Tag Archives: The Avengers

The Incredible Hulk Has Lost Some of the Incredible Part

Fans of comic books and some of the Marvel shows and movies have been talking about where the writers have taken the Incredible Hulk character. They compare the Ed Norton Hulk, who looks enraged while standing still, and the Eric Bana Hulk, also a rage monster, to the Mark Ruffalo Hulk, who was last seen patiently listening to his She-Hulk cousin explain how being a woman enabled her to control her anger “infinitely more” than he could.

Years ago, we talked about the first Avengers movie and the controversy of Bruce Banner appearing to be able to transform on command. The point in the movie was the wildness of the Hulk. Banner could use the Hulk’s power to a degree, but if things got out of hand, the Hulk would bring even more chaos.

In Avengers: Infinity War, the Hulk is beaten into submission right out of the gate. This takes one of the strongest characters out of the picture to make room for many others who need a few seconds of their own. The movie proceeds to follow Thanos to each of the remaining Infinity Stones and half of the time sets up an identical scenario: Thanos threatens to abuse and kill one character unless another one forfeits a stone.

But what if Thanos’s brutal beating had caused the Hulk to go wild? Initially, he would appear beaten, Thanos would leave, and the heroes would plot their defenses. Then Thanos would confront a group about the stone they’re guarding, and a wild, uncontrolled Hulk would return with more rage than ever, turning everything to chaos. It wouldn’t be repeated bad decisions that give Thanos the stones in the end. It would be the impossibly strong Avenger who couldn’t be stopped.

This movie would have villain and anti-villain with a hoard of heroes to manage both. They could even have Captain Marvel fight him. She should be able to handle him for a while. Maybe Wanda Maximoff could even save him in the end by pulling him out of his rage.

Or he could be taken by the snap, in which case he’d have to come back as Bruce to give everyone a breather.

But I guess they’ve taken that wildness away from the cinematic Hulk to make him more of a team player.

R.I.P. Diana Rigg

Dame Diana Rigg (1938-2020) died today in London. An accomplished actress whose intelligence always shone through the camera lens, she first became famous playing Emma Peel in the classic English TV series, “The Avengers” (not to be confused with the Marvel franchise; see the intro and outro credits above). She had a long and successful career, playing the only Bond girl to actually marry the spy in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” and most recently carrying a role on “Game of Thrones.”

I was desperately in love with her in her “Avengers” days. According to my reading, she was a practicing member of the Anglican Church.

Avengers: Time Runs Out series, by Jonathan HIckman

Great! Walk away! It doesn’t matter. You’ll be back.

But make sure when you do come back–because you need me–that it’s on your knees. Both of you! Repentant!

Because I can’t save any of you, unless you realize that you need saving! And that I’m the only one on this entire planet who can do it!

Avengers, Time Runs Out

In my last post on this apocalyptic Avengers series, Captain America went on a series of time jumps that appeared to clarify his moral compass. “I rescue the helpless. I raise up the hopeless.” That’s what he said. That’s what Captain America said.

And someone said to him that Tony Stark had caused a universal load of trouble for everyone and needs to be stopped.

The next set of issues, Avengers: Time Runs Out, Volume One, the story picks up eight months later, so yeah, a few gaps in the story would be fine. But why does Steve Rogers look thirty or forty years older and appear to have handed the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson (who is seen more on the character list page than any panel)? How did Thor lose his arm and what is this about being unworthy to wield Mjölnir? Did Bruce Banner take his own multiverse trip and bring back an alternate version of himself? As a casual comics reader, this is off-putting (there are other off-putting things I won’t mention).

The story told over this four volume collection doesn’t follow a linear pattern, which is mostly good. When you have so many characters doing so many things, it’s normal to tell the story slant with some flashbacks and revelations from conversations you didn’t see the first run through the timeline. Threats are reexamined and mysteries explored by characters revisiting what they understand and seeing it in new light. Hickman has an interesting, spralling story here.

