The year is 2010. I'm Dave. I'm Zach. I'm Charlotte. And this is My Marvelous Year. And welcome to My Marvelous Year, the podcast and reading club where we go through the history of Marvel Comics from its origins to today. It's 2010 Part 2. Today we will be covering the fall of the Hulks. I'm Dave Busing, founder and editor-in-chief of ComicBookHerald.com. I am joined today for the fall of the hulks by an individual who somehow got even cooler.
than he was before and now goes exclusively he started dying his hair blue and he goes exclusively by z-bomb it's zach z-bomb dean how's it going z it's good thank you I was just talking. Is that your cool voice? Yeah. Oh, hey, it's cool. I'm good. I was just talking about a party last night. Someone had dyed their hair. And we were talking about... our history of dying hair. And I have dyed my hair once in my life. What color do you think? That's a good question. I'm going to go purple.
Charlotte, any guesses? I'm kind of in the same realm. I would say pink, actually. Okay. Dave, you're going to guess? I said purple. Purple. No. I thought you had maybe like a punk, kind of like goth, like punk rock face. When I was 12 years old, I dyed it pitch black. Oh, okay.
When I was 12, I had like... Wait, there's an emo Zack era and we don't, we've never heard about it? No, no, no. It was worse than that. When I was 12, I had like really like light blonde hair. It was like now I've got kind of dark blonde hair. It was because I wanted to dress like Sting, the wrestler for Halloween, who has pitch black hair. And so I dyed my hair black. I didn't dye my eyebrows black, but because I had like white.
blonde eyebrows. It did look like I just didn't have eyebrows anymore. You were like a Norwegian death metal. Like black metal. Like, leave guitarist. I mean, Sting has paint over his eyebrows, so, you know, you had to look down. That one night, I looked good, and then I went to school the next day, and I had pitch black hair. Well, and the funniest thing, though... I was betting it was, like, a Halloween thing.
It was Halloween, but the funny thing is Zach thought he was going as Sting from the police. So Zach shows up and he's like, Wee-oh! Wee-oh! And everybody's like, why did you dye your hair? Like the wrestler. No, 12-year-olds all... Got it. 12-year-olds love the police. 12-year-olds love the police. 12-year-olds, they're like, message in a bottle. Your whole 12-year-old class. Yeah, exactly.
Okay, that's pretty good. The only time I dyed my hair was I got frosted tips. Got frosted tips in junior high. Went with the old blonde streaks on brown. That's incredible. Listen, I looked so cool, but I was so immediately embarrassed that I didn't like it. The second they grew back out, I was like, cut these off, please. It was like 30 days of trying to conceal how frosted my tips were, even though I look cool as hell. Who's the other person on the podcast, Dave? Dave.
You didn't even introduce her. You're right. You're right. Okay. We are joined by another individual. Since I'm introduced. We now know she infiltrated My Marvelous Year as a part of the French intelligentsia in a long-running scheme. to undermine how powerful Z-Bomb and I were becoming. Recently, she's come under fire within the French intelligentsia for insisting that all of their new Hulk creations come with huge red cleavage.
The rest of the organization doesn't see the benefit, but she keeps insisting giant red cleavage must happen. It's Charlotte Fierro. How's it going, Charlotte? It's going great. I mean, you know, the fact that they don't see the benefit to it, just like... makes very evident that my intellect is far superior to theirs. I mean, yeah, I know what I like. Oh, and to answer your question, the one time I dyed my hair was black.
Also, for Halloween, I was playing Marceline from Adventure Time. Also what? Also Sting. Yeah, I was also playing Sting. All right. Heck yeah. Marceline, that's fun. That's a good costume. Yeah. Basically just how I dressed day to day. Just had to put makeup and dark hair. That's the perfect costume. Can I start this episode out? We're talking Fall of the Hulks. Yes, we are. But what they should have called this episode is because I read these comics and they were so, I mean, bad, boring.
Like some of the least enjoyable. And it's all we covered, right? There's no silver lining. this episode there's nothing masking this yeah right i'm quitting the podcast over this so we should call it fall the hunks because this podcast is now I'm no longer here. All the hunks are going to leave. Oh, no. Now, we are going to have to... And all our listeners who are also hunks, you know.
It's true. That's true. I mean, you are the producer, so it's going to be a little awkward for you, Zach, but you're going to have to insert the sound of cheering and crowds going bananas when you say I'm leaving the podcast because I was hearing that just now outside my window. Okay, no. I don't want to lose any hunks. I don't want to lose any Z-bombs over this. I think, listen, I saw Fall of the Hulks on the list myself, and I thought, really? I thought, really? Did I? Do we?
Is it necessary? There are a few fairly essential things that happen here, okay? So not only is it a giant Hulk crossover, but like... There's kind of some important stuff happening within Fall of the Hulks. Is that? We'll get to it, Charlie. How dare you? How dare you question that? No, there actually is. There's a couple things that bug me.
in other comics, where I'm like, when did that happen? And the answer is Fall of the Hulks. Now, I think it's been since 2008 that we checked in on the Hulks. Right? So, like, we took a whole year off. I gave you all a whole year off, nine parts, to not have to read any Jeff Loeb, Red Hulk. Okay? And I don't hear a peep of thanks. I don't hear, thank you, daddy.
