Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Rob: Welcome to Dear Watchers, a comic book omniverse podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.
Guido: We are traveling through the storylines before and after that inspired or took inspiration from this week's amazing alternate universe. On this journey are me. That's my line. Keto.
Rob: And me. Rob. Or is it Rob? Robert Bruce.
Guido: Uh, he is Robert Bruce Banner. For some odd reason, it's true.
Rob: And look at this. A being made of pure star energy who is peaceful and not at all Hulk like. It's ethan of Nick. M mine. Amalgam hello.
Ethan: Hello. And that's Ethan, spelled with one N. And every letter is exactly where you think.
Rob: Welcome back, Ethan.
Guido: Yes, thank you for joining us. We all have some tech issues getting here.
Rob: Yes, Gito and I are huddled around one microphone like an old, tiny folk band, so hopefully you can hear us well. And speaking of Guido guido, what's new in our little corner of the multiverse?
Guido: We recorded a trailer.
Rob: Yes.
Guido: So New World is going to be out there. There's multi worlds that's going to be out this week. And we're excited. Just in case people are unsure and browsing their podcast platform and want to hear what we're about, we now have a trailer.
Rob: We figured 63 episodes in maybe time for a trailer after over a year. Okay, let's do it.
Guido: And we are still recording our spin off series. We haven't announced what it is yet, but it will be part of Patron, uh, something or other coming soon. We're hoping to launch that for New York Comic Con, where we will also have new stickers and lots of fun things. Yes, that's what's new here.
Rob: Hopefully recording some little mini updates right from the convention floor. So super excited about that.
Guido: Ethan, what's new that you want to share?
Ethan: Well, part of the reason why I chose this, uh, uh, what if is, uh, I've been on kind of a random Hulk kick, so I've been starting Hulk on Marvel Unlimited, uh, from the very beginning.
Guido: Wow. I can't wait to hear more about that because my forte yeah, I'm on.
Ethan: Issue 113 now, which feels like quite the jump, but there's a lot of tales to astonish you got to get through. And then it goes to his original run, and in a similar fashion to, um, all of the Marvels. It's not like all of the appearances of Hulk. I'm mostly trying to follow Bruce Banner's overall solo story. So nothing against Omadeus show. Uh, nothing against SheHulk nothing against, uh, Rick Jones. Is solo adventures. Just hulk like Bruce Banner from his origin to present. Oh, nothing against defenders or Avengers. Just his solo run is what I'm trying to do.
Guido: Wow. Well, that does work perfectly for today. And there are a lot of what if helps, so I'll have to keep having you back for those because ah, it's not something I know very well.
Rob: Yes. Well, thank you, Ethan. We're excited to jump into that. And if anyone else is joining us, for the first time, we have three sections of the podcast origins of the story and what inspired this other reality. Exploring multiversity, we dive deeper into our alternate universe and pondering possibilities. We examine the impact and what's followed or coming in the future. And with that, dear watchers, let's Hulk out. And welcome to episode 63. And let's check out what's happening in the multiverse with today's alternate universe. And today we are asking the question, what if? Starring Hulk the man, the monster, aka what if Bruce Banner was the monster and Hulk was a peaceful being made of star energy.
Guido: This is Earth 9691 and we are going to share more about this alternate universe in just a little bit.
Rob: We will get into our backgrounds during our origin segment, but before that, without spoiling the alternate earth story just yet, ethan, why did you suggest this issue to Guido?
Ethan: I suggested this issue because there are some other Hulk what ifs that I enjoy. Um, but most of them are just, hey, what if Jones became Hulk? What if general Ross became hulk? Just like, what if other people became hulk? And I wanted to explore again the earth where role reversal as opposed to someone else became the Hulk. Mhm, even though it is an incredibly tough read and very, very sad, um, very dark, it's scary too, but it's more on the sad side than some of those other like, uh, but it's horror from that era.
Guido: Yeah, you definitely, uh, did not choose an uplifting story for us.
Ethan: No, I did not.
Rob: Yeah, it feels very well, we'll get more into it, so I don't want to spoil it right now, but yes. So let us start with our gamma explosion. And that is the origins of the story right now on this very show.
Guido: You're going to get the answer to all your questions.
Rob: Our amazing story begins a few years ago. So today we want to ask, what are our backgrounds with Hulk? We all reread Incredible Hulk number one, which we've also covered pretty much exactly a year ago on episode number ten of the podcast. But Ethan, let's start with you. What was your background with Hulk and his origin?
Ethan: My background with Hulk is kind of similar to the background. My background with characters like Spiderman and Fantastic Bar. I always knew he was there, but that's, again, part of the reason why I'm doing this deep dive. I found that also a lot of his villains hit that sweet spot for me where they're not bottom of the barrels, all of them. Um, but they're also not like liners either. I wouldn't even call abomination or leader headliners.
Guido: No, definitely not. Yeah, people don't know their origins or their real names like they do for.
Rob: Some goblin or Dr. Goblin or something like that.
Guido: Yeah, I think that's true. M and did you read hulk ever continually prior to the reading you're doing now, or he always was on the periphery.