But Steve Rogers is labeled the good man and life; Tony Stark is labeled the monster, death. And Rogers spends 90% of his time hunting his former friends and wanting to beat an apology out of Stark for lying about the end of the world. Stark is blamed for corrupting all reality and lying to the other Avengers that they had a chance to save Earth. “You knew we were all going to die!” Rogers charges him. “Say it! You lied about that and everything.” At one point, Rogers says that bringing the Illuminati team to justice was more important than anything else, completely forgetting that they would need to act when another planetary incursion comes. A little later he accused them of doing nothing over the last eight months to save the planet.

Of course, they had been knocking out various impossible things every day before taking an early lunch. That and running from their friends.

The story doesn’t run out at the end of Time Runs Out, Volume Four. No, sir. It just keeps going. Which is good in one sense, because the heroes had run out of options and everything actually dies. But I was left asking where was the man would not entertain necessary evils, who was committed to saving as many people as he could? When they learned of great cosmic destroyers–Rabum Alal, the Ivory Kings, the Mapmakers, and the Black Priests–how could they set that aside to blame everything on Tony Stark?

Infinite Avengers by Hickman and Yu

“I rescue the helpless. I raise up the hopeless.
“I don’t measure people’s lives. . . I save them.”

In this set of issues we reach the pivot point for the whole Infinity-Everything Dies series. The cover intends to remind readers of a scene I didn’t mention in my post New Avengers: Everything Dies, because a guy doesn’t want to give a whole story away. But I guess we have to go there now.

Infinite Avengers cover

Captain America was one of the Illuminati faced with saving Earth from incursions from alternate Earths in other universes (see first post for more). He suggested using the Infinity Gauntlet, and when that didn’t work, he argued against considering necessarily evil options. “I know you,” he said. “You’ll create a doomsday weapon on the possibility of needing it, and then, one by one, you’ll talk yourselves into using it.”

At the other members’ consent, Dr. Strange wiped his memory and sent him away.

The timeline of these issues falls at the end of the middle of the fourth set of New Avengers issues, A Perfect World. There we see Tony Stark working with bruises and a bandaged nose. He tries to roll it off as wounds from the crisis they have just been through, but the truth is Hawkeye pummeled him for getting the everyone into this cosmic mess. That fight occurred as a result of Cap remembering everything he had been encouraged to forget and accusing Stark of working with Reed Richards and the others to destroy parallel Earths in order to save ours.

And they hash it out with their fists. Boy! These supers can’t resist flexing on each other. “You know I’m right! Look at my muscles!” I guess they know the fans are watching. It isn’t any better than the argument clichés that were used here and in other issues that escalate the tension without following an argument.

But maybe that flows with the sci-fi philosophical reasoning or leaping that abounds in this story. In the midst of Avengers flexing on Iron Man, the Time Gem reappears in Cap’s hand, and in blazing light they jump forward in time to meet new, future Avengers. They start talking about timelines, traveling between space and time, time as an organism not a measurable concept — it can make you ask questions. And everyone else seems to know all about it, but hey, this is just a comic book. You need to be moving on. [Flash!]

Now that I’m writing about it, I remember that I usually dislike stories with narrating characters who calmly explain what that freak of nature actually is and why it happened to you and maybe something about purpose; if they mention a prophecy, I’m out. It’s ugly, unnatural exposition. Am I reading or watching the annotated edition of this story? But with all of the exposition in these issues, I didn’t mind it. I wanted an explanation.

Pretty sure I didn’t get one.

What Cap gets is moral clarity of a sort. He remembers who he is now, and he’s going to take his righteous standard back to that shadowy group who think they can act alone.