I don't hear, Big Daddy, we love you. I don't hear, I'm so grateful for you, Big Daddy. It's true. I'll happily pick up my... Wait, what? What are we talking about? No, no. We took a whole year off. Here's the issue of you saying that. I feel like the Slack is going to get inundated with people messaging you these messages now. We're going to have a thank you, Big Daddy. Frankly, as they should, there should be more thank you, Big Daddies.
We took a lot of time off. We're going to check back in. Last we saw the Hulks, we were reading what I deemed the dumbest Marvel comics we've ever read in Hulk number one to six, 2008 Jeff Loeb, Ed McGinnis. That is the debut of the Red Hulk. Not much has changed, except, you know, there's a lot of recapping in this Fall of the Hulks crossover. It's actually quite good at catching you up.
I like the intro pages on these where they just do like four blocks of like, here's what happened. Here's who's important. Okay. I want to start with what I like because I can tell. I can tell. You two are on edge. It's the main thing. You're going to come for me. I like the intelligentsia. It's a great idea. I like the idea of the smartest Marvel supervillains, the supervillain geniuses.
all working together throughout history to shape the Marvel Universe in such a way that they can control it and ultimately enact their grand plan. Now... Am I a little upset that their grand plan is the stupidest thing I've ever read? A little bit. A little bit. Okay. But I love the idea of the leader, the wizard, mad thinker, the guy with the monkeys. Red Ghost. Red Ghost. Yep. Egghead. Flippin' Egghead. And Dr. Doom as like an on-the-side benefactor. Right?
Like, separate. A side piece, if you will. Well, but, like, they're his side piece. Right? That's true. Yeah. You know? Yeah, only Dr. Doom would have a whole team of side pieces. A whole team of side pieces. And... And, like, they're plotting, and you get the issues that Jeff Parker writes, the Fall of the Hulks alpha, I think it is, which is also how I label myself on Bumble.
Speaking of hunks. Anyway, I love that. I love the intelligentsia. They're plotting. They're planning. They're behind the scenes. Apparently, they're the reason Venom exists. We don't talk about that. That's a funny little detail. Yeah, yeah, please. I agree with you.
about that first issue because it's like follow the hulk's alpha right is just setting up like what's happening in the background with the intelligentsia and reading that first issue i'm like okay it sounds like this is a good little intro for these villains i get it Like, maybe this won't be so bad after all. Yeah, so that... It tricks you. It's a good trick, right? Yeah, yeah. The small sliver of hope that I got from that.
That we all live with. The highlight. In early 2025. Of this whole run. Yeah. Yeah, because otherwise... It's weird because it does set up that and then... I mean, can I just say, the worst thing about this arc... I think, is how convoluted it is. It's so, like, it's a relatively short event, but if you, like, at some point, I started skimming through this, and I was like, I...
You know, like, I can't spend this much of my brain on these stupid comics. And I just, like, went to the Wikipedia page. Neither could Jeff Lowe. So fair. Yeah, I was going to say, that's what he said when he was writing that. And the Wikipedia page also is like... unintelligible with how like it lists every detail and every plot point of this and you're like uh yeah i mean just mind numbing how many like twists and turns there are here
and like nonsensical there's no sense of threat in i mean god i have so many issues with this uh okay i want to i want to talk about why are there so many hulks Hang on. Start there. Yeah, we'll get to that. Okay, we'll get to that. I want to talk about what you're talking about up front, though, the structural piece of this, right? So let's make this make sense. Fall of the Hulks is a crossover.
within basically the hulk line of comics right so we get a couple kickoff comics fall the hulk's alpha fall the hulk's gamma um which that's actually what i call my grandma we called her fall the hulk's gamma um we uh that's too good uh yeah we um there's then the expand it spreads between hulk starting with issue 19 through 21, then Incredible Hulk's, which has gone, Incredible Hulk has rebranded. It became Incredible Hulk's. And it's still written by Greg Pak. Remember him? Planet Hulk?
World War Hulk. So it's like, it's a classic crossover. There's tie-ins, Fall the Hulks, Red Hulk, Fall the Hulks, the Savage She-Hulks, okay? And it's trying to do what the X-Men did in the late 80s and say... Hey, we can have Hulk crossovers, right? Planet Hulk, hit. World War Hulk, hit. Red Hulk comics, I guess, selling, even though they're awful, right? And they're trying to do a crossover. And what you wind up with, like you said, it's very convoluted.
Okay, it's extremely convoluted. I mean, I think there's a ton of stuff that we're going to talk about in terms of like, who are all these hulks? There's so many of them at this point. There's two, you know, threads. There's the Jeff Loeb, Ed McGinnis. Red Hulk thread in the pages of Hulk. And then there's the Greg Pak, like, maybe best Hulk run of all time stuff, continuing in Incredible Hulks. You know? So you have, on one side... Best Hulk run of all time? Really? You think?
If you start with Planet Hulk and you follow the thread through all his stuff, it's just, it's so broken up. I mean, first off, like, let's start here. Best run of Hulk. You know, I haven't even. Best Hulk run of all time is like not. It's not like a heavily crowded field. Right? Immortal Hulk is pure David. Well, I wasn't even counting Immortal Hulk. I feel like that's cheating. That's so obvious. It hasn't happened yet. I'm saying to this point. To this point.
Because you have Peter David on the book forever, but that run to me is so spread out, and there are various points where I'm like, this is probably some of the best stuff, but then if you count it as a whole. But yeah, I mean, you know, basically it's like, all right, it's the early 60s stuff, Peter David or Pac, you know? Anyway, it's in the conversation at least.
I think. And I think when you read Incredible Hulk, this is somebody who has put a lot of work into writing and understanding Bruce Banner and writing Hulk comics. This is somebody who cares about this franchise, right? Planet Hulk was awesome. And... and this is somebody who's still playing with those seeds, yet they have to do it in a field where the person they're co-writing a crossover with is like, hey, what if we made everybody a Hulk?
right like and that's it's just this these diametrically opposed approaches i think butting heads um because i still like what pox doing in incredible hulks
I think those are fine comics. They're just in the middle of a quagmire. Charlotte, we've been talking this whole time. I want to hear from you. What did you make of all the Hulks? Anything we've said so far? Jump on it. I would agree that... what pack is doing is pretty funny it made me want to it made me wish we'd read that instead of red hulk maybe yeah but i think the thing that is it's less flashy like
Scar is less, I don't know, high concept than Red Hulk. It's the Hulk, but he's red. But I think Scar has more potential as a character. than Red Hulk does? Have we talked about Scar before? Nope. I don't think we have, no. Give the people a little Scar history. So... In the early 90s, Disney put out a movie that was called Lion King. No, sorry. I think Scar is the son of... uh not jerella but the woman hulk is with in world war hulk who's not jerella korea korea i think
And he's essentially mad at Hulk for killing his word, I think. His word, I think. I haven't actually read what happens before. No, you're right. So, you know, at the end of Planet Hulk, the planet blows up, right? It's a car. And it kills Hulk's wife, and that's what prompts World War Hulk. Scar is still born, okay? Even though Hulk's wife died, his son is still born. But Scar blames Hulk for the destruction that happened on Scar.
So now he wants revenge and wants to kill Hulk, except Bruce can't turn into Hulk anymore because of something Red Hulk did. So he's just hanging out with Bruce Banner. Yeah, waiting for him to turn back into Hulk to get his revenge. It's like father, son, but Scar won't kill him because he's not yet the Hulk he wants to kill. He's like, this isn't, it wouldn't be honorable. It wouldn't be appropriate to kill you. Yeah. Yep.
That's very strange. That's essentially the story of Scar from what we've seen. Can I put out all the other Hulks we have here? Because there's just so many Hulks and I don't get the impulse. It dilutes Hulk, right? To have this many ultra-powerful...
Like, just physically strong people. Because there's Red Hulk, there's Green Hulk, obviously. There's Cosmic Hulk, who's actually just like a Hulk bot infused with cosmic energy. Galactus made Hulk bot, I think. No, it's an Eternals thing from like the 70s, which is...
surprising yeah yeah yeah it actually has been around for like 50 years but i think jeff parker does a nice a nice eternals lore pull with the intelligentsia honestly um he he makes that he makes that stuff kind of interesting because that's the intelligentsia they're like
They're getting the libraries of Alexandria as this mythical database that'll give them all this intelligence. But then they also pull from the internals, yeah, this Galactus-made cosmic Hulk robot that is, as they repeat many times, stronger than the Hulk.
which whatever that means like at this point um yeah there's scar there's um betsy betsy betty ross i always forget which one she is betty betty ross is now hulky um rick resurrected blue hulk boy for some yeah and weirdly it's like in the episode episode in the issue with uh her father's funeral it
She just shows up to the funeral, right? And, like, I just was very confused at the lack of... Well, she shows up to the tombstone, secretly. Because people still think she's dead. Okay. Yeah, because Bruce sees her later and is... Kind of. Sorry. In a scene where Bruce is going down the street in a parade for Scar, because Scar's been kind of a hero on Earth, he sees Betty in the crowd, and he's like, Betty! And he goes running after her, but he can't.
catch her in the crowd and she vanishes and read yeah i think it's read is there and it's like bruce you're seeing things she's dead which is like read come on like in curious mind but bruce is like read richard famously Not open to alternate explanations of things. Right. Famously single-minded. He's like, it might have been a clone or a robot version.
of betty if you saw one and bruce is like no no reed i'm wearing my my scanners that i have all the time and it's the exact physical elemental composition of betty ross uh i checked her hormonal patterns and her like body comp and also that smile just can't be replicated It's like, what are you talking about? In your glasses? Like, you just are scanning everyone? It's very strange. Can you imagine dating this man? The best... Yeah, right. The best thing about that scene is...
Bruce seeing Betty is a watcher appearing worthy moment. The watcher appears to signal that this is a huge moment. The watcher has never been more obtrusive. Has the watcher ever been more abused? Ever. But he also just slams down into the middle of a parade just to like, and everyone's like, oh my God, what's the watcher doing here? They're like, he's looking at Bruce. He's looking at Bruce. He's watching the...
He's watching Desperate Housewives and they're like, what? But she's dead. What's happening? That's like... Yeah, that's true. Thank you for calling that out. We need to write this down as the single worst use of the water. Watcher to signify an essential event. Oh, and by the way. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. I was going to say, this is worse than the Red Hulk even beating up the Watcher.
Because that was just that was insane and dumb. This is actually more annoying to me because it's using him in the typical he showed up for an important moment thing. And it's the dumbest thing you've ever seen.
and single most single worst watch a moment maybe single was doom uh story you've ever seen oh my god there's there's doesn't give a doom butt out to it uh it's doom has a rough full of the hulks uh it's we've never seen him like this okay how did you and this is why we have to read this event that doom moment is like yeah it does the worst does doom so dirty I mean, it's honestly kind of funny, but it's so strange. He's fighting Cosmic Hulk, because I think the intelligentsia wants to frame.
