previously it was almost a horror-hero title, with Jess battling the likes of the Brothers Grimm, the Hangman, the Man of Wax (whose flesh would crawl off his body to attack-ugh!), and Morgaine Le Fay. This was probably the best run. Eventually the title bounced back though, with the annoying boyfriend Rory ditched, and Spider Girl went in a more straight superheroic direction, fighting villains such as Madame Hydra and SIlver Samurai.
R_Mortisse
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 307
Post Re: Is "Rampaging Hulk" Any Good?
on: August 10, 2012, 12:07

But, you've GOT to admit... Rory was soooooooo the guy in the wheelchair, from Dark Angel! Am I right? (Besides, Marvel's tag-line for Spider-Woman, was always to call her the 'Dark Angel'. ...This is just tooooo obvious.)

Yeah! I agree! The series did bounce back. But, I could just never stand Steve Leihloah's artwork. (*BLYECH*)
I loved the Deathstrioke issue, tho,... if you care for a trip down memory lane.

As for Bloodstone...

you're a superhero...

you're badass...

and, you are soooo badass, you ONLY take on monsters...

GIANT monsters!!

(You just cant beat that!)

As for the Bloodstone wrapup... it seems to me the whole thing was 'contrived' to facilitate the... "It wasn't old age that killed him" punchline. (And, frankly I could have really done without the stupid "dolphins are the other dominant species on the earth thing too. THAT was soooo 'Gerber'.) Frankly the whole thing just didnt work for me. And, the Bloodstone's daughter thing, just seems like adding pointless 'insult' to a long dead (cool) concept.
Pages: 1 [2]
Mingle Forum by cartpauj
Version: 1.0.33.3 ; Page loaded in: 0.219 seconds.