Infinity by Hickman, Spencer, Latour, et al

Earlier I said I was missing parts of the story being framed up in Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers series, volume two, called Infinity. That missing part was something like the whole backside of a house. I feel as if I’ve read three Longest-Day-style war stories back to back, and I’m glad I didn’t borrow this collection of issues before reading Everything Dies. While that collection begins with a page telling part of a previously told story, those details introduced the opening scene neatly. Whenever you pick up a comic book that is not issue one, you should assume you’re stepping into the middle of a story at some point.

Thanos and Infinity

Infinity by Hickman, Spencer, Latour, and many illustrators begins at issue seven in the series I’ve been reading and issue fourteen in a separate series, so yeah, if I was inclined to be lost by characters I’ve never even heard scant rumor of, then I’d be lost like the shed key I thought I put in the drawer back in October and, I assume, has since been borrowed by the little people of the house.

There’s no way to summarize this book, but I can say its plot is instigated by the loss of the infinity gems I alluded to in the other post. When the gems were used, it appears at least three powerful beings, Thanos among them, noticed immediately. War is raging through the universe, and Thanos looks over Earth and sees an opportunity to accomplish one of his life ambitions–to kill his son.

The battles are legitimately marvelous, and Captain America shines as the man who sees the winning strategy when brute force has been beaten against the wall. But sometimes the more powerful characters appear to be holding back.

One young man, maybe fifteen years old, is known by many others as having great, cosmic power, but he doesn’t know it himself. So when he has to be coached into using his strength, there’s a sense to it; when other characters use their fists until they are almost struck down before ka-booom! they let loose their unique power, I’m left wondering why they didn’t do that to begin with.

I assume this book reflects Marvel’s mythological metanarrative accurately, but that narrative may not be neatly defined. There are plenty of cosmic beings, one of whom is a beautiful woman who apparently created everything. The great enemy that brings so many disparate empires and heroes together to oppose it claims to be agents of evolution, destroyers and creators as they deem appropriate. They note they were created by the universal mother and have since rejected her. At another time, as she lay unconscious, the heroes repeat the main refrain of these books, that everything dies–men, worlds, gods, and galaxies. We’re all just dust in the wind, I suppose.

So what’s the point of it all? asks a younger team member, an Australian named Eden. “How do you make sense of it? Fate? Faith?”

Continue reading Infinity by Hickman, Spencer, Latour, et al

Brief Review of Avengers: Infinity War

We watched Avengers: Infinity War today (it appeared on Netflix last week). I don’t want to recap the plot and offer a bunch of spoilers. What’s the point of that? Three quarters of those who want to see it have already seen it. I’d just like to take a moment for a few thoughts.

  1. I still like comic book movies, but nonstop fantasy fighting gets old. Watch the Ip Man movies about the founder of Wing Chun and something of a superhero in his own right for several good, made-for-movie fights. The second season of Iron Fist had good fights too.
  2. The more power you give someone, the more difficult it is to watch him fight.
    Frank: “I can stop any attack with a mere thought.”
    Bubba: “And I’m going to shoot you in the head!”
    Frank: “Ha ha! You’ll never get –” [BANG]
    Budda: “Didn’t see that coming, didya punk!”
    [Spoiler] Did we see Thanos beat up the Hulk at the beginning? How is he breaking a sweat with these other guys? I hear that answer from the back. Convenience is correct.
  3. [Spoiler] I haven’t read many comic books, and I know there are some bad ones out there, even among the good heroes. Still I am glad to learn the plot of Avengers: Infinity War doesn’t come from the comics. The story of Thanos and his quest to save the universe from itself begins in the books at the place the movie ends, not after a massive failed attempt to stop him but after his success quest to obtain all six infinity stones without the Avengers knowing about it. That’s a lot better than the story we’re given in this movie because of one overused formula.
  4. At the very beginning we see a character say he has one of the great-and-powerful stones and he would give it up to save the life of someone else. That formula is used twice more and a third time in reverse. Did we focus group other rationales to advance the plot and them all unbelievable? That gets as old as the hour-long battles and is probably the weakest part of this movie.
  5. The parody How It Should Have Ended proved its genius again.
  6. The last thing I’ll say is long movies like this make me want to take a hike in the real world. I’m not sure my new shoes are the right thing for hiking though. Maybe I could find alternatives.