They want to frame the Hulk into, like, that he attacked Latveria. But then Bruce just shows up and Doom, I think, like, peels the mask off the robot. And then he goes to kill Scar in baby form. because isn't scar like scar's just like a little kid when he's because a kid yeah yeah um but anyway bruce bruce like six cosmic hulk on him or something and like sends him flying off into the horizon like team rocket style
And Bruce gets like, they're trying to make Bruce Banner seem really cool compared to Dr. Doom. And he, this is right after Breaking Bad took off and is huge. So he literally says to Doom, say my name. And then. As Doom goes flying into the horizon, he goes, Banner! It's so lame. Like, to humiliate Doctor Doom like this, to make Bruce Banner look cool? And also just to do an explicit Breaking Bad reference, like...
two years after that episode came out. Okay, so you're right that that is in and of itself awful. What you may have missed... and this is something that i missed and is super confusing is it's actually even worse than all of that because not only is this sequence written to make
Doctor Doom looked like a dweeb at the expense of making Bruce Banner cool. Which, I gotta say, like, it's a skill. Making comics is hard. But, like, you can't, if you're playing in this playground... it's not that like doctor doom can't take an l but like you can't undo decades of mystique and and power you know and just like understanding of a character
to emphasize the one that you have to keep writing you know what i mean like it really does dirty the idea of these shared universes anyway that's all awful i hate that what makes it worse is that in this fight it's quickly And almost under the radar revealed that Cosmic Hulk slipped Doctor Doom a dumb pill. The intelligentsia snuck in a dumb pill.
that made Doctor Doom dumb and forget how to use his armor. Now you may be thinking, okay, it's part of a, just a bad... bad scene for dr doom who it like charlotte said and somehow forgot he has doom bots before he even took the dumb pill right somehow this is actually doom uh which it never is which is maybe john burns best addition to the marvel universe
is like, it's always a Doom bot, basically. You know, like that kind of always works. Anyway, they sneak him a Dumb Pill. This is going to have huge ramifications for Dr. Doom. The Dumb Pill doesn't go away. Really? It's not temporary. It's not temporary. So just remember that when we get to Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four, he has to write around the intelligentsia gave Dr. Doom a dumb pill. Okay? That's going to stick.
I feel like it's a moment of silence. All this feels so inessential. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. All this feels so. No, I'm crying, but my mic still works. That you could just ignore this and move on. from anything that happens here, because I do kind of feel like... Yeah, it's insane that Hickman felt the need to respond to it, right? I know. I mean, this is like the first two issues we're talking about.
so much like there's time travel in this there's so many uh like backstabs and double crosses all the hulks that are in there oh right because there's betty ross there's a rick jones he's blue now and then like he also just weaves in a lot of like strong guys right like Titania and Bruce Banner has a daughter Lyra here right Lyra yeah Lyra um
And who else are we forgetting? We got Thundra in the mix. Doc Samson? Doc Samson is working with the intelligentsia for some reason. Yeah, for unknown reasons. I literally felt... I was like, did I miss something? Why is he... Bad now. They're doing a weird Jekyll and Hyde thing with him where he has like, it's like the evil side of him is in control or something. Fall of the Hulks is a classic. Did I miss something?
crossover. You will read every issue and you will jump into the next one and you will constantly be thinking, did I miss something? That is just how it is constructed. It is not tight. It is not careful. And it is not good, unfortunately. Again, I love the premise. I love the idea of the intelligentsia. Apparently, they spent decades.
bring MODOK into the wings at one point. They spent decades getting all this knowledge and working out this plan. And the plan is we're going to turn, we're going to make everybody dumb. by making them all hulks. Kidnap all the, yeah, the weakest. The big, I mean, the reveal. No, that's it. I mean, that's it. It is just... doing Bendis' Illuminati, but for bad guys, except...
None of the actual good ones, because that's already the Cabal. That's already Norman Osborn's guys. And Loeb kind of has to do that with... whoever's left um well and it's a little playful right like it's it's actually like kind of a fun group because you know we don't take the mad thinker that seriously we don't take
read Ghost that seriously so I think that's what like Jeff Parker writes the first issue and Jeff Parker writes Agents of Atlas that's a creator who like knows how to have a little bit of fun and silliness in the Marvel universe you know yeah There's a world where this as the B-tier or offshoot cabal is a pretty entertaining group, I think. But they're really...
It's like they're just weirdly behind the scenes. Honestly, once MODOK joins the group, he kind of becomes like the guy. Like it's kind of like the leader in MODOK. We don't really see the rest of the gang too much. Doctor Doom, the second he gets what he needs, you know. says to hell with you right which is expected um which is why they slip him the dumb pill for revenge but uh yeah it's just and then the whole plan is like the whole plan is like we need follow the hulks to build to
the next crossover, which is World War Hulks, because everyone's a Hulk now. Am I the only one who read World War Hulk? No, I kept going too, just because it's like...
If not now, then when? Yeah, Zach, I'm sure you got out the second you could. It doesn't get... It's not like it gets... Listen, it doesn't get better. To me, the interesting stuff... that continues through this run is just like what it means for bruce what it means for red hulk because we haven't touched on this one of the craziest things about follow the hulks and world war hulks
is finally in like issues 20, we do get the Red Hulk identity revealed officially. Which has to happen. Someone explain to me how they reveal this because I know it, but I... I mean, we're going to spoil it. It's Thunderbolt Ross, right? Yeah. It's General Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross. How does that get revealed and squared with him getting murdered and buried, like, in a bunch of... Oh, it's a fake body.
