Friday, July 31, 2009

How do you solve problem like the Rulk?

Attention True Believers! This is a call to action. As may already know, the Marvel Universe is under siege by a horrible blight known as the Red Hulk, or 'Rulk.' This monument to stupidity has destroyed any goodwill that Greg Pak created within the Hulk titles after the fantastic Planet Hulk and World War Hulk. Incredible Hulk #600 came and went, and we are none the wiser as to who the Red abomination to comic-dom is. And now, in an effrontery to common sense and good taste, the Rulk family is being expanded with the edition of the Red She-Hulk. (wait for face twitching to subside...)

We, the offended comic buying fans, need to do something to bring this horrendous nightmare to an end. This is an open call to all who are put off by the ridiuclousness of the Rulk, and to those of you who have subsequently dropped the title, to post in the comments of this very blog entry your feelings, protests, or detailed descriptions of solutions to the 'Rulk Problem.' Have fun with it. Maybe Jeph Loeb or Joe Quesada himself will wake up and smell the gamma rays and give us back the old Green Goliath! Let your voice be heard!
If the response to this is good enough, I'll repost the best ideas later. Make 'em good!

2 comments:

TraveLibrarian said...

Franklin Richards decides to take his dad’s De-evoler to school for a show-and-tell. This will not only sound really cool, but will allow him to demonstrate the De-evolver’s function by turning a couple of bullies into something from their evolutionary pasts (such as a monkey or, better yet, an amoeba).

Franklin sneaks into the lab, stuffs the gun into his backpack, and heads off to school. On the way, he’s on the sidewalk when the Red Hulk attacks New York for no particular reason (other than that’s where the Guest Star of the Month is currently standing. Insert your favorite Marvel Character here.).

Being a smart kid, Franklin makes a run for it. In the mass rush to safety, he’s jostled by the crowd, his backpack hits something hard, and the De-evolver goes off. The beam accidentally turns the Red Hulk into a large, red frog.

Unfortunately, Franklin discovers that the De-evolver is damaged and won’t work any more, so there’s not much point to in using it for show-and-tell. He then scoops the frog up in his backpack and takes it to school, showing it to his classmates and making up a story about how it’s a rare South American Red River Frog.

Afterward, the frog is placed in the classroom terrarium, where the kids feed it worms and bugs and occasional bits of sandwiches and such. Aside from the fact that the Red Frog seems intent on battering its way out of the tank by pounding its head against the glass from time to time, the arrangement works out pretty well for the rest of the school year.

(If you want to be particularly vindictive, you can imagine that when Franklin takes the frog home for the summer, it wriggles free and manages to get itself run over in the city traffic, but I can’t quite bring myself to go that far. So you’re on your own for that part.)



Note: the De-evolver was introduced in “Evolution Revolution”, one of the stories published in the Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius series of shorts by Chris Eliopoulos and Marc Sumerac. Since the Red Hulk seems to be mostly about beating on the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe, I thought his defeat by a non-powered character in an accidental situation might be amusing.

Bill said...

Transmogrified by Franklin Richards! Genius! Good first volley.