When I was growing up I was really into comics. I had Spider-Man 1 through 100. Same with the Fantastic Four, and all of the X-men. I also read Iron-Man, Hulk, Thor, Submariner, Captain America and the Avengers, as well as any of the new comics like Lucas Cage. Now I also read DC comics, Superman, Batman, the Flash and Green Lantern. They were just too powerful for my tastes though, except for Batman, who had no powers at all. Superman, the Flash and Green Lantern were more akin to Gods than people with special powers. I guess the Hulk might have been a God as well, but he didn’t possess the intellect of a conqueror. Anyway, Marvel advertised their characters as Superheroes with problems. And boy did they ever have some problems.
Peter Parker was probably the one most identifiable to a child. A teenager himself, starting the tale while he was still in high school, Parker was picked on by the bullies and didn’t have much luck with the girls. Parker was smart, a science wiz in the manner of comic book scientists who can whip up a great discovery in an afternoon. And then he received his gift at the hands of a radioactive spider (since then they have modernized the tale to give it more of a retrovirus from a genetically engineered spider feel). And his gift included superpowers, great strength, agility and speed, a danger sense, and the ability to stick to things like walls and ceilings. Not strength in the class of the Hulk, or even Iron Man or the Thing, but enough to make him stronger than normal people. Not speed like the Flash, or even the water downed Marvel version, Quicksilver, but fast enough to allow him to dodge most assailants. Agility and wall clinging were his greatest abilities, coupled with the web shooters that he built for himself. Spider-Man turned into a wisecracking crime fighter who was so unlike the shy teenager he was in real life. His most common opponents were street criminals, though he soon graduated to villains with either superpowers or some kind of gadget which gave them a leg up over ordinary cops. Against the unpowered Spider-Man was almost unstoppable. Against those with super abilities he often had to use his brains to supplement his powers. I thought of Spider-Man as sort of Batman on steroids, though Batman never did anything as cool as standing on the ceiling while knocking out two hoods with a double punch.
Enter the Rhino in Marvel Tales 32, about the time the art work of Spider-Man was settling into good quality renderings. The Rhino was very strong, powerful enough to run head on into a moving eighteen wheeler and knock it backwards, while destroying the engine and cab. Maybe not quite the strength of the Hulk, more like in the Thing class. His skin made him bulletproof. And he was into using his size and strength to steal things. Just what Spider-Man was meant to stop, leaving saving the world and the Universe to groups like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. At first things didn’t look good for Spidey, who could punch away all he wanted without hurting the Rhino. Unfortunately for the Wallcrawler, the Rhino could hurt him, and did. Until Spider-Man used his brains and his agility against his more powerful opponent. Using the slings and arrows of his verbal barbs, Spidey kept the Rhino pumped on anger and kept luring the big guy into charging him, and missing. The Rhino ran into walls, lampposts, vehicles, over and over again until he started to show the wear. He wore down, as Spider-Man jumped and taunted. Then Spider-Man finished him off. Now why do I consider this the best hero villain match of all time? For one thing it is still memorable to me forty some years later. For the other it was a hero who the villain could crush in a toe to toe fight. And the hero beat the villain using brains, strategy and agility. Sure, it wasn’t the Hulk against the Submariner. And most of the battles by DC’s Godlike heroes were the other way around, their villains were weaker and used strategy and trickery to beat their more powerful opponents. It always easier to cheer for the outmatched one, and Marvel gave us one of those fights.
I learned a lot about plotting from this comic, though I didn’t realize it at the time. The villain should be more powerful than the hero, stronger, better equipped, etc. And then the hero should use his or her brains to outmaneuver the villain, letting the villain beat himself up so to speak. That is the stuff of drama. No Dudley Doright using his strength and good looks to beat the smarter Snidely Whiplash. Great stuff from Stan Lee.
Hulk
All posts tagged Hulk
I loved the Hulk as a child. I mean, what wasn’t there to like about the big guy? He was a bad ass, the Chuck Norris of the comics. And he was the typical Marvel character, troubled on many levels. Bruce Banner did not want to be the Hulk, it wasn’t a power he reveled in. But when he was the Hulk he became the most powerful can of whupass on the planet. No other super being could stand against him. Not Namor, not Ironman, not even Thor, though the hammer was quite an equalizer. Namor always got weaker out of water, while the Hulk never got weaker, so that fight was over as soon as it began. Ironman hit the Hulk with a jet, and probably got billed by the Air Force for destruction of Government property. And all it did was stun the big green guy long enough for Ironman to get out of Dodge. The Thing always wanted to think he was a match for the Hulk, but he never stood a chance. Because the Hulk had unlimited strength, the madder he got the stronger he got, and there was no limit to his rage. He was very good at smashing things that got in his way. He was even proficient as breaking things he really hadn’t set out to break, like the jet fighter he just happened to pass through on his way back to the ground after a leap. He broke things but didn’t really kill people, at least in the comics. In the modern movie version it was insinuated that he did kill people, but not out of any desire to kill. He was a bull in the china shop, and our fragile bodies were china compared to his muscular physique.