It's just a fake body. It's a fake body. Why didn't I think that? So the actual big reveal is Red She-Hulk beats him up and he turns back to his form and she's like... No, I can't kill you because you're my dad. That's all it is. And then there's a whole issue of flashbacks of him getting to that point. And it is... I mean, I don't know if it's just because I already knew who he was, but it's just a big nothing of a reveal, both the actual reveal and the going back to explain it. Also...
It could have been just one big thing. They changed the name of the event, but if you just read for the Hulk, there's no ending to it. It's just, oh, and now all the heroes are turned into hoax. That's the end, I guess. No, it's not. It's just that guest result. in World War Hulks. It's so cynical. I mean, it's such a... I don't... I mean, it's one of the things that fans hate, and I hate it as well, is like marketing and branding.
being the core like the main point of the story you know what i mean like it's it's all just like oh follow the hulks and if you buy all these then we'll set you up for war for world war hulks and you're just kind of in this cycle of like, I guess I gotta buy them all. But it's like, it's all just like one big story. It's all just the Hulk comics you've been reading to that point, you know? Like it's just got a label on it and it's got some spinoffs.
Regarding Red Hulk and the Thaddeus Ross reveal, it feels, I don't know, I guess maybe it's one of those things where it's like, well, I know it, so I can't unshake knowing it. But man, taking 20 plus issues to do a reveal, like this is just, like this is the case study. for how not to do a secret identity, for how not to do a mystery in superhero comics, is dragging it out forever. Having a whole issue, and like we've had multiple moments, but like a whole issue of Thaddeus Ross's funeral.
Which, like, I do not care about that man. Like, shouts to Ben Grimm for getting up at the funeral and being like, ah, he's kind of weird, wasn't he? Bad timing, Ben. Bad timing. But... Like the whole issue. And it's just like, it's a drag and it's boring. And it's all just like working so hard to red herring that this is who it is. And it's like, by the time you get to H23, you don't care. Your reaction is just, oh, finally.
Right. And it's you want a mystery to be cool. You don't want a mystery to be exhausting. And that's all this is, you know, because it's like nothing really changes. The thing that I like that Fall of the Hulk adds to this is I do like the intelligentsia. being the ones who kind of craft and shape Red Hulk, and that it's a deal that Ross makes with them. I actually, again, I think there's potential in that relationship. The fact that it's like...
He goes to these evil masterminds, and they think he's going to be their puppet, essentially, and then the Red Hulk breaking out of that. I'm okay with all that. I think that works. But again, that's like retroactive flashback story. It's not really.
It was never a part of the plan, right? It's just now it gets tacked. Yeah, which his whole plan was he beats up the Watcher. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, the other big thing that happens by the end of World War Hulks is, you know... shocker like you did if you haven't been reading to this point you didn't even know but like bruce couldn't hulk out well he can hook out again right like that's that's basically what these events achieve
I think, is basically bringing back Green Hulk, giving him some, putting some respect on his name, again, that he can actually hold his own and hang with the Red Hulk. But again, these are like... Witch Hulk can beat Witch Hulk type arguments, which is not a story. Yeah. It's not narrative, you know, and it's kind of just, it's a whole lot of like resetting and reshuffling and.
We got Thunderbolt as Red Hulk, and we got Betty now as a Hulk, and it's like, if you've ever been a character in Hulk, you're going to be a Hulk, right? And it's like... And, like, the Hulk needs to be, you know, not to be a little precious about, like... mandating what like a character historically has to be but like for the hulk to work out he does have to like lean into that planet of the hulk world where hulk like he is just the strongest right like he can't be one of eight like
really strong guys here uh ended to have this many like i don't know i'm not that opposed to like having another one other hulk you know that has a totally different vibe but like They don't. They just kind of keep, like, piling them up. And it does mean that, like, my Hulk feels a lot less, like, special in this world, right? Because even when, like, Immortal Hulk later, which, no spoilers, keeps a lot of those, like, alternate...
hulks around you still feel like yeah but like there's the hulk right like there's the hulk and there's everyone else who you know doesn't stand a chance um i think it kind of also she hulk is like done pretty dirty here i think she hulk is very boring throughout this um yeah who is dead and revived or something like i feel like i missed something you know that's we're just saying that a lot jen walters i don't think she had died recently We see Betty kill her.
But maybe it's not the real Jen. And then, like, Lyra finds her in a tube. Right, yeah. Close enough to get what exactly happened. That's where I was like, why is she tubed up? Yeah. Okay. Anyway. Here's what Wikipedia says. At some point after World War Hulk, Jennifer was brought before the living tribunal. This is...
This is happening in the She-Hulk comics, I guess. Yeah, yeah. But I just like when Wikipedia plot says, at some point, we don't know when. We can't be bothered to track that one down. Yeah, for sure. Or there's no real good answer. Yeah, I mean, so like the big things that I kind of was like, I think we have to read this. Scar exists, okay? We needed to address that.
