"My gamble on his baby’s emotions came through like a champ!"
Wednesday morning, at the shop before we opened, waiting for the UPS shipment of new comics, I listened to the Negativland album Dispepsi. Twice.
Now that’s how you start your New Comics Day.
How not to start it…arguing with someone via the e-mail over the allegedly high cost of my shipping a book to Germany. One, the book is big ‘n’ heavy, and two, I’m in the U.S., and you’re IN GERMANY…how cheap did you think it was going to be? Plus, at this point the only way I could ship it any more cheaply is to do away with any packaging whatsoever and just slap a mailing label right on the book itself.
Dear Marvel:
RE: World War Hulk #1…so far, so good. Almost lost me by introducing the Sentry, a character I couldn’t care less about, into the series right away, but if all he’s there for is to give the Hulk someone else to punch, I suppose I can live with it. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Sentry’s actually going to play some major role in the story’s resolution, which will be unfortunate, but What Can You Do?
However, the promise of the series (Hulk returns to Earth to kick the ass of everyone who’s done him wrong) has played out just dandy so far, with the Hulk laying a beatdown on the one “hero” who probably deserves it the most. It’s a good, solid, simple premise (and if folks hadn’t read “Planet Hulk,” the brief exposition provided nicely gets everyone up to speed), which I have a hard time imagining that even you, Marvel, could screw up.
Not saying you won’t screw it up, of course, but hopefully it won’t go off the rails until after we all get some quality Hulk funnybook action.
Yes, this all entirely lowbrow. But sometimes, no matter how sophisticated an “illustrated graphic storytelling” fan you may be, sometimes you just gotta read a comic about the Hulk smashing.
And that’s okay.
Just try not to screw it up, for at least a little while.
Love, Mike
Just a few random panels from Avengers #105 (Nov 1972) by Steve Englehart, John Buscema & Jim Mooney:
Some heroic determination from Iron Man, back when he was a hero:
The best defeat of a villain ever:
And Thor pasting some bad guy in the puss, which is always quality:
