When we first came up with the concept of Character Spotlights, it was in order to help give certain characters a boost in fandom. Of course, David managed to sneak in there a little bit of an anti-spotlight one day (in regards to The Sentry), and thus the Anti-Spotlight was born. Something has been brewing in me for a long time… an article I’ve been dying to write, but didn’t know how to properly get the words out. As time went on, my opinions began to form more and more, and it is now that I feel I can give you a well written rant as to why I think Rulk is a much worse character than the Sentry (and we’ll see if David agrees).
The Red Hulk is shrouded in mystery. Who he is, where he came from, and why he hates Banner so much are the very things fueling his story line, and they have been since the beginning. A terrifying and more powerful version of the Hulk, Rulk first appeared in Hulk #1 in the shadows after murdering the Abomination. He has since been a plague in Banner’s side and in fact took away Banner’s ability to become Hulk, leaving Rulk, for lack of better terminology, “the strongest one there is!” That’s the Rulk story in a nutshell, I suppose: Rulk shows up, Rulk and Hulk punch each other, Rulk and Hulk punch other things, Rulk and Hulk punch each other some more, Rulk “destroys” Hulk, Rulk moves on.
I will fully 100% admit: when Rulk first appeared in Hulk, I was intrigued. Let’s face it, while Loeb’s general output as of late has been pretty terrible (all the work on Rulk definitely being a part of why I think that), he still is a critically acclaimed writer and has written some great comics, such as The Long Halloween and, more recently, Fallen Son: The Death Of Captain America (seriously, that mini was great). It’s always worth at least a single read. And as the mania surrounding the question of “Who is Red Hulk?” began to catch readers everywhere, it became mor eand more apparent this was a “series to watch.” Only problem is, with every single issue, the story would get worse and worse, continuously becoming much more confusing and stretching out the mystery much farther than any of us want it to go on. And besides general writing problems I may have with the book, what is the biggest thing I hate? We still have no clue who Red Hulk is.
That initial complaint may sound petty, but hear me out. When Rulk first came in, OK, he was this big red bad ass who killed the Abomination and was running around screwing everything up for Banner (even more so than Banner had screwed things up for himself after WWH, which I notably enjoyed). There was a lot of room to build up the character from there, but it never happened. Whenever Rulk appears, it’s simply, “Grrr, I hate you Banner! Let us do battle now for I will surely defeat you!” There is simply nothing to latch on to the character to like. Let’s look at it this way: often times with villains, we’ll love to hate them. There will be something about them that calls to us to make us intrigued to their motives. Doctor Doom, for example. The Fantastic Four’s oldest and most deadliest foe has a rich character background and personality that has so much room to evolve on. Many different writers have interpreted his life in many different ways, and we’re constantly finding more reasons to hate and/or love the character. With Rulk, he’s just so two-dimensional that there is nothing to go to there unless you really hate Bruce Banner. And I can’t really imagine any comic fans hating the Hulk. Sure, he’s not the most popular character of all time, but he was a classic Avenger, and if nothing else, he has been interpreted MANY times in a thousand different and interesting ways, including Hulk: Grey by Loeb! So why can’t this dastardly villain be a bit more interesting and something more than a big red bully who sits on train tracks and twirling his mustache? (An odd reference, I know, but for those who get it I believe my point is valid.)
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As time goes on, every time we may get close to finding out who he is, SOMETHING happens to make sure we don’t find out the identity. Rulk essentially lives in deus ex machinas. Oh, look at that! She-Hulk and her friends have knocked him out! Ok, let’s wait for him to change! …ok, let’s wait some more. …let’s wait some more. Not happening? Oh. Ok. Awesome! A lot of theories said that Doc Samson was Rulk, or even “Thunderbolt” Ross, but how did that turn out? Samson and Rulk were both the ones behind his creation, despite Samson ostensibly being a friend of Bruce Banner. Oops. And when Incredible Hulk #600 rolled around, and all the signs pointed to us finally finding out his identity, did we get anything? No. Rulk said, “If all you care about his my identity, then you’re missing the point.” Let’s be honest here – the Hulk books have never been about character development. He’s a big green oaf, and he’s constantly mad and smashing things. With Planet Hulk we really got an indepth look at the character, and Rulk devolved that back into just smashing things. What I’m saying is: there is no point. We can’t be missing the point, Rulk. Besides the mystery of who you are, there is nothing to your character, sir! And I can promise you that when we finally find out who Rulk is, unless it’s some seriously EARTH-SHATTERING stuff, it will be one of the biggest build-ups with little pay-off of all time in comic book history.