Ethan: Until now, he was always kind of on the periphery. I had seen his movies. I'm an avid watcher of the SheHulk show. Um, he always popped up in things. But, um, I don't think I regularly read a Hulk book.
Guido: Mhm, yeah, I'm the same. I'm not a big fan of Hulk, and unlike some characters that we've covered for this podcast where I became a fan, that hasn't happened for me with Hulk. I've appreciated and enjoyed what we read and finding the horror elements a little bit, but I've never been into him. I read his title when it would tie into things I cared about. So he actually had a pretty big presence in the onslaught in the 90s. So he would intersect with X Men. So I would read that. But then I really didn't read until I came into Immortal Hulk late. So I read the second half of it and I'm waiting for some gorgeous omnibus or hardcover to come out so I can absorb the whole thing. And then I'm reading Donny Case's Hulk. But that's also recent. So other than that, my Hulk exposure is through Media, the really boring TV show that I watched in syndication as a kid.
Rob: Yeah, that was definitely always a, uh, channel changer.
Guido: No, I would leave it on.
Rob: It was Hulk.
Guido: It was marvel. I had to watch.
Rob: No, I would watch like Dark Shadows or Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Sci-fi Channel. And then the Hulk would come on, it's like, oh my God, I know Hulk.
Guido: Yeah. And then of course, all the modern movies and not as much. I didn't even watch the cartoon in the just wasn't that into it. We've actually been watching some of it now because she Hulk is a huge part of it. And since we are also watching and loving SheHulk, we started putting on some of those cartoons once in a while.
Rob: Yeah, that's really my background with the character is I had some of the 80s cartoons that Stan narrated on VHS, uh, in like a compilation, because it came out, I think, even before I was born. And he has Doctor Octopus as a villain in The Puppet Master. Weird kind of villains for Hulk. And then just a flood of nostalgia lately as we've been doing a little rewatch of some of the 90s episodes. And it's also enjoyable because Matt Fur is the leader and, uh, Camel is the gargoyle. So some really fun voices on that series. But then, yeah, I hadn't really read him almost at all in comics, except for one Hulk comic, which I had was The Death of the Leader, which I read over and over again. It was just one of those comics I read. It's a very weird comic where I think Rick Jones lover Marlowe has psychic powers and she's kind of a zombie. And general Ross is like a zombie controlled by the leader, and then the leader gets killed in the end. Very weird kind of adult comic. A little bit of nudity in it. It was very kind of bizarre. But that was one I read over and over again. But until, uh, we did this podcast, I haven't really read any other Hulk.
Guido: And so what was everyone's takeaway from rereading his first issue, incredible Hulk number one?
Ethan: It's actually pretty recent for me because I, uh, had reread that like a couple of weeks ago with my start. And I know it was a printing issue, but I do wish he was gray for longer.
Guido: Yeah, he's very Frankenstein when he's gray, which I think was intense. So you want the gray to persist. See, I almost wish they'd go back and recolor number one, so he'd be green. I always want it to look like the Hulk I'm so much more familiar with.
Ethan: I wish he was gray for like six to ten issues. Kind of give him the Daredevil treatment where like and I guess they did give him the Daredevil treatment because he was gray again, Joe fix it. So he's gray every now and then as an homage. Kind of like you see Daredevil in flashbacks in yellow.
Rob: Mhm. Yeah, and we've talked about this on the podcast before when we did the what if around the Hulk's intelligence. But even in this first issue, you were saying the Hulk that we all know, but he's not really the Hulk we all know. He's not dumb, but he's also not as brutal intelligence either. So he's kind of this awkward in between. So it definitely seems like they hadn't really decided what they wanted to do with the character because then I know enough too much time. Ethan, you are more familiar because you've been reading them. He then reverts to the kind of the mindless brute version, right?
Ethan: Yes, with some uh, broken dialogue, which isn't like offensively broken. It's not like stereotypical. It's just how a Frankenstein wants to probably talk.
Guido: He also steals his night transformation in the origin issue, which we talked about in our last, uh, episode on Hulk.
Rob: That only transforms at night. Which uh, is interesting because I was reading even it's almost kind of a werewolf thing. And we have werewolf at night coming out. And you see in other horror anthologies as well as such a classic trope of oh, it's going to come at night, but clearly wouldn't ultimately make sense for ongoing stories because you're going to have all of the whole stories take place that night eventually. Also, isn't Betty going to figure out, hey, what's going on? Why isn't Bruce around ever in the evening? And it all to me, seems like, oh, Jack and Stan were so much probably taking inspiration from the 30s Universal monster movies that they would have had been watching when they were growing up. Frankenstein. Like we've mentioned the wolf man. Seeing kind of all that influence coming.
Guido: To this character, I definitely get the feeling that this is their attempt at doing that. I mean, at this point, the code is so strict about monsters that monster comics, uh, don't exist. So this is probably their attempt at bringing elements of monster stories in, but making it code approved by making it science fiction instead of horror. So I think that's definitely true. One thing I noticed oh, go ahead, Ethan.
