The Incredible Hulk

Originally posted by janus77
but Superman does that with an Island in Superman Returns and lots of characters in comics do that too (including Superman).

Hulk "braced" a whole mountain range, bigger than the Andes. and in Planet Hulk, he literally threw a mountain at an army. and in the biggest feat so far, he literally holds a planet together with his hands!

in comics, the physics is supposed to bring tension and focus to the action, never to constrain the narrative. so Hulk braces a mountain without it crumbling under its own weight, Superman does similar things.

Yes, but Superman is a shitty character, with shitty storylines and just generally shitty shit.

Why compare to him?

Originally posted by janus77
but Superman does that with an Island in Superman Returns and lots of characters in comics do that too (including Superman).

Hulk "braced" a whole mountain range, bigger than the Andes. and in Planet Hulk, he literally threw a mountain at an army. and in the biggest feat so far, he literally holds a planet together with his hands!

in comics, the physics is supposed to bring tension and focus to the action, never to constrain the narrative. so Hulk braces a mountain without it crumbling under its own weight, Superman does similar things.

Yes, I know they're comics and they're not to be taken seriously.

I have no problem with them holding planets together from a sheer strength perspective, it's the "how".

Originally posted by Bardock42
Yes, but Superman is a shitty character, with shitty storylines and just generally shitty shit.

Why compare to him?

it's just a comic convention, a sort of visual superlative... attempting to hammer home the astounding power of a character, when they've run out of other means.

Hulk's strength was continually being tested by the "brainiest" villains and heroes in Marvel Earth and judged to be "beyond any scientific measure"... but that doesn't really mean anything until you see him holding up a mountain or ripping apart dimensional barriers or grabbing and breaking energy or atomic bonds/attraction.

Originally posted by janus77
well Hercules then? he lifted Manhattan Island on his back!
Thor's done stuff on a similar scale, I think.

it's just a comic convention, a sort of visual superlative... attempting to hammer home the astounding power of a character, when they've run out of other means.

Hulk's strength was continually being tested by the "brainiest" villains and heroes in Marvel Earth and judged to be "beyond any scientific measure"... but that doesn't really mean anything until you see him holding up a mountain or ripping apart dimensional barriers or grabbing and breaking energy or atomic bonds/attraction.

Originally posted by Robtard
Yes, I know they're comics and they're not to be taken seriously.

I have no problem with them holding planets together from a sheer strength perspective, it's the "how".

how does Superman output so much energy via h-v when he is only powered via the sun?

how does Flash travel at speeds faster than light, when his body should be atomised/vaporised as he accelerates/decelerates to/from C.

how does Batman manage to bed so many women and yet retain the energy to go fight a crime lord and all his henchmen?

how does Wonder Woman manage to fight dozens of villains and deflect countless attacks without once having her nipple escape that tantalizing top???
(that last one is a *****, imo 🙁 )

Dude, it's not the actual powers, I've made this clear.

E.G. I have no problem with Flash, as his powers are of speed, so I just assume he also has the power to stay together while traveling at light speed. It's how they affect the world around him. If Flash used his speed powers to to turn lead into gold, I'd think that was also poor writing.

Originally posted by Bardock42
And that's what I find boring.

Hulk's an interesting comic because it's quite often more of a thriller/mystery than a pure action comic. Banner/Hulk's been at the centre of a massive operation by SHIELD, by some Blue group and by others, his blood is wanted by the army, he himself has been trying to get mastery over his rage/anger via meditation... he has been president of Australia, fought clones and robots and ghosts from his past and mostly, himself. very rarely does he resort to just smashing stuff up, though.

Originally posted by Robtard
Dude, it's not the actual powers, I've made this clear.

E.G. I have no problem with Flash, as his powers are of speed, so I just assume he also has the power to stay together while traveling at light speed. It's how they affect the world around him. If Flash used his speed powers to to turn lead into gold, I'd think that was also poor writing.

applying the physics of solids and gravity would bring up the question you did of why Hulk doesn't just sink into the ground due to the weight of the mountain, rather than lifting it clear... you just accept that the ground is strong/dense enough to prevent that from occurring. just like you accept that Flash has some powers that enable his body to survive C and the fact that he doesn't leave a gravity well or burn a whole in reality as a result of the infinite energies he would be using...

