razorcake issue #16

introduce Bruce Banner, General Ross andBetty, set up the antagonistic relationshipbetween Banner and Gen. Ross ((Ross hatesBanner, thinks he’s a milksop)), set up theBanner-Betty thing ((Betty’s sweet on Banner‘cause he’s so smart)), have Banner get betrayedby a Russian spy, have Banner get exposed togamma radiation whilst saving Rick Jones TheTeenager ((thanks a ton Igor, ya lousy commieprick)), and instigate the initial Bruce-to-Hulktransformation. Three and a half pages! Yet, inthe movie, i actually had to already get up andtake my first piss before the Ang Lee brain trustcould see their way clear to turn Banner intoHulk. Why? Nobody comes to see The Hulk inhopes that they can see some sort of “thriller”where some kid can’t remember his childhoodbecause ((as it turns out)) his dad wound upkilling his mom while trying to kill HIM. Ibabbling in dubbed English about the goddamn“homework monster” or suchlike, and you’regetting all fidgety and worried, thinking how thekid is gonna go fucking ballistic pretty soon if hedon’t see that goddamn giant lizard, and youmight not be far behind him. I mean, what arethese people thinking? That they’re filmingWhen Harry Met Sally or Doctor Zhivago or TheGraduate, but with a rampaging green behemoththrown into the mix for good measure? DUMB-ASS, WE ARE HERE FOR THE RAMPAGINGGREEN BEHEMOTH AND THE RAMPAG-ING GREEN BEHEMOTH ALONE!!!Shockingly unfair and unjust, i say!!! We wannasee the fucking HULK. We wanna see fuckingGODZILLA. We wanna see KING FUCKINGKONG. Everybody else is just a plot device. Thecharacters don’t need to be more than, like,shorthand ((or “archetypes” if you’re feeling((meanwhile, unbeknownst to General Ross,some evil-doer is doing evil which the Hulk isgetting blamed for)), Hulk try to escape, Hulksee that the Evil Being Done poses a threat toBetty, Hulk stop escaping and fight Evil to saveBetty, Hulk smash Evil but get captured byArmy, Hulk break free, Hulk plenty pissed, Hulkalmost smash General, Betty stop Hulk fromsmashing, Hulk go smash evil once and for alldespite puny humans with guns trying to hurtHulk, Hulk turn back into Banner. The End. Imean, more or less, THAT would’ve been agreat movie. Instead, we have the “psychodrama”of Nick Nolte, who looked more like theamnesiac Sub-Mariner that time the Torch foundhim on the Bowery ((Fantastic Four #4, alsodated May 1962)) ((Fantastic Amazing TriviaFact: in Fantastic Four #5, the Torch ignites acopy of Hulk #1 to piss off the Thing, which,mean, if you wanna make a movie like that, justcall it I Can’t Remember My Childhood BecauseMy Dad Killed My Mom While Trying to Kill Meor something. Why drag the Hulk into this wholethorny fiasco? Hulk not care about puny humanwith butcher knife, and Nørb not care either! Itwas just like when i was a kid and DinoDeLaurentiis remade King Kong. We had thewhole neighborhood piled into the Bay Theatre,we were mental with anticipation, veritablyabuzz with excitement: “This is gonna be thebest shit ever! Giant ape crawlin’ up the WorldTrade Center, and jets shooting at him! Show usthe ape, big daddy, show us the ape!!!” An hourlater, we were still snoozing thru a bunch of shitinvolving fags in pith helmets, legions of overchoreographednatives, and some dizzy blondewho couldn’t spell her name right. If you’veever taken a little kid to a Godzilla movie, youknow what i mean: Unconscionable amounts oftime are spent introducing and fleshing out secondarycharacters whom nobody gives a rat’s assabout anyway, and the kid wants to see a fuckinggiant lizard breathing fire and fucking shit up,not some Japanese dorks babbling in dubbedEnglish about the goddamn “homework monster”or suchlike. And, in point of fact, YOUwant to see a fucking giant lizard breathing fireand fucking shit up, not some Japanese dorksparticularly Jungian today)) for more fully-realizedpersonii. We don’t need a fleshing out ofBruce Banner’s character ((realistically, the onlysuperheroes who have intrinsically interestingalter egii are Superman, Spider-Man, andMAYBE Batman, and that’s being generous)) allwe need to know is that he’s a scientist WHO,BY THE WAY, TURNS INTO THE FUCKINGHULK, and is mildly resentful of the day-to-dayshit he has to take as a matter of course. All weneed to know about General Ross is that hedespises Banner for being a sissy, despises himeven more because his daughter likes him, andmistrusts him because he suspects there’s a connectionbetween he and the Hulk. All we need toknow about Betty is that she’s the General’sdaughter and likes Bruce, to her father’s chagrin,and all we need to know about the Hulk is that 1.Hulk will smash; 2. Hulk is the strongest onethere is; and 3. the angrier Hulk gets, thestronger Hulk gets, and HULK – IS –ANGRY!!! I mean, that’s your movie, and itshouldn’t take more than five or ten minutes toset that whole scenario up effectively. The nexttwo hours, by rights, should be Hulk smashingshit. Hulk smash, Hulk smash, Hulk smash,Hulk get captured by Army, Hulk break free,Hulk smash, Hulk smash, Hulk smash, Hulk getcaptured again by Army, Hulk break freegiven that that comic book’d now fetch a price inthe five figures, truly redefines the term “moneyto burn”)) than any character i’ve ever seengrace the pages of The Incredible Hulk. Andwhat the fuck was up with that scene whereNolte goes to see Banner after the Army’s capturedhim? That was like some bad CollegeAlternative Theatre production you see in a thirty-seatboiler room, where some senior thinkshe’s written the great lost Samuel Beckett play,and the male lead is played by the drama professor,whose ludicrous overacting just serves tounderscore why the guy teaches instead of actsfor a living. And that crap where the screen wasbroken into little “panels” at times, presumablyto evoke a comic booky visual mood, was completelyasinine. I mean, one panel would show,like, a top view of a flying helicopter, and anotherone would show a side view of the same helicopter?Has anyone ever seen the same actionrepresented from multiple points of view in acomic book, ever? ((other than, of course, twocharacters on separate ends of a phone conversationoccupying the same panel, but separatedby a jagged separation line [[all-time greatestparody of this visual condition was from“Starchie,” the Archie parody that appeared inMad back when Mad used to be a comicbook, where Starchie and the33Rev. Nørb