Ethan: And in a way, as you're bringing up science fiction and horror, it's kind of like Victor Frankenstein becomes his monster, instead of victor Frankenstein creates the monster.
Guido: Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. That could be the what if, uh, for Incredible Hulk, number one, is what if Victor Frankenstein became the monster?
Rob: Yeah.
Ethan: Sorry.
Guido: No, go ahead.
Ethan: A lot of people compare to, uh, Dr. Jacob and Mr. Hyde, and I can see that. But I also like that Frankenstein connection.
Guido: Yes, I think that is interesting. I wonder if there's ever been an iteration of Frankenstein where someone has, since Frankenstein's public domain, if there, uh, have been stories where someone has made it that he is the model.
Rob: Yeah, not that I know of, but it feels like a story that could be told. Totally.
Guido: Yeah. Well, now it has been told. I noticed in part because of the alternate universe, and I knew what if that we were reading, so I knew what to look for. But I noticed a lot about masculinity in this first issue, and it's interesting to me that it's all there, because we'll talk about the elements that are in the what if and when they get introduced into Hulk's origin. And none of that story is present in this first issue. But there are things like Bruce detests men who think with their fists. And then you have the Hulk who sees the picture of Bruce and says, he's weak, he's soft. I hate it. Take it away. So you have this tension in terms of what it means to be a man. And I never really noticed that in my reading of this until I was looking for it today. Based on our what if, general Ross.
Rob: Says to Betty, when Betty comes over, betty, this is man talk right now, or something along those lines.
Guido: Yeah.
Ethan: Also, General Ross kind of tears down Bruce mhm, calling him a milk SAP and all those other things.
Rob: It's interesting, too. I think we'll get more into this into the what if in a second. But while Bruce does detect violence, he also has negative qualities in here. Like, he's not really a great scientist because he refuses to have his work peer reviewed, because Igor, who's portrayed as the villain, and he wants to get his secrets. But Igor does say, like, nobody has looked at your experiments. Like, you haven't let anyone else check your work, which is like finding 101.
Guido: Definitely. And I was interested in that plot detail because it almost felt like a red herring because it feels like almost like the Fantastic Four. Well, then what's going to happen is that his ego is going to lead to him becoming the Hulk. But that's actually not what happens. He becomes the Hulk because he goes to save Rick. So it felt like a red herring that he wasn't. But you're right. It does add a character trait of he is an egomaniac. It just doesn't lead to his destruction here.
Rob: Yes.
Guido: Anything else on his origin?
Ethan: Um, not that I can think of. Ah.
Rob: I love the teenage depiction of Rick Jones just playing her Monica on your motorcycle. It's definitely like two middle aged men going, what do teenagers like today? I know.
Guido: Harmonica is even better. Yeah. In the alternate universe, I think they update Rick Jones in that one panel quite well. I like that.
Ethan: I don't even think they name him.
Rob: No, they don't. They don't. They make a point of saying nobody knows his name. The forgotten, unknown teenager. Well, with that, let us jump into our exploring multiversity.
Guido: I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question.
Rob: And the story is called What If? Starring Hulk, dot, dot, dot, the man, the monster. But we, as the Council Watchers have dubbed this alternate Earth what if Bruce Banner was the monster, and Hulk was a peaceful being made of star energy? And this is from what if? Volume two, issue number one from November 91, from November 1996.
Guido: So this is Earth 9691. And content warning, this issue is really about domestic violence, domestic abuse and gender based violence. And that is the entirety of the story, so be aware of that. This is written by Joe Kelly, pencilled by Mark Nelson, who's credited though as Nelson, inked by Chris, ivy colored by Tom Zuko and lettered by VC. So a little background on this before we get into a summary and what we thought. Joe Kelly, of course, is most famous, I think, for the deadpool that we know. He wrote Deadpool's first ongoing run and gave him the voice that we're all familiar with, but he also wrote Xmen and Spiderman and Action Comics and Super Boy, Supergirl DLA, Green Lantern, and just so much has some creator own works still his writing. Mark Nelson did some pencils and inks for Marvel, maybe only about two dozen issues, mostly has since done indie titles and the graphic classic series, including some lovecraft adaptations and then some context for where Hulk is in publishing in 96. So this comes out actually right around the moment of onslaught, sending the heroes away into heroes reborn. So we know the flagship titles that are nonexmen all get, quote, unquote, um, canceled and restarted. Avengers. Fantastic Four. Iron man. Captain America. Hulk, though, is oddly split by the hero's reborn universe creation, and so he gets to keep an ongoing title in the Six One Six, where Hulk and Banner have been split up and Banner is sent into the onslaught universe. And that's going to be relevant to what we read later on. But then for this issue before, again, the summary, since it has a lot to do with abuse, I was trying to figure out where the abuse aspect of Hulk's story came in. And it looks like it's the very famous Hulk 312 intlow introduced that aspect of Bruce Banner's background. And then it actually is not a large part of the story. Peter David briefly refers to it, uh, a bit in the flashbacks. It actually seems to be after this what if, that abuse becomes a larger part of the story and we can talk about what we think about that and what we think the role of this what if was in that. So in this what if Earth 9691, when the gamma bomb explodes, banner becomes the abusive, violent jerk. Sometimes this creature starts to show up that's made of stars and gamma. And they call him Star Man. He's very peaceful, calm and loving, it turns out. It is of course Bruce and Bruce's other being. But Bruce, who is incredibly abusive to Betty, who emotionally keeps her trapped and silenced and physically assaults her multiple times, hates this creature. Of course, he ultimately decides he can use Star Man to get his war military stuff all funded, the gamma busters, and he can become a big war hero. He starts killing people so that it looks like the Star Man is a terrorist and all this stuff. Betty decides that silence equals death. And so she must speak out. So she is narrating the whole issue to Doc Samson. In the end, who does believe her, but Bruce blackmails Doc Samson into having Betty committed to an institution. And that is Earth 9691.