Hulk punching through time and breaking energy was bad writing, because it's not even within the realms of limitless physical strength, but hey, every character has had shitty writers at one point.

-AC

Originally posted by janus77
well thankfully, Hulk rarely goes stratospheric with the strength, most of the time it's about avoiding the confrontation or dealing with the fears and reactionary schemes of others.

Hulk's an interesting comic because it's quite often more of a thriller/mystery than a pure action comic. Banner/Hulk's been at the centre of a massive operation by SHIELD, by some Blue group and by others, his blood is wanted by the army, he himself has been trying to get mastery over his rage/anger via meditation... he has been president of Australia, fought clones and robots and ghosts from his past and mostly, himself. very rarely does he resort to just smashing stuff up, though.

That's why Hulk is one of the best damn reads out there (or used to be). Under Paul Jenkins and Peter David it was a psychological thriller.

Hulk wasn't my favorite character because he was the "strongest," he was my favorite because he had really deep stories, in depth psychoanalysis, a relate able cast of supporting well written characters, and always at some point the "inner beast within us all" makes an appearance.

I'm hoping this movie is going to at least accurately portray lots of the things that real Hulk fans like about Hulk comics.

On a different note, doesn't the limitless power assume that there is an endless amount of angry a person can get?

Yes, if there's no real limit to how mad he can be, there's no real limit to his strength.

That's always been the premise; the madder he gets, the stronger he gets.

-AC

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Yes, if there's no real limit to how mad he can be, there's no real limit to his strength.

That's always been the premise; the madder he gets, the stronger he gets.

-AC

Originally posted by Bardock42
Yeah, I know. I just don't see why writer's and fans seem to assume that there is no limit to his anger (or anger in general).

remember The Leader (the greatest mind on Marvel Earth) attempted to measure Hulk's strength and realised that it +cannot+ be measured, that it is beyond calculation (ie infinite).

Hulk's 'anger' isn't the only thing that raises his strength, as he can get stratospheric even whilst calm - the experiments done to test his strength are an example, so is the bracing of the mountain range in Secret Wars - it's just the nature of the character.

I think that the true magnitude of The Hulk's strength is the most convincing reason why Banner goes to such lengths to attempt to restrain/eradicate that part of him. As shown in WWH #5, when he begins to lose control of that power, when he can no longer exert himself to bottle that power up, the very energies begin to rock the world.

it's a perfectly logical assumption to make, that Hulk has limitless strength that can grow infinitely and indefinitely.

Originally posted by janus77
because it's been demonstrated from very early on, that there is no 'limit' whatsoever.

remember The Leader (the greatest mind on Marvel Earth) attempted to measure Hulk's strength and realised that it +cannot+ be measured, that it is beyond calculation (ie infinite).

Hulk's 'anger' isn't the only thing that raises his strength, as he can get stratospheric even whilst calm - the experiments done to test his strength are an example, so is the bracing of the mountain range in Secret Wars - it's just the nature of the character.

I think that the true magnitude of The Hulk's strength is the most convincing reason why Banner goes to such lengths to attempt to restrain/eradicate that part of him. As shown in WWH #5, when he begins to lose control of that power, when he can no longer exert himself to bottle that power up, the very energies begin to rock the world.

it's a perfectly logical assumption to make, that Hulk has limitless strength that can grow infinitely and indefinitely.

Obviously it is a perfectly fine thing to say his strength is limitless. It is a comic book afterall. But it is weird to connect it to anger so closely. Anger is not really something limitless. You can't get infinitely angry. You know what I mean?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Obviously it is a perfectly fine thing to say his strength is limitless. It is a comic book afterall. But it is weird to connect it to anger so closely. Anger is not really something limitless. You can't get infinitely angry. You know what I mean?

the fact is that, since way back, "the madder he gets, the stronger he gets" has been palimpsested over with something more vague and ambiguous... like say the more stressed he is, the stronger he is.

for example, during a period of blissful happiness, The Hulk leapt from the moon of Sakaar to the planet, yet Savage Hulk never managed to achieve Earth Orbit with a leap.

or say when Hulk pulled together and held together Sakaar by grabbing the tectonic plates (something physically impossible, of course) he did so while calm.

the thing is, portraying Hulk with that kind of power on-tap, makes it near impossible to give any tension or drama to key battles, unless he's fighting some God... and even then, given the relatively low status and power of gods in Marvel's Universe, it's not that uncertain.