Hulk has a boy. It could have just been like a memo, like on the spreadsheet. You could have just put an asterisk. Just added a note, Hulk has a boy. It was an option. Hulk has a boy. Betty Ross is back. I know we've all been waiting. We've all been like, who's going to make our flags? She's back. She's a She-Hulk. She's red. She's got a lot of cleavage. Ryan Stegman's like, hey, I'm kind of new to Marvel. Do we like...
draw huge boobs and conceal them, or do we just let them hang? And they're like, Ryan, let them hang. Let them hang, dog. He does it. He does his jog. Does his job. What else? We got T-Bolt is... Is Red Hulk? What were you going to say, Charlotte? It seemed like you got really excited about the cleavage. What were you going to say? No, it's... So, there's like... So, is that a statement, Comics? There's like... After, like, B-stories of... Reggie Hulk fighting against I think Elektra and Domino?
And I was trying to find the artist. So I just started writing like Richie Hulk on Google Images. It autofilled to versus Domino. So, you know, you know, people have. This is famous. many times during that fight she just tears Domino's clothes off for no valid reason and then there's just Domino naked body falling from like a construction site that's that's it like that's that's that that's all this is it's just the weirdest the weirdest comic the weirdest like most obvious
you know what they're doing, right? Yeah. Is that the segment one? I didn't write down the artist. I don't know who actually drew that. Maybe. I do think like...
I talked about this last time, but I think there's a sense, you know, we're recording this in 2025. And there's a sense from many of our younger or newer Marvel listeners that like, oh, surely by 2010, you know, Marvel had... a little more respect for women laughing because like they don't they don't like and i think these comics like these hulk comics are written for they think their audience
is very young and very young and very horny, right? And they're written that way. And I think Greg Pak is like trying to make it a cut above that, which is why some of his work has some legs.
and lasts uh but otherwise you know it's like these are listen if you want like the pejoratives around like somebody who reads marvel comics right is like a horny 13 year old boy right we've all grown up with these with these pejoratives and like that's one thing that i've i like to fight back against i think a lot of comics credits can a lot of comics fans like to be like no it's like that's there that's a form of comics but there's so much beyond that
But this is Marvel Comics saying, no, that's who we are. Right? They're like, we're the kind of comic who's going to give you teasing softcore porn of a big old Hulk stripping off Domino's clothing and dropping her. Right? They're saying that's who they are. And it's 2010. And I don't know. This is a different conversation. But it's like, I feel like if Marvel Rivals has taught me anything, it's that people kind of want Marvel Comics to be horny.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I want Marvel Comics to be horny, not, you know, like, there's a way to do that that doesn't feel, you know, like, nonconcentral. It's, like, tastefully horny, and I don't know how you nail that. Silly to say. Well, I mean, you do it, I don't know. Like, I've been saying this forever, where, like, you do it where it doesn't feel, like, at odds with the characters, right? Like, you know. I mean, Burn She-Hulk.
I'm gonna bring it up again. Does go over that line sometimes, but a lot of the stuff that is, like, kind of, like, sexy about her in that run is that, like, the character, it feels very, like, baked into the character herself. right and like she is sexual not just the comic looking at her right like which i think makes a huge difference i don't know how marvel rivals i don't even know if marvel rivals gets away with it there's some
Pretty wild stuff around Sue Storm's butt. Marvel rivals. That doesn't feel, you know, baked into that character. I don't know. Yeah, some of it's just... Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answers are there. But I... I think people will read something like that and be like, I can't believe they're still doing this. And it's like, no, this is who Marvel thinks their audience is. And I think that's one of those things where throughout Marvel history, especially as we get into the...
you know, now deep into the 2000s, right? Throughout this decade, it's like we're reading the more modern stuff. I do think it pays to think about, like, who do you think, as a reader, Marvel thought their audience was, right? Because a lot of times that will tell you what you're in for and what the quality of the comic might be. And I think these Hulk comics, and I'm going to give Pac the exception, but they think very little of their audience.
And I think that is reflected in the quality of them. Whereas, you know, our next episode is going to be part three, Secret Warriors, S.H.I.E.L.D., Jonathan Hickman written comics, got Dustin Weaver on S.H.I.E.L.D. Who does he think his audience is, right? And, you know, and it's it's dueling like like to me, that's like, well, this is the potential of this material for adults where I'm not embarrassed as an adult to be reading it. But like.
If I was reading Fall of the Hulks and anyone I cared about saw me reading it, I'd be embarrassed. I'd be like, no, I'm doing this for work. Right? Whereas others... Go ahead. No, just I would say, like, having worked at a comic shop, they're not entirely wrong about who their audience is, right? Well, yeah. Not in the sense of, like...
13 year old boys but like no no grown adult men that like exactly this um you know that's that's not as that is not a small part of people who buy comics uh especially like from the dark markets yeah i honest it's tough to parse where that is actual desire i mean i guess i'm talking with 2025.
you know perception now but it's hard to parse where that's like actual desire for that from the work and where it's like culture war like don't take this from me right because i don't like sure to feel like it's becoming feminist or something um yeah because like i have a hard time believing like so many people are actually upset that their video games aren't horny and that it's not just a you know astroturfed uh argument in the culture war
Which is like, man, pick a better battleground, please. Well, I feel like with comics, the thing to me that tells me it's not important that my Marvel comics make me horny. The thing that convinces me of that is the 1960s. I really enjoy reading Stanley the Manly, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko comics. They are...
trying to draw pretty women, certainly, right? Gwen is meant to be pretty. They're not doing it in such a way that I'm sitting there like, wow, these are hot. Like, I always say this with Jack Kirby, like, Jack Kirby's Barda is like... sexual in the sense of like a mystique or like an aura or like a type of woman, but I don't think he draws a physical over-sexualized, fetishized person.