Rob: Yeah.
Guido: Mhm so where do we begin.
Ethan: With the deep side? Um, it's hard to say positive, but I absolutely love the art.
Guido: Yeah, I agree.
Ethan: I love, love, love the art. There are some parts that are list. Like this is really, really creepy art too. Like there are some very creepy images of, um, Bruce Banner. Mhm that just he looks inhuman. And I don't know if that was just how the drawing came out or if it was meant to look like that as part of a message. Um, but the image that sticks with me is, um, the image where he's inundated with his or Bombarded is what I'm saying. Bombarded with the gamma rays. He looks very zombified.
Guido: M yeah. And similarly, Mark Nelson draws the Star Man as what you would imagine, like some alien being made of light to look like it's very smooth and clean lines and it's like glowing all the time. So I think it was intentional. And this is from the brief era of what if, which we haven't actually covered another one yet. I don't think where they were doing things. Thank you.
Ethan: It's like the darkest ones have the most beautiful art.
Guido: Yeah, this era they did, and it lasted maybe half a dozen issues. But they got rid of the questions and did this really dark art that looks like it would fit more in a horror magazine or something. And then told these dark stories.
Rob: Yeah. M and I was wondering if the Star Man depiction in the art was at all inspired by Doctor Manhattan? Because as soon as I saw him, that was my first gut. He doesn't look like him, but there's that similar kind of feel of energy and that calmness that you kind of get from how the character is portrayed. And then there's also of course there's like the movie with Jeff Bridges, the John Carpenter movie Star Man. So I was thinking, oh, that probably actually came out around this time too. So maybe they were taking a little bit of inspiration from that kind of concept.
Ethan: Mhm that's interesting. I was actually thinking still within the Hulk mythos, there's my favorite Hulk villain team, the Eupholes, which are basically evil Fantastic Four, but they got different powers. He looks just like Buddy's Green X ray, the, um, Human Torch analog.
Guido: Interesting. I can't picture that.
Rob: Mhm yeah, I was not expecting the story to go where it went either.
Guido: Like the end with what happens to Betty or the split between Bruce and Star Man or what do you mean?
Rob: I think the whole kind of concept of Bruce being necessarily actually then being the evil one when it's set up because he's a colonel in this world. So when it first started, I thought, are we going to be getting a red sun kind of story? Is he actually going to be, um, for Russia, going back to his origin story?
Guido: Right. He takes the place of the Gargoyle.
Rob: He takes the place of the Gargoyle. And that's kind of going to be the story that we're told here. So then once it's like because he's right away so kind of villainous. And I thought, oh, is he going to be like the red enemy? Kind of. So then when it's emerged that, oh no, he is, uh, in the US. Army. It was like.
Guido: Oh.
Rob: This is a very interesting choice because they have decided to make this military character be very villainous and also be this war monger who's basically creating an artificial war. Which is very it was very interesting how I don't know if progressive is the right word. But that they were not being it was certainly not a conservative approach to how they are portraying these military characters.
Ethan: M yes, I was even more shocked, uh, because this is my second time having read it, period. I've read it once, and then for like obvious reasons, I hadn't really gone back to it. But part of my reread I thought, really interesting one. And I remember really liking the art. But I specifically remember when I first was collecting all these what ifs. And I saw just the concept of, oh, Hulk's a gentle being. And um, Banner is not so gentle. I thought, oh, is this going to be Savage Banner? I just thought it was going to be something like that. And not to put them on blast because I actually really love this comic, uh, shop. But there's a comic shop online. But I like to buy some of my comics from. And, uh, the way they describe it really downplays it, uh, I guess they didn't want to put that it was about abuse. But it really kind of makes light of it when they say like, oh, like whatever they said about Hulk and then Bruce Banner is a big old meanie. I was like.
Guido: Further than that.
Ethan: Yeah.
Guido: There's the final part of this, which I am curious how it ended up in there and what the conversation was, if it was the editor or if Joe Kelly wanted it. But it says this issue of what if sold a horrific tale of domestic violence. Though the situation turned out badly for Betty, Banner, what if is the dark side of the Marvel universe after all? Please do not hesitate to seek help should you or someone you know be a victim of domestic violence. Call your local shelter aid program or domestic violence hotline. I hate that they put though it turned out badly for Betty, I almost would have rather it was just a sort of like call and get help if you're in a domestic violence situation. Yeah, it is interesting they put it in there.
