Thursday, February 26, 2015

Kind of want to go back to the B-plot...


I don't know if this quite qualifies as halfway plot switch, but I kinda wanted to see this thread more than the main one! Not that the main one was bad, but still...from 2008, Hulk vs. Hercules #1, "Smash of the Titans" Written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente, art by Khoi Pham, Paul Neary, Dennis Calero, Eric Nguyen, Reilly Brown, Carlos Cuevas, Terry Pallot, Chris Sotomayor, Bob Layton, and Guru EFX.

Athena is trying to advise young genius Amadeus Cho, who's lost faith in the Hulk but gained it in Herc, that maybe he shouldn't. She tells him a story, from when the Hulk was a mindless brute roaming the extra-dimensional Crossroads (and Dale just covered the last issue of that stretch the other day!) and the goddess Gaea sends him to Olympus! (Athena as much as says Gaea is crazy and spiteful, but Athena seems to badmouth just about everyone.) Ares and Athena have a run-in with the Hulk, who is taken in by the Titans Callias and Zeno, who may have been horrible monsters at one point but were beaten, pathetic, and kind of OK guys now. Still, the Titans convince the Hulk to attack Olympus, and Herc is called in to stop him...

...interrupting his Unlimited Class Wrestling match for charity at Madison Square Garden! Having trounced every super-strong wrestler on the undercard, Hercules throws down with Ben Grimm, the Thing himself! Sadly, there's not enough time this issue for the Thing's match to go on past this page. The rest of the issue goes back to Olympus, where the Titans are revolting, and Hercules goes straight to murdertown on them. Mindless but relatively innocent, the Hulk is dismayed at the carnage, and the spell he was under at the time sends the unhappy brute back to the Crossroads. Athena tells Amadeus that maybe Herc might be as much a monster as the Hulk, maybe worse; and Herc seems to scowl over at them over his drink. Also this issue: the return of Demogorge, who's apparently part of Gaea's ongoing "kill the previous gods to see what comes next" plan.

Great issue...maybe not as good as a solid issue of Hercules wrestling the Thing, but still.

3 comments:

  1. Thx for the shout-out;)

    dude, the wrestling match really is the better of the two plots.
    Seeing herc use reall wrestling moves....awesome.
    I swear after that gut kick, I though he was gonna use th Stone Cold Stunner on Ben.

    Now why doesn't this become a regular thing? That could be a whole new event into itself.

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  2. This may not be as true as it used to, but a comic shop guy told me once, when Marvel grabs onto a fad, you know it's officially over. (Exhibit A, Dazzler.) The Unlimited Class Wrestling stuff in old Thing comics probably qualifies, although wrestling has gone in and out of fashion many times since.

    By sheer happenstance, I just bought a $2 wrestling ring at Walmart. It may be headed for Toys for Tots, since I know I have one...

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  3. Man, the Titans are ALWAYS revolting!

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