But the greatest thing about the Hulk to a child was his motivation. He was not really a hero, not really a villain, and a little of both. Sometimes he saved the world. But it was when he blundered into some situation and had to fight his way out that he foiled the plans of the villain based on world conquest or destruction. Mostly he just wanted to be left alone. And the bullies of the world, the militaries of the United States or Russia, or aliens, or evil people bent of conquest, would not leave him alone. Just as the bullies in school would not leave an intelligent child with a lot of imagination alone. But unlike the child, the Hulk could do something about it. He could smash, and drive the bullies away for just a short moment. They always came back, but he was always ready for them.
The other attractive part of the Hulk was the Bruce Banner character, who was always self sacrificing in his attempts to try and keep the beast from going on a rampage among civilization. This didn’t always work, because again and again the bullies tried to capture him in his weakest form, and would trigger the transformation into the unstoppable engine of destruction. Then afterwards Banner would calm down and the Hulk would revert to human form, with no memories of what happened. Sort of like a drunken blackout. But that’s another topic for another time.
There are a lot of heroes in the Marvel Pantheon, with a variety of superpowers. Some, like the Hulk and Thor, have strength so great they can demolish large vehicles with their bare hands. Not to mention that cool hammer of Thor’s. Others, like Spiderman, while not quite as strong, are still physically gifted to an extreme. Some, like the Human Torch, are so powerful that they have to tone back their powers some, lest the neighborhood and the people in it pay the price through incineration. But most of the Superheroes in the Marvel Universe fall into two categories. Those who gained their abilities by accident, and those who were born with them.
All of the mutants in the Marvel Pantheon were born with their abilities. The X-men, Wolverine, the evil mutants all came by their powers because of a genetic aberration. Some, like Wolverine, may have acquired other abilities like the adamantium skeleton, but the base powers were theirs by right of birth. Thor, Hercules and the other immortal heroes were also born with their abilities as members of other species. So was the Submariner. The Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and Spiderman acquired their abilities due to circumstances beyond their control, i.e. accidents. Bruce Banner was exposed to gamma radiation that released the beast within, while Reed Richards and company caught their abilities from cosmic rays, and Peter Parker was bitten by the famous radioactive spider (updated to genetically engineered super spider). There are some Marvel heroes that developed their abilities through science and training, such as Captain America, Hawkeye, Giantman and Wasp. Giantman is a very powerful character, but kind of a peripheral one. Cap is very good at what he does with his limited abilities, while Hawkeye is merely a superbly trained archer. Which brings us to a very powerful Marvel character that developed his own abilities, namely the star of this essay, Tony Stark.
Tony Stark is an interesting character in his own right, even without his armored suit. A genius billionaire playboy, he would seem to have no reason to put his life on the line to become a superhero. Stark not only had no powers, accidental or born, he developed his super suit because he wanted to be able to right the wrongs he saw around him, some that were the result of the business as usual attitude of his own company. So Tony Stark used his genius to develop a super suit, powered armor if you will, that made him the equal of most of the other superheroes, and superior too many. And the suit gives him some advantages that can’t be matched by some of the other powerful Marvel characters. It is constantly being upgraded, making its wearer more and more powerful. And it can be configured for different roles that Iron Man might find himself in. The other heroes are kind of caught in the limits of whatever abilities they have, even if they are massively powerful, such as the Hulk and Thor.
But the greatest attribute of Tony Stark the man, and not just the Iron Man, is that he loves what he does. This has become even more apparent from the movies. Iron Man likes to play to loud music, to wise crack, while putting his life on the line. The only traditional Marvel hero who waxes comedic as much is Spiderman. But even Spiderman can’t override the music systems of nearby aircraft to have them play AC/DC while he battles. Iron Man rocks the world while he battles, and his appreciative audience cheers. Some of the other heroes, like Captain America, may doubt Tony Stark’s resolve, but not the audience, who watch a man who has everything put it on the line for the rest of us. Rock on, Ironman.
I went to see The Avengers the day after the Tallahassee Writer’s Conference. I had seen the trailers on Youtube, heard the hype, hoped it would be good, and prepared myself for the disappointment that the movie would not be as good as hoped. And it Rocked most excellently. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, at least not to this comic loving boy who grew up on the lore of the Marvel Universe. There was no way they could make it prefect, and if I wanted to I could have sat there and picked apart every little mistake they made about the Marvel Mythos. And there surely were a lot of them. Instead I went to the movie wanting to see the superheroes I had grown up loving brought to life. And were they ever.