Ethan: Actually. I hate the, uh, what if is the dark universe. Again, that's a downplay that makes light of it. Even if it's not intentional. It feels like an excuse. Kind of like they were told, oh, no, we shouldn't be telling the story now. Strike it. We're going to tell the story anyway. It just feels yucky.
Guido: Yeah, it's interesting because I wonder if the story could have been told. Obviously domestic violence is real and a story could be told about it. But I don't think it has a place in a superhero comic or a what if comic, certainly. Because I don't think it can deal with what domestic violence really means. And I don't think this issue does deal with it well. So, uh, I was thinking though, could this issue have been told without it? I think yes, I think he could have been a big old meanie without being physically abusive toward her. The only reason you don't even need the physical abuse at one point, her job being wired shut matters because she's not going to tell anyone. But, um, you could have done without that plot detail. And I think you could have told the story with him just being a jerk and her still being a victim of domestic violence. But at least we don't have to see her jaw get broken, which is on the panel. You see her jaw get broken and she's talking about what it feels like to get your job broken and yeah, it's a lot.
Rob: Yeah. One thing that's I think really interesting that they do keep ambiguous is we don't know if the good in Bruce has been sucked out into the Star Man character, then that's why Bruce is so evil. Or if that is just who Bruce is.
Guido: Yeah, I agree. It's not clear if the gamma is making him more toxic. It is not clear in this story.
Rob: Yeah. Which I actually think is more interesting than it's, oh, he got exposed to gamma ray, so the man is now just a bad person. It's more just like, well, maybe that just, uh, lit something in his brain that was already there and he hasn't changed as a person. He now just knows, oh, I can manipulate this new situation to get what I want. That to me, is actually more interesting. Or interesting that we don't know exactly why it's happening.
Ethan: Right.
Guido: Yeah. I think it's interesting too, that question, uh, because I'm curious if Joe Kelly was also trying to tell a story of intergenerational trauma. And so it does raise the question, like, is Bruce being abusive a product of growing up in an abusive household where his father actually killed his mother in an act of domestic violence and he witnessed it. And so that's why it could go either way. That's why it's not clear. There are good reasons to understand why Bruce might be this kind of person without the gamma radiation. And then introducing that just raises the question of what's Bruce and what's the impact of the accident.
Rob: Yeah, yeah.
Ethan: I think they, um, briefly mentioned his father even before the accident.
Rob: Mhm.
Ethan: And you see him yelling at Rick.
Guido: Yes.
Ethan: And not in a way you can see in the imagery. It is not in the same manner as Incredible Hulk number one.
Guido: He even calls him Snotfaced, like he is a jerk before the gamma. That's a good point.
Ethan: Yeah. Because he's like, what are you doing? We got to get you out of here. Yeah, but he's like, what are you doing, Snotbase? Get out of here.
Guido: And his concern is if that jerk is on the sensor when the device engages, my readings will be invalid. So he's not even trying to save Rick, he's trying to save the integrity of his work or the validity of his work.
Rob: Yeah.
Guido: Yeah. So that's a good point. So this Bruce is just nastier, uh, Bruce than the six one six Bruce, even without the accident.
Rob: And I will get more into this, into the next issue we're going to discuss. But I didn't know Bruce's background with his father at all, which, as you mentioned, it does play integral part into. Maybe this person is just been corrupted by these. Earlier things, not just by the gamma, but by his experiences. So I wasn't familiar with that story. In fact, then, when I was doing a little research, I completely forgot that his father is the villain of the Angle movie.
Ethan: I was going to say that I.
Rob: Was like that I had wiped out.
Guido: I still don't remember that.
Rob: And that they set up some of the abuse and that the mother dies in that movie, and that it's like part of that M in that movie, because that I did not remember at all. And we get more into the dad in the next issue. But I think what you were saying is, I think they could have dealt with this domestic abuse in a comic. But I think the problem always that we sometimes encounter with what if is that you're squeezing a lot into one issue. So I think if we had seen, okay, here's Bruce's background with his father across some other issues, or here's his relationship with Betty over the course of, uh, a mini series, that would have been very different.
Guido: Yeah, I always appreciate a desire to have a social issue comic, and Hulk actually does it a lot or a bit. Hulk has the very famous Peter David AIDS issue. And it's interesting too, thinking about that, because Joe Kelly uses the AIDS created slogan. The AIDS activists created slogan silence equals death in this issue to be a way that Betty feels motivated to speak out because she repeats a few times, silence equals death, and silence equals death was the slogan created by Act Up during AIDS activism of the condemn Ronald Reagan, who wouldn't speak about AIDS. So it was interesting that Kelly uses that in here. And then again, that Peter David had written the, uh, AIDS issue of Hulk that's quite famous. So for some reason, maybe because of that sort of toxic masculinity thing, I think Hulk tends to be more of a social issue book than some of the others, or m more heavy handed, even, I'd say. I mean, obviously all of the Marvel comics are social issue books in some way. But Hulk feels like it tends toward these heavy handed stories for some reason, for sure. So we've never revisited this Earth, and before we move away from it, does anyone want to go back to it? I hope the answer is no, though I, uh, have to say, please.
