I've been on record as being against the dilution of characters by introducing too many offshoots. Batman and The Hulk are two of the biggest offenders these days. Batman is now incorporated and the Hulk now has Red Hulk, Skarr, She-Hulk. Savage She-Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Doc Samson, A-Bomb and more following in his wake. It strikes me as a lack of inventiveness and risk taking by creators much in the same way that most big budget movies seem to be remakes, sequels or TV show adaptations. That said, I have to admit I have enjoyed some of the stories that Red Hulk (or "Rulk") has appeared in and he admittedly has a very cool visual. I enjoy the powerful art of Ed McGuiness as well, so I thought I would give this cover a shot. So, OK - he's not such a bad character after all. Still, I'd like to see some more entirely new comic concepts show up in the future.
Dave sez,
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing abour Batman, is, for a guy who is SUPPOSED to be basically a LONER, a LOOSE CANNON at that, how can he have a "family" let alone be Incorporated. He is supposed ot be an urban legend, a myth.
I haven't picked up a Hulk comic book in years. I read that Peter David did some cool stuff with the character as Grey Hulk and Mr. Fix-it; and there was the Hulk-Busters...
I guess reboots and retcons are supposed to give things a fresh start...
I myself cannot understand the Batman Incorporated concept (I do find the AFRICAN Bat-Wing intriguing, but why couldn't he just be a new Black superhero unconnected to Batman?). Makes no sense.
ReplyDelete....oh yeah, awesome cover!
ReplyDeleteThe crazy thing about relying on so many Hulk spin-offs is that for decades there have been other gamma-induced characters at Marvel that were nothing like the Hulk. There was also a logical consistency to the effect. Cold fish Banner became the rage-fueled Hulk; an anonymous manual laborer became the Leader; a spy (who relies on stealth) became the hard-to-hide Abomination; a cerebral psychiatrist became strongman Doc Samson; and demure victim Betty Ross became the Harpy. Gamma rays became Marvel's answer to Red Kryptonite, only instead of giving different powers to the same hero it turns different humans into their super-powered opposite. Not only is it unimaginative to just clone the Hulk over and over, it crowds out an already existing and more creative gimmick that could have and should have been exploited more.
ReplyDeleteWell put.
ReplyDeleteHulk has also Gamma Corps - group of people ho had a grudge against him that general Ryker injected with DNA of Hulk, his allies and enemies. They faded into obscurity rather quickly after World War Hulk (also, my insane thought proces: Wolrd War Hulk -> Planet Hulk. This Blog -> Batman and Hulk crossover. Planet Hulk + Batman and Hulk Crossover -> Planet Batman. I have to write a fan fiction about Batman being shot in space and conquering alien planet now).
ReplyDeleteAs for Red Hulk, I started to like him once Jeff Parker took the writing duties and taught the character a little humility.
As for more original new characters, I noticed that creators preffer to use them on their own, separated or at least creator-owned series. And even if they do, they like to tie them to pre-existing characters just in case (like Amadeus Cho, who is completely original character but was quickly connected with Hulk and Hercules. And it worked, I have to say).
Through of course original characters still appears and there's quite a lot of interesting comics with them, if I would go for recommendations there are Runaways, New Mutants vol.2, later renamed New X-Men vol.2, Avengers the Initiative, Secret Warriors and current Avengers Academy, all of them did wonders with new characters who mostly weren't based on pre-existing ones, too bad that after they ended most of them has fallen into obscurity and no writer wants to pick them up. I fear that once Avengers Academy and X-Men's Generation Hope will end, same will happen with their cast. Same applies to some of new DC series, especially the likes of Blackhawks (haven't read that one yet so I don't know what relation they are with original Blackhawks, probably pretty loose).
Back to characters based on pre-existing ones. The main concern for me was always not that those characters are uroginal, but how hard is for them to step out of their "paren't" shadow. Even the good ones - how many people think that Beta Ray Bill is just a Thor with horse's head? It's pretty hard for a writer to put out and sell character with a problem, I sometimes wonder if they don't try it as a form of challenge - if you can make character who is immiediately seen as watered down version of more popular one, then you probably can sell everything.