Nick Fury was actually shown as the action hero he was when he was an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., not just a desk sitting director. The flying aircraft carrier did not just have a bit part as I feared, but was an integral part of the story. There was the obligatory battle between Ironman and Captain America versus Thor, just to show that testosterone powers the Marvel Universe, and Thor was show to have true super strength in this movie, maybe not quite as much as the Hulk, but in that range. The battle between Thor and the Hulk was a gem, in which the big green guy was the stronger, though Thor got in his licks, and the hammer equalized them. I loved it when the Hulk was shown incapable of lifting the hammer. Only Thor could do that in the comics, and that was shown in a great manner in the movie. Otherwise the Hulk was shown to be pretty much unstoppable once the anger got going. Loki appeared to be much stronger than he was in the Thor movie, but that might have been because now he was dealing with mere mortals. One of the more humorous parts of the film was when Loki reviled the Hulk, calling him beneath the Asgardian God that Thor’s brother was. The result was predictable but still very funny.
Even Hawkeye was shown to be worthy of the mantel of hero, even if not super. The little automatic arrow head attaching quiver system was very cool. Black Widow had her moments, although as a mere human, no matter how good at martial arts, I still felt that she didn’t really belong in the Avengers. The big four of Ironman, Thor, Hulk and Captain America definitely belonged. I really wish they had put Giant/Antman in the movie along with Wasp, but I guess since they didn’t have their own movie Marvel thought they wouldn’t do well in this one. Or the special effects budget was already too high, so they left out the growth and shrinking effects.
One of the complaints I had read about this movie was that it didn’t have enough action. Now granted, it wasn’t all action, and there was some plain old talking conflict. But not enough action? No way. The movie started off, after the introduction of the villains, with Loki invading a secret SHIELD lab that is destroyed. There is a fight with Captain America and Ironman versus Loki, then a fight where Thor takes Loki and Cap and Ironman fight him. Then the battle on the helicarrier, in which Thor fights the Hulk, Ironman and Cap fight some thugs while trying to save the ship, and Black Widow fights Hawkeye. Then the battle between the Avengers and the aliens that had to run forty minutes or more. That was a lot of battle scene, and probably took most of the non-actor salary budget. But then again, some people are never satisfied. All in all I found it to be a very good movie that I decided not to pick apart for its mistakes, but instead appreciated for its triumphs. They set up the sequel, and I for one can’t wait for it. I guess I will have to, as it will be at least a year before it comes out. Maybe they will have a chance to introduce Giant/Antman and the Wasp in that time.
This Friday the movie version of The Avengers is coming out, after a long way and much publicity building up to the day. At times I wondered if I would die of old age before this film actually hit the theaters. And no, this is not a remake of the British TV series, like the Uma Thurman vehicle of a few years back. This is the Avengers of the Marvel Universe, and while I have some problems with the choice of some of the heroes (Black Widow, come on now) for the most part they are staple superstars from the Marvel stable. And with the exception of Hawkeye, they have all starred in their own movies. Unfortunately I have a writer’s conference this weekend, but took Monday off to rest up, so Monday will be movie day.
The Hulk of course is the mightiest of Marvel’s superheroes, though he was always more in the mold of the antihero. When the Hulk became the opponent of any other super being that was basically all she wrote. Thor was almost as strong, plus had the really cool hammer that only he could pick up. Ironman was not really a superhero, but the ever evolving suit gave him all the abilities of a super being, and the movie version is just as good. Captain America was almost the Batman of Marvel. Sure, he was a supersoldier, and better than a normal human being in strength, speed and agility, but not in the class of his compatriots. He wasn’t even as mighty as Spiderman. But that was part of his charm. He fought hard with what he had (and the shield was really cool) and came out the winner. I would have liked to see some of the other Avengers featured such as Wasp and Giant/Antman. But such is not to be. I guess Wasp and Giantman didn’t have their own movie, so didn’t have the initial marketing the others had.
From what I have seen the movie looks like it is going to be really fantastic. They even have the flying aircraft carrier of shield for goodness’ sake. I followed all of these guys growing up, and even though they have changed with time, they are still essentially the heroes I knew and loved. Now I am sure that some of the critics will pan this movie, just as they did Thor and John Carter (see my earlier post, They Don’t Get It). They will rail about all the silly superhero stuff in the movie, and gush over the non fantastic parts. They don’t understand that we, the target audience, go to these movies to see Thor throw his hammer, Ironman use his repulsor rays, or the Hulk to smash. They would prefer to see Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner sitting around discussing their problems, and I don’t think they would really relate to Thor’s problems.
The times are great for the movie magic of superheroes. A friend recently posted a fan made trailer for the Avengers as set in the 1980s. Ironman looked like he was made of plastic and rubber, and was made in one of those vacuum former machines. Dr. Donald Blake (Thor) held up a hammer that looked like one of those rubber body shop instruments and turned into the God of Thunder. Captain America rode a motorcycle and had a Plexiglas shield. The Lou Ferigno Hulk was the best of the bunch, but even though that series was decent, it wasn’t the Hulk we fans wanted to see. Now we can see that Hulk, and a flying Thor and Ironman as well.