Going slightly off-topic. I think the psychological/thriller aspects of Hulk comics are awesome but, since Pak took over, I think Hulk's reached a new pinnacle of writing with Planet Hulk (the WWH arc which came after, was a bit underwhelming). There's the emotional resonance of the betrayal that launched him into space, the injustice of doing such a thing just as Banner was beginning to gain more dominance over Hulk even whilst angry (Banner KO'd Abomination with an uppercut, Banner did that), the dashed hopes of Banner, the chaos and brutality of the planet he landed upon, his own weakness whilst on the planet (easily wounded and much weaker in general), the way all that works upon his thinking, the desire for vengeance that later becomes sublimated to his desire to be a just ruler of the planet he has freed from tyranny and then of course the tragedy that pushed him over the edge and into revenge mode ... it was just awesome writing with constant action yet also a maturity, a substantive narrative and psychology that made it so much more than a regular comic.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Obviously it is a perfectly fine thing to say his strength is limitless. It is a comic book afterall. But it is weird to connect it to anger so closely. Anger is not really something limitless. You can't get infinitely angry. You know what I mean?

It's a true remark, "The madder he gets, the stronger he gets", but it's not really limited to that, it's not where his strength specifically comes from. At first he could only become The Hulk at night, so his powers have evolved.

The aforementioned remark is more of a warning than a true description of his powers. As Janus said, he's performed outstanding feats when threatened, when stressed, upset, sad, calm. It depends more on his desire to do these things, than the height of which his emotional state is, which does also play a part.

Like in World War Hulk, which I personally liked, it's stated that he's never been as strong as he is then, because he's never been as furious. He wasn't savage, he wasn't in a blind rage, it was an emotional fury that increased his desire to do the most damage possible, and thus access more of his strength. Same with Secret Wars, his desire to save himself, and others, was probably quite high. I doubt he's fond of being killed, so that would explain such instantaneous strength.

It would just be a bit pointless to have to say "The madder he gets, the stronger he gets...*And then everything I've just said.*". It's an old phrase that doesn't totally capture the explanations or powers of the character, just one aspect of it.

Besides that, that's why they think he's so dangerous, because Banner himself knows that if Hulk was truly left untamed and savage, with the kind of power he has, he could likely destroy this planet. So it's never really power on-tap, as Janus said. Banner, over the years, has learned to at the very least, keep Hulk non-savage. So even at his worst, it's a focused rage.

Of course, this is why I don't really like discussing comic book explanations. I think the evolution of The Hulk is really very acceptable considering you have guys like Chris Claremont making Iceman godlike for no reason, but at the end of the day, the more someone tries to explain things that aren't meant to be explained in depth, the more someone anal is going to come along and get all needlessly scientific about it.

You can do that with any character, not just The Hulk, but I just steer clear of doing so. Unless it's something truly ridiculous, like punching through time.

-AC

I don't have a problem with him being the strongest or even infinitely strong.

Originally posted by janus77
but Superman does that with an Island in Superman Returns and lots of characters in comics do that too (including Superman).

Hulk "braced" a whole mountain range, bigger than the Andes. and in Planet Hulk, he literally threw a mountain at an army. and in the biggest feat so far, he literally holds a planet together with his hands!

in comics, the physics is supposed to bring tension and focus to the action, never to constrain the narrative. so Hulk braces a mountain without it crumbling under its own weight, Superman does similar things.

Keep in mind that Superman needs solar energy in order to pull great feats. Sun rays help Kryptonians increase their strength.

The Hulk, a freak of a gamma accident gets angry...gets stronger. Go figure.

Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
Keep in mind that Superman needs solar energy in order to pull great feats. Sun rays help Kryptonians increase their strength.

The Hulk, a freak of a gamma accident gets angry...gets stronger. Go figure.