Do You Ever Get So Angry You Just Launch Yourself Into Space?

With the launch of All-New, All Different Marvel, comic readers were getting newer characters take up the mantle of old classic comic book heroes. For example, we had Sam Wilson, Falcon, who became America. Laura Kinney, Wolverine's partial clone, took up the mantle of Wolverine. Even more recently that has made many people angry is the creation of Riri Williams to take up the role of Iron Man, dubbed Iron heart. Another huge example is Amadeus Cho becoming the Hulk, who is the subject of today's post.

Bruce Banner/The Hulk is a pretty famous comic character especially with his appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and has been a prominent character since 1962, his creation and comic book debut. But after Marvel's 2015 Secret Wars Event, Marvel announced that Amadeus Cho would be the new Hulk, The Totally Awesome Hulk.

Bruce Banner is known as the guy who turns into a giant green rage monster whenever he gets mad. As a result of Bruce Banner being mostly unable to control his transformations, he was always a person that other Marvel characters liked because Bruce Banner was a kind-hearted man that wants to do the right thing, whatever he thinks that is, but is generally deemed untrustworthy and feared by many superheroes in the Marvel Universe. That dynamic between Bruce Banner/The Hulk and the Marvel Superheroes spills into Amadeus' Hulk mythos, and the character's relationship with the rest of the Marvel Superhero community.

In Totally Awesome Hulk, it is revealed that Cho used nanites to take Gamma Radiation away from Bruce Banner, and relieve him of his pain. Well... that's partially the reason he did that, but we don't really need to go into the situation that forced Cho to transfer the Hulk from Banner to himself. Anyways, the whole basis behind The Hulk and Bruce Banner is that the two are meant to have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dynamic. Bruce Banner would turn into the Hulk, level a city, or a large part of it whether by accident or on purpose, and leave and revert back into Bruce Banner. That does not happen with Amadeus Cho. When Cho essentially absorbed The Hulk from Banner, he was in control. He could turn into the Hulk, and turn back into himself whenever he wanted. With Banner, he and the Hulk were two characters, with Amadeus Cho they are one and the same.

In terms of principle characteristics of The Hulk, it was always a staple to have Banner and Hulk be two separate entities. Whereas with Cho, you have one singular character that essentially has the ability to make his body turn into a Hulk body while also having complete control over his actions and faculties. This change to the Hulk Mythos was not necessarily something that fans liked. I believe the current Amadeus Cho story arc that I am reading was made to rectify the absence of that particular Hulk characteristic, establish Amadeus Cho as the main Marvel Hulk, and to create a Hulk that satisfies older Hulk fans with traits that the previous Hulk had.

The current Amadeus Cho story that I am reading is Return to Planet Hulk, where Amadeus Cho finds that he is losing control of the Hulk (In other words, the Hulk is beginning to act of his own accord against Amadeus' wishes). So what happens? Amadeus Cho decides to exile himself and go to Sakaar.

For those of you who do not know about what Bruce Banner Hulk's did in Sakaar, Hulk crash landed on Sakaar because he was exiled by a few of the world's heroes for his uncontrollable transformations, and also because he destroys a whole lot of stuff when he emerges from the depths of Banner's mind. Hulk leaves the spaceship, manages to get captured, is forced to fight in a gladiator arena, helps fight a civil war on the planet, and single-handedly usher the planet into an era of peace. He gets married, but it turns out that his ship was also a bomb and it exploded, destroying the crown city and his wife. Hulk finds his way back to earth and starts World War Hulk and fights basically all of the superheroes.

Planet Hulk and World War Hulk were really well received stories by Greg Pak during his run of The Incredible Hulk. And to see Greg Pak throw Cho into a place ravaged after the Hulk leaves is really a smart idea in terms of story telling, but also conveying Cho's function and position in the Marvel Universe.

On Sakaar, The Hulk is seen as a hero, a king, and the planet's savior, or at least he was. When Cho arrives on Sakaar, he finds that he is immediately expected to be the person that Hulk was when he was on Sakaar. The only problem there is... he's not. He's not the Hulk they know. He's a new guy that has the Hulk's powers, but at the core, this guy is totally not the guy the people of Sakaar are expecting. I think by Pak placing Cho into this leadership role, and by placing him in the setting of one of his best Hulk stories was meant to show fans that Cho is going to be the definitive Hulk, but also to keep a sense of familiarity with respect to the Hulk Mythos.

That's it for this post, but I will be posting more later in the week. Feel free to check out my other posts on my profile. See you in the next post!

Note: I do not own the characters or art shown in this post. All characters and art belong to their respective owners.