Ethan: I have the answer no, and I have a controversial yes, only because I want to know more about Star Man. Uh, if we return back, we need to focus just on Star Man because we told the horrific Bruce story. We don't need to see any more of Bruce. I want to see Betty get out of that. Yeah, maybe get together with Glenn Talbot, who was there for 2 seconds and then disappeared. Um, and that is a plot point in the original health book. Um, there's that love triangle where, like, he wants Betty, but she wants Bruce, and whole thing. Um, but I thought, well, okay, well, in this universe, go do that. But it also makes me wonder, okay, the gamma radiation affected Roost and turned them into that. What's the Abomination of the universe? What's the leader of that universe? What's? The zax? Who are the Euphoria? Literally. Oh, my gosh. What would that X ray look like? Oh, my God. Copy of a copy of a copy. Um, so, yeah. Uh, even though it still feels yucky to say, oh, I kind of want to revisit, like, what I would like to see is maybe tell that story kind of in the, um what was it? Spider shadow format that had, like, five issues do that, but a heavier focus on or at least an equal focus, uh, on Star Man. Because Star Man, to a degree, felt like, oh, we need that other side of the Hulk. That's an inhuman creature.
Guido: Yeah, well, I could see I mean, I don't want to go back to this world, and I don't want to encourage anyone to ever go back to this world. But if we were to go back to this world, I would like the story to be Betty finding out, because is Betty canonically a scientist? I know in the movie she is, but in the comics, does she become a scientist at any point, do you know?
Ethan: Ethan, I haven't gotten to that point yet. So far, she's just the general daughter. I'm in the 60s where things were.
Rob: Maybe, uh, there's a Jane Foster maybe.
Guido: Element where they eventually advance her skills in her agency. So I'd like to see her like, she could find a way to get Starman to eliminate Bruce, basically to cure Bruce by having him become Starman exclusively, by having Starman be, like, the only personality or something like that. That would be the only direction I'd ever want to see a revisit to this world to go in.
Ethan: I love that, because that gives us more Star Man. But also is true to the Hulk storyline where, like, Bruce wants to cure himself. Well, this Bruce doesn't want to cure himself, so it would have to be somebody else wanting to cure him.
Guido: Right?
Rob: Yeah. I think I would want to go back to this world just to see Bruce get his come up. That's true.
Guido: Because he does end victorious, which is terrible, which is why it's just such a dark ending. Yeah.
Rob: And we know that they want him to move on to the mutant problem.
Guido: Yes, that's true.
Rob: So I would love to see at some point, it does seem inevitable that this ruse that he's doing is just going to get found out. But it would be great that it is actually Betty that is revealing it so that she is redeemed, because she is kind of just this gas lit woman, um, helpless, kind of, in many ways, throughout this issue. So it would be great to actually see her be able to stand in her circle of power and actually take this man down.
Ethan: Exactly. And Betty has become a SheHulk, so maybe she could become the Star Woman.
Guido: Exactly. Yeah.
Ethan: Well, or General Ross could become the Red Star man.
Guido: That's true. You can keep playing it out in all these different ways with Gamma.
Rob: Yes. While we ponder these possibilities, let us also ponder other possibilities too. Will the future you describe be averted? So, geeta, what are we talking about for our pondering possibilities?
Guido: Well, uh, I'll share why we chose the issue when we introduced it. But what I was looking for, and again, it was a lot of research for me because I don't know Hulk so well. So I was looking at the stories of abuse for this issue. I wanted to keep to the rule that we would only follow the what if. And I did look into mortal. Hulk deals with that story a bit. It actually changes some things about the story and his memory of killing his father, which is like he confronts him at the gravesite of his mother. So that immortal Halt plays with that a bit. I read through it, but it didn't feel tied to the what if. And then there's a few other times where that memory is sort of an important plot piece, but none of it felt tied to the what if. So what I ended up looking for was sort of something dealing with the aspect of abuse and reconciling the Hulk personality within that. So I chose one issue that followed this what if by just a few years.
Rob: Yes. So we are jumping into the future with Incredible Hulk 460 from January 1998, entitled Homecoming.
Guido: So this is written by Peter David, pencil by Adam Hubert, inked by Mark Farmer, colored by Laverne, Kansaski, lettered by John Workman, edited by Bobby Chase. This reunites Hulk and Banner post onslaught. So this is the post Euros Reborn universe reunification. And the whole issue takes place in sort of a, um, mental landscape, astroplaney type place, trying to rectify this Banner schism. Um, so because it has Banner doing this work with Hulk, in his mind, we see the influence, his abuses his father had on his reluctance to accept Hulk. So this is an interesting issue in that dichotomy, because in the end of this issue, what David does is to get Hulk and Banner to reconverge, banner has to accept that Hulk gives them outer strength, and that he, Banner, can be the inner strength. So instead of resisting the aggression, the physical strength of Hulk that reminds him of the abuse of his father, he can integrate them. Which is a good way, I think, of dealing with the sort of long time dichotomy here. You think, Ethan, start us off a fever dream.