he creates a character that fans have grown to be like, Barda is so hot. And even when he's putting her in very little clothing, Kirby's style does not... does not do this sort of like drifting into softcore porn that I think modern styles often can sort of think is what is important. And the fact that I love those comics so much tells me that that's not a thing that like...
is essential or even of import to my superhero comics. It's incredibly weird to me when it is a crucial part of what someone enjoyed.
right like i am let me let me stand up for like a little bit that like i just think we don't have it like done well in comics because like people like smut right like yeah yeah no and it's okay to like i i let me be clear about that it's okay like people like in a not misogynistic way right like there is yeah and not even like I just think that like big two comics don't know how to do that because they're at odds with like
like a weirdly puritanical mindset about it right like it's very like the women can be hot but not horny unless it's to like amplify that a nerd i.e. you is getting lucky right like when like sue storm it's it's leery it's leering at something voyeuristically from the outside as opposed to like yeah having anything to do with with the actual characterization or stories and you know some we say repeatedly but like
Marvel Comics, historically, very non-sexual, right? Yeah, right. It's not sexual. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, so if the story is, you know, and I don't know, people still point to, like... 90s MJ and Peter like actually being like hot for each other as like examples of rare moments. where the comic tracks sexualize. This is so irrelevant to Fall of the Hulks. I know, but what else are we going to talk about? No, I know. It comes up, but it's like, talk about less sexual comics.
But like, I mean, you know, not to always bring it back to Love and Rockets, but like the Jaime Hernandez stuff, right? Like that stuff is very sexy and very hot while also like never feeling... it doesn't really feel like it's like just exploiting its characters for it it feels like the characters are always very big like i don't feel gross being like you know kind of like titillated by that comic um the same way that like almost everything in marvel
makes you feel because it just I guess it doesn't feel adolescent right that's another part of it too is that like this just feels so adolescent right which is the other thing where like the culture war about like hot babes and video games is mystifying to me where i'm like you know you want like an adult video game not like a porn video game but like a video game for adults but also you're like
But I just need to make sure that the protagonist is like all oiled up in skimpy clothing the whole time. Like it's so at odds with itself where I'm like, like you want a very like teenage version of sexuality mixed with like. your mature adult thing. It's very strange. I mean, I would, I'm not well versed in the video game side of things, certainly. But like, I remember playing The Witcher 3, a game I loved, and they're very sexual characters. Yeah.
and really hot women in that. But there's like, it's like a part of the narrative. And Geralt himself is like, there's sort of like a balance to it. I don't know. There's like a balance and a characterization. Well, and it's, I just, I was, I think if someone's going to come away... screaming like Yennefer's too hot to me that's very puritanical that's very like pearl clutching um and I think that's probably something to to watch you know it can go too far the other direction too um
Is Clement the closest thing there is to that in the Marvel universe? Of getting it right? I'm trying to think of an example in Marvel of getting a bit... that bright and the only examples i get are like kind of clem and things um because like he infuses a lot of like sexiness and honestly kink in a lot of like the Hellfire Club and stuff. But it never feels quite leery, I guess.
But, yeah, I don't know. Well, that's a testament. It's the only example that comes to mind. I mean, it's a testament to the artist he's working with as well, right? I mean, that's, you know, Paul Smith or John Byrne, you know. I mean, listen, John Byrne's got all sorts of...
things we maybe don't like about the individual you know with the exception of zach um but uh but burn i mean i do think sensational she hulk is is a pretty good example of somebody like doing their artist with it you know trying to make it work um I'm trying to think like, you know, like modern, like post-Claremont. I mean, I don't know, like Morrison always does a pretty good job with this, with Quietly. You know, Emma Frost is hyper-sexualized, but also like...
it works throughout New X-Men. You know? Yeah. It's very baked into her character, right? It is. It is. That is the character. I don't know if I always love it, but like, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that doesn't feel as jarring as, like, Sue Storm. You know, she's a pretty prime example of, like, Cheesecake, who often I'm like, she's characterized as, you know... not that you can't be a horny mom but like characterized as more of you know like a little older and a little you know like more settled down in her family but also right like there's that kind of but that also leans into the
she exists to you know be like horny for a nerd uh which is my least favorite like when when you just feel that pandering oh that that like kills me where like this is like a nerd like an ultimate Fantastic Four. Yeah, it's pretty awful in the Ultimates. Oh, in Ultimate DFF. Anyway, I think we've kind of run out of runway with this. But we did talk for more than half of... I thought we were going to, like... I had no idea what we were going to talk about.
for more than like 20 minutes with these comics. Listen, people are going to say, why do we have to read this? People are going to say, I'm so upset. People are going to say, Big Daddy, I'll never thank you. You've cursed me. You've damned me. I've wasted so many hours of my life. And they'll be a little bit right. But there are some important things that happen here. And I do kind of, sometimes it is useful.
to get down in the muck and mire and remind ourselves you could have it so much worse trying to do anything outside of the My Marvelous Year Club, right? Like, you should be thankful every day that we curate these lists for you. And by we, I mean I.
And also, crossovers are hard. Making good comics, hard. Right? And that's a reminder for myself. Like, you know, we read a crossover. Like, Charlotte and I did, like, Guardians of the Galaxy and Thanos Imperative and stuff like that. And it's like... That's flippin' Dostoevsky compared to Fall of the Hulks. Right? That's a creative vision controlled and seen through and told the way they wanted to tell it.