Could Skywalker be an Avenger?

Marvel’s creator Stan Lee says the people behind the Marvel cinematic universe want to make successful movies. If that means they think an ultimate fan-fic mashup like Star Wars and Avengers together will make a great movie, well . . .

“I created the Avengers by taking many of our characters and making a team out of them,” Lee tells The Big Issue. “We can have as many characters join the Avengers as we want to for future movies. That might be fun, all of a sudden Luke Skywalker is an Avenger!”

Heh. I mean, if we’re talking  fan fiction here, why not something like this?

And in news that’s not even remotely possible to be related, superhero sit-coms are coming.

Death of an Avenger

Yesterday was notable, aside from a Supreme Court decision with which I strongly disagree, in seeing the death of a man who has been a major influence on my life (and who probably wouldn’t have been at all pleased to know it, from what I know of his social views).

Patrick Macnee (1922-2015) is best remembered as the only permanent star of what I consider one of the greatest TV series ever produced, the BBC series The Avengers (not to be confused with the Marvel Comics books and movies). The Avengers appeared on American TV just as I was entering an uncomfortable adolescence, and left me with an enduring love for slender, auburn-haired women (Diana Rigg), and three-piece suits (Macnee).

Yes, it was a breakthrough show for a trope I’m now thoroughly sick of – the delicate little woman who beats up 200-lb men in groups – but it was new and interesting back then, and hey, it was Diana Rigg. I was desperately in love with her.

The show was not intended to be what it eventually became, the spritely, half-comic show we remember. It started in 1961 as a gritty, realistic program. It was a spin-off of a series called Police Surgeon, starring actor Ian Hendry. In the first episode of The Avengers, his character, Dr. David Keel, loses his fiancée, murdered by drug dealers. He is recruited by a shadowy semi-official character named John Steed (Macnee) to help him apprehend the criminals. Keel signs on enthusiastically (it’s his way to “avenge” the woman he loved), but is often put off by the ruthless methods of Steed, who at this stage was as much a thug as a charmer, and had no distinctive style of dress. Continue reading Death of an Avenger

Which of Marvel’s Avengers Is the Best?

Here’s a good example of this blog’s need for a politics category. Here’s a post ranking all the Avengers according to their value to the team. For example, The Wasp comes in at #3. “If Captain America epitomizes the Avengers, Janet Van Dyne is still its heart and soul. She was a founding member, has led the team through some of its most difficult moments, and has the unequivocal respect of gods, robots, and the most powerful beings in the cosmos. Marvel actually put it best when it said if the Avengers were asked to rank themselves, The Wasp would likely be #1.”

The Incredible Hulk, More Werewolf than Hero

I wish I could say I thought of this myself, and maybe I did (along with you), but I never articulated it, so I can’t take credit even on my own blog.

The typical scenario Dr. Bruce Banner finds himself in, at least on film, is being the victim of gang abuse. Wrong place, wrong time or maybe he chose to stand up to someone who responded with a gaggle of thugs. They beat on him or kick him down an elevator shaft, and he hulks out.

That’s the rage-monster-as-hero idea, but Banner/Hulk is more complicated than that, as these guys point out in the middle of a long list of interesting details on Marvel’s The Avengers. If you’ve seen the movie, note #13-14. Joss Whedon sees the big guy as the beast Banner is trying to contain.

I saw a wag, making cracks about this movie, laugh at how convenient it is that Banner can control his power just when the story calls for it, but he’s missing the point. Whedon’s Hulk isn’t one who can’t be summoned; he’s one who can only barely be contained. In this movie, Banner knew he was holding a very dangerous hair trigger. He isn’t telling us, “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” He’s telling us, “Let’s keep things under control, because when I get pushed over the edge, very bad things can happen.”