Ethan: It felt like a fever dream. And, um, I now have a new um, way to describe that extra brainy Leader, um, as Broccoli Leader, which is a lot more wholesome than my other thing. It looks like, uh, because that does not look like brains, let me tell you. So Broccoli Leader, um, I don't even remember was abomination in that.
Rob: I think it was just Maestro and the Leader.
Ethan: So another big green Behemoth.
Guido: Um.
Ethan: Um, yeah, Maestro would make more sense. Haven't gotten to Maestro yet.
Guido: No. There are a lot of what ifs about Maestro and Perfect, but I don't actually know that story very well either. This does a good job, though. What's so cool about this issue, and I think why it feels like a fever dream in some ways, is that on pretty much. I think every page above the panel is like, what's happening to Hulk's body in the real world, where he's just returned and been reunified. And below the panel, where there are flames, like, constantly behind the panels, is what's happening in Bruce's mind. And we're encountering Maestro and Leader, and his father is sort of the narrator and director of the plot. So it's really neat how that's brought in. And so using that, David, since this is a soft reboot, david does a lot of summary. So I felt like I was able to understand Maestro even without having read any of it, and what the point of having him in the story was.
Rob: Yeah, because Bruce is told that he's in hell, and then we don't know if that's actually what's happening. But, uh, definitely that's where you get the dreamlike quality. And it's really interesting contrast with the what if, because the what if, despite having this Star Man character, is very grounded in reality, really, because it's about the abuse here. The abuse part is very fantastical in many ways, because you have his father, Brian, suddenly driving a car that's like flying through the air. And you have the Leader there, but the Leader is barbecuing, and he's in, like, uh, uh, has an apron on. So you've got all these elements where you have these villains, but it has that dreamlike quality, too.
Guido: Yeah, they're trying to run them over in a Volkswagen Bug, like it with.
Rob: A custom license plate.
Ethan: Yeah, I think the art really works, uh, with kind of distorted imagery.
Guido: Yeah. I mean, Cooper has that sort of exaggerated, uh, adam Cooper has that sort of exaggerated quality. And it does work well here because it adds to making it a little grotesque, but not in the same way that the horror runs of what if did it. This is more a comic book style with a little exaggeration, I'd say. Yeah, I like there's one quote that I think speaks to the way it links to the what if a bit where the father's saying, we have such a wonderful relationship, you and I. You hated me, despise me, kill me, and then spent your life loathing the Hulk. Mostly because he reminded you of me. David probably has the most famous run on Hulk, I think, as not a fan, but as, uh, someone who knows a lot about comics. I feel like he does, and I feel like he gets Hulk, or at least or he adds that dimension of Hulk where it's an emotional tension and it's about his relationship to violence and masculinity. I mean, he's really pulling all of that out by saying, like, he hates Hulk because it's his father. It's very interesting.
Ethan: Yeah. And it makes me wonder, as I was reading this and reading about, um, his relationship with his father, uh, and I haven't gotten to any of this yet, and I don't know if it's ever explored, but do you think maybe General Ross attitudes towards Bruce reminds Bruce of his father?
Guido: Oh, I would think so. Yeah. Even in that first issue, there's pieces where, like you said, ross is basically an abusive dad. Right. He's calling him a milk stop. He's making fun of him for being weak. I think that's a great point. I would imagine at least it's explored in David's run, because he's really diving into psychology so much. But I'll be curious, when you get to the 90s in your reading, if you see that on the page, because that's a great point.
Rob: And I don't know the Maestro character at all. But there too you have an older version of Bruce too, from the future. So maybe there's also a father thing there as well. It's like, oh, here is an older version of myself, or what I could become, which is like this evil thing that I've been spending my entire life trying to avoid. And I actually saw they didn't have m any information about this. I don't even know if it's available. But I did see that there was a cut scene from Thor Ragnarok where Bruce mentioned his father. So maybe this is actually going to be like, uh, a thread that they weave into some future things, because, as we mentioned, the Angley movie is not an MCU cabin, but they did have it there. So they do consider this, I guess, at least core enough to the character, which was interesting because it was not an element of the character I knew whatsoever.
Guido: So do we think the what if inspired, uh, David to write this issue?
Ethan: Um, I think maybe people had similar ideas.
Guido: Yeah.
Ethan: I don't know if it was necessary. I don't think it was necessarily one person was inspired over the other. Um, I'm not sure about this. Did, um, David's run come after the what if? Or just this particular issue parallel and.
Guido: Then after so David starts on it prior to the what if and then keeps going after for quite some time. He has a long run then.
Ethan: I think it might have been a man thing swap thing situation. Grave minds think alike.