Let’s move on to powers. The Rulk gets hotter and gives off more radiation as he gets angrier. Fair enough. This was the only way Hulk was able to defeat Rulk. This was the only way anyone has been able to defeat Rulk so far. I mean, honestly, Rulk just defies any and all rules of comics that have been established in Marvel. Remember when Rulk took Thor’s hammer and fought on the moon? Yeah. That happened. And how about when he surfed on Silver Surfer’s board and used the power cosmic? Oh, and did you notice him punching out Uatu up there? Yeah, because THAT happens in comics. I know that superhero comics aren’t the most realistic things in this world, but seriously, who punches out the Watcher (besides Dr. Doom, who killed an alternate universe Watcher in Mark Millar’s Fantastic Four run… but at least Doom earned his uber-powerfulness). So Rulk is unbeatable unless you make him so mad he passes out. How’s that for a fair fight? Add to that that if you do knock him out, Rulk won’t stop being Rulk. Rulk does have an alt personality, and he can change to another form (as we’ve seen in shadows), but it’s all up to him. There is apparently never a time where is truly unconscious, which adds to my whole argument about his ex machina-ness being the one thing pushing his story along.
And then we get on to the final, and biggest, complaint I have: Rulk stole Hulk’s power of mutation away from him during the world’s oddest hug. After over five decades worth of continuity about one of the world’s greatest scientists accidentally becoming the world’s most destructive hero/monster, in a single moment, it all became no more. Now, this isn’t a retcon in the way “One More Day” was, but I’d say that it is much much worse, because now every title with the word Hulk on it is somewhat invalid, wouldn’t you agree? In the book titled Hulk, our main character is in fact Rulk, and what is he doing in it since taking away Banner’s powers? He’s just punching at Wolverine because Domino may or may not know his secret identity. Just like he’s been doing for the past 15 or so issues. Because that’s all Rulk can do until we learn his identity. And seriously, does this not just add MORE to my whole ex machina belief about him? I’ve heard of twist endings to stories, but where the heck did that come from? Is that honestly an ability? If he finds Jen Walters, can he take her powers away too? And at what point did we move from a character who needed a high powered gun to kill Abomination to a guy who can just take powers away? OH, and why didn’t he just do that from the beginning? It’s things like this, that just come out of the blue when they’re convenient, that really annoy me about the character, because even all powerful beings like Apocalypse will get defeated after so many issues. Rulk is unstoppable, and it’s just annoying.
I’m fine with the idea of “popcorn comics” (Loeb is being referred to lately as the Michael Bay of comics as of late)m and I’m not saying it’s impossible for a writer to do a story with a mysterious identity for that many issues without just resorting to punching – look at Morrison’s New X-Men and Xorn. The main difference between the Xorn build up and the Rulk build up, though, was there was a lot to be intrigued about with Xorn. We wondered who he was behind that mask, but as he was placed in different situations with the X-Men and allowed many different facets to appreciate him that when he finally did remove that mask and we saw it was Magneto, it was a true shock. Even then, we get back to my previous point about having multi-faceted villains that we can relate to and love to hate/hate to love. None of these things exist with Rulk. Since he first appeared, he’s done nothing but swear and smash, smash, smash. It gets to the point where you just have to say, “Ok, already. Where do we go from here?” It’s honestly time to move on. Unfortunately for me, until Rulk is revealed, I won’t be able to stop reading because (like the oft mentioned animal on this site), I’m incredibly curious. I’ll even read for a few issues after that. While the Hulk world has expanded insanely in the past year (Hulk, Red Hulk, Son of Hulk 1, Son of Hulk 2, She-Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Alt Universe She-Hulk), Rulk is definitely the worst addition to that, and I’m ready to see this story brought to a conclusion next year (I hear somewhere after issue 20 we’ll learn who he is).
And regardless, I’d take the Sentry over Rulk any day of the week. We clearly need a World War Rulk mini where the Sentry can VJJJWOMMMVVVVVVB the crap out of Rulk and get this over with.
And a last note for the record: I believe the LATEST popular theory as to who Rulk is is Glen Talbot.