And I think I don't necessarily mean to like, well, we better lower the bar for everything. But I do think it's worthwhile to be like, oh, yeah, sometimes these absolutely don't work. and they think very little of the audience and we should respect and enjoy the ones that that make more of an effort on that front because or even like x-men second coming is coming on later this year you know and that's something where i will certainly have fall the hulks in the back of my mind being like
Well, it's, you know, do I love these X-Men comics? Not necessarily, but I can, but I appreciate the, well, it's like I appreciate the editorial, like, consistency. It's good to have about him. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I can't imagine that we'll, you know, maybe I'm doing myself. I can't imagine we'll read an event as bad as this. Because it's not just that. Like, I'm sure we... No, but I'm sure we'll read, like, stuff that is... worse quality wise but like stuff that is there is just less to say about than this like i don't know this is kind of the biggest nothing uh we've read i feel
I will be curious. Hopefully nothing is more of a big nothing than this. I did add Shadowland. I like the Red Hulk stuff more. That's crazy. I would read those six issues with the Red Hulk. Red Hulk is kind of crazy. What the hell am I reading? But also it's just six pretty straightforward quick issues compared to this, which is just so meandering and so convoluted. Well, and it's like this crossover actually would have benefited.
from being as senseless and absurd as the initial red hulk story you know like yeah sure like because it's kind of trying to do it's kind of trying to do both things now Like it's kind of trying to do like, well, we got Pac involved and it's like taking it, you know, seriously. And like, it's like, listen, just if you're going to make a Deadpool, a Deadpool Hulk to fight a Red Hulk, just go big. Be absurd.
Be ridiculous. Like that's kind of, I don't know, in those moments that the Red Hulk comics, like let Ed McGinnis draw absurd proportions. you know and it kind of like he loves to do it as well yeah and it kind of scales back on like the the it just scales back on like the the bigger like bolder ideas and kind of tries to fit everything into like a story that
I don't know, feels tighter, feels more of the era, and it winds up just kind of excelling at nothing, I suppose. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. All right. I'm done talking about comic books for a while. Next time, on 2010 Part 3, we're going to read Secret Warriors and S.H.I.E.L.D., both written by Jonathan Hickman. More Secret Warriors.
All right, Zach, you're banned from part A of that conversation. Yeah, you can say that after having read Full of the Hulks. Yeah, no, it's not even... It was nowhere close. There was some Secret Warrior stuff that was fine. It just mostly was kind of out on it. And then part four, we're going to do some pretty interesting Spider-Man stuff. And what was my favorite, I guess it still is my favorite Black Widow story.
We have since read that George Perez Black Widow thing from the 80s, which was pretty good. I think it's in Marvel Fanfare, maybe. So I don't know if it'll still... It's written by Marjorie Liu, who writes Monstrous. So that'll be interesting as well. But, like, I mean, looking at this list, like...
We got pretty good comics coming. Second Coming is an X-Men event. That's like crossover have-to-read stuff. Shadowland, that's the big one that I was like, all right, I guess we got to do this. But otherwise, they're mostly like... That's the big one where you started that and that wasn't Fall of the Hulks? Yeah, yeah. Ironically, I think I have Fall of the Hulks on the original list and I left off Shadowland. That's how bad it tastes Shadowland left in my mouth.
So I'm going to be a long year. When you were saying like, I don't think a crossover could ever be worse. I'm like, I did add Shadowland. I'll be very surprised if you both... I might be sick that we can... No, I think you're both going to really like Shadowland compared to Fall of the Hulks. I actually think it's going to... See, I think Fall of the Hulks is going to... It's a sinking Hulk rises all boats.
as they say, right? The famous expression. Hulk has a lot more work to do to, like, win me over, right? Like, Daredevil, I'm already kind of on board with whatever, and I'll, you know, like, the curve is higher. Well, and you've been invested to this point, you know, so you'll be curious at least. I liked that twist at the end to see what, like Daredevil taking over the hand. Like I'm into that, unlike you two, I think.
So I'm curious where that goes. Yeah. All right, y'all. Good job. We made it. Talked about sex. Talked about stripped down dominoes. Talked about Red Hulk. You know. Talk about Dr. Doom's... This is one of Dr. Doom's worst moments. I won't spend any more time, but this is like... It might be, though. Truly, like if I was doing a classic listicle, the worst Dr. Doom moments. I mean, this is in the top five for sure.
Maybe weeping at 9-11 in the AMS. J. Michael Straczynski, that's famously going to be on the list. They defend it in the moment and creatively, but defending it in character and in-universe doesn't make any sense. But I can almost, I can see the arguments for that a little more, I guess. Which is very generous. For like the person, like the real world, like making of that comic? Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
Can in-universe... Whatever. We don't need... I'm done talking about comics. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I'm Dave. That's Zach. That's Charlotte. You can support us at patreon.com slash mymarvelousyear. Every donation goes to our smut catalog where we buy the hottest smut and art that we see on... blue sky thanks everybody patreon.com slash my marvelous year music for the show is by disaster piece i'm smutty dave that's smutty zach that's smutty charlotte we'll see uh next smutty year
See you next money. Say it, Charlie. Thanks, Big Daddy. Thanks, Big Daddy. Send them in the comments. Bye. Thanks, Big Daddy.