Guido: Yeah. Well, again, I think I wonder if the tenor of the mid ninety s and whatever might have been happening culturally around abuse being talked about as part of a national conversation might have just encouraged, uh, multiple writers to look at that piece. Uh, as I mentioned, it was 85 that Bill Mantle introduced that aspect of the story. So it makes sense that eight to ten years later you have writers who are like, okay, let's unpack more of that. Let's keep digging into that. And both Joe Kelly and Peter David are doing that. I agree. I don't think the what if had any direct inspiration, but I think they're doing similar things in terms of dealing with the psychology of the Hulk dichotomy and the role abuse plays in that dichotomy.
Rob: And I think when you have a character that is so physically powerful and basically undestructible that you have to explore those deeper issues to make that character interesting. Because it's not just like, oh, he's not just going to fight another abomination like evil Hulk every time, or oh, he's going to fight the leader who's the smart one, and the Hulk is the brute that gets old. So at some point you have to go, okay, I'm going to go deeper into what this character, the backstory behind this character. Because that is the way to hurt this character. Maybe we can't hurt him physically, so we're going to hurt him mentally, psychologically.
Guido: Yeah. Mhm, so yeah, I don't have anything else on our reading today.
Rob: Anyone? Well, I just want to curious, especially Ethan, since you're reading these. What would you like to see in the MCU from a Hulk? Do you think we'll see, uh, a Hulk movie? We've had two Hulk movies. None of those are both mixed results, I think. But we love, uh, Mark Ruffalo and he's popped up, but he hasn't had a solo movie. And there's all these amazing stories and all of these things. We've never really gone too deep into the MCU movies and exploring the two sides of the Hulk. And now we've even gotten rid of that in the MCU where the Hulk has Bruce's mind. Do you think the MCU will explore that? Or do you want them to explore that?
Ethan: I would like them to explore that. I'd like them to bring in some more villains than just Abomination. Um, I love Abomination, but I'd like to see some more. Um, I will never shut up about the UFOs. So I want to see them. Um, I'd like to see proper leader, and I think we're going to get him in, um, the new Captain America movie is what I read. Um, but I'd like to see a proper Hulk versus Leader fight. Um, but yeah, as far as like, um, Hulking out, I think it would be interesting to see different degrees explored like, uh, the Mark Ruffalo West Savage banner. Um, and I don't mean in the what if 91 sort of way. I mean, more like actually what Savage banner is.
Guido: Yeah.
Ethan: Um, I'd like to see Joe fix it, um, but with, uh, MCU, so all sorts of fun stuff. And it would be fun to see the gray Hulk in some capacity.
Guido: Yeah, I think, uh, I'd be open to the MCU changing in this direction, but I don't think the MCU has ever dealt with psychological dilemmas in a truly deep way. I think maybe whether it's something about a movie being more entertaining to a wider audience when it doesn't probe psychology. So I don't know whether it's resistance or not. I just don't think any of the ethical dilemmas that we've ever seen our characters in have ever had something to say about human psychology. So I'd be open to that. But I see no evidence that we will ever see a story. Actually, SheHulk might be the closest in terms of just her dilemmas between people liking SheHulk more than Jennifer Walters. I think it's the closest we've come to an emotional exploration of what it means to be two people.
Ethan: Yeah, that might be the hardest of the MCU will go because they have kind of a bright image with the exception there.
Rob: Yeah. And, uh, uh, I could see that maybe now that they have this emphasis on multi M dimensions and time, maybe exploring some of the darkness of Hulk through that character right.
Guido: Through what could be.
Rob: What could be? What if the Hulk remains smart and powerful and just decided to take over the world? And you have this Maestro character and you have Mark Ruffalo play him as well, which would be a great acting challenge for an actor like that. Oh, let's have him play both characters. It's through motion capture, right? So it's a little easier, or, uh, maybe it's a lot harder. Who knows? I have no idea. But it would be different than having him be himself in both things.
Guido: But we do have the mystery of why the leader is in Captain America new world order. So it certainly could be that we are getting some World War Hulk or future imperfect stuff. Something with what you're saying. What if the Hulk was smart and stayed the Hulk? Would he be corrupted at some point? So maybe that is where we're going.
Rob: M, let's see. But in the meantime, lots of comics to read. And thank you.
Guido: Lots of Hulks to revisit with you, Ethan. Yeah, but thank you for joining us today.
Ethan: Yes, thank you for having me.
Rob: I have been Rob and I have been Guido.
Guido: And the reading list is in the show notes. And Ethan, can you tell everyone where to find you?
Ethan: You can find me on Make Mine Amalgam on Twitter, where I will be posting a lot of Marvel legends, both in my collection and, uh, my wish list of things, and even some custom.
Guido: Sometimes you play around with the make some customs.
Ethan: As far as customs are concerned. I never do, like, paints and such, right? I just do head swaps and such. And my proudest creation I'm most proud of is my Karen Page, which is basically Emma Frost dressed up as Moira McTaggert. But gosh darn it, it's Karen page to me.
Guido: That is great. So, yes.
Rob: Go.
Guido: Follow Ethan. And you can follow us on Twitter at ah, dear, watchers and leave a.
Rob: Review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.
Guido: In the meantime, in the world to watch us be pondering the possibilities.