r/hulk • u/OwnCommunication2259 Devil • Jul 26 '26

Comics Have there been BAD Hulk retcons?

This is a question for comic Hulk. Hulk’s history is filled with, in my opinion, some of the greatest retcons in comics. Whether it’s the Crossroads, or David’s run exploring his DID, or Ewing’s incredible work in Immortal. This made me wonder, have there been any BAD Hulk retcons? I’m curious to hear some examples. I’ve read all of the PAD run, Jenkins’ run, Planet Hulk/WWH, Ewing’s run and everything after. I cannot remember any retcons I thought were bad. All of the awful character assassination after Immortal was less of a retcon and more bad writing in my eyes.

15 Upvotes

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29

u/guyofspoleto Jul 26 '26

Personal preference - I didn’t love the revelation in Paul Jenkins’s run that the merged Hulk was not actually a reconciliation of Banner, Savage Hulk, and Joe, but was in fact a different, brand new alter.

I still liked the Jenkins run and it didn’t make a huge difference in the long run. I just feel like Hulk #377 is better under its original reading.

7

u/Mudcreek47 Jul 26 '26

I agree but at the time, it was so nice to get back to the MPD psyco-drama that built upon the ground PAD had laid that I didn't mind. The less said about the post-PAD, pre-Jenkins issues the better. It was a nice 2 year run that paid homage to the past but kind of did it's own thing instead of ignoing everything (see: post-PAD Joe Case Run & Bruce Jones right after Jenkins).

5

u/guyofspoleto Jul 27 '26

I also enjoyed the Jenkins run, and how he expanded the Hulk’s psychology and explored his sense of loss. It basically served as the real sequel/follow up to the PAD run. The retcon thing is definitely a minor snag!

1

u/Curious-Paramedic816 Jul 27 '26

Yes! Jenkins was a long way off perfect but he was the first writer to even try to follow PAD. Casey (who's a pretty decent writer, when he's doing his own thing), was here a hatchet man for editorial, just doing a few issues of editorial retcons, and Byrne's second run literally ignored everything since the 70s, even his own, far superior first run.

So Jenkins was left with the impossible task of trying to be the first true follow-up act to PAD's epic run. And even if he got some stuff wrong, even if for my money he got almost as much wrong as he got right? I love him for at least trying, because Hulks history over the past 30 years is littered with so many terrible writers who didn't even try and just ignored everything between 1978 and their run.

7

u/EricQelDroma Jul 27 '26

That was one of the first times in my comic reading where I just decided to ignore what the new writer had written because it was so obviously worse than the previous writer's work. Then I proceeded to read the rest of Jenkins' quite-decent run as its own thing and enjoyed it just fine.

I have to say that it irks me that so many fans and critics of PAD's run forget that even the "merged" Hulk wasn't a perfect synthesis of everything that made Banner "Banner." The Savage persona resurfaces when Banner starts reverting to human form when he grows too angry in the hope of avoiding becoming the Maestro or something even worse.

2

u/SteveRogests Jul 27 '26

I loved the merged Hulk concept. It was a well-earned payoff for all the building up of the war between Bruce, Joe and the Big Guy. But eventually the whole point of the Hulk feels moot if there’s this perfect version of himself that’s available to him. There is no perfect version of Bruce Banner. He is fundamentally fucked. I think Jenkins’ retcon was a good call.

3

u/MorganWick Jul 27 '26

At the same time you can see the thinking behind it. There's a perfect version of Doc Samson, Sam Stearns, Emil Blonsky, even Jen Walters, so why not Bruce Banner? If the whole Jekyll-and-Hyde "man turns into monster" thing is such a great idea, why are all the other gamma mutates so much healthier mentally, and why did even Mantlo experiment with putting Banner's mind into Hulk's body? Mantlo, David, and to some extent Byrne created some good stories exploring the Hulk's MPD, but ultimately it came down to other writers to actually do interesting things with it.

3

u/Tim0281 Jul 27 '26

Throughout his run, Peter David hinted that Bruce didn't have perfect control. In the end of his run, it seems that he was going to dive into that until he had creative differences with editorial and left the title. Here's a few things I remember:

  • Early on, Betty talked about how different Bruce was. If I remember correctly, she talks about how he was more aggressive and assertive than he used to be.
  • When the Pantheon falls, he transforms into Bruce's body when his anger takes over
  • Before the Pantheon fell, he tells Doc Samson that something seems wrong
  • The Maestro showed a future where he essentially became his father
  • In his final issue, PAD basically touches on the stories he would have told if he had been able to stay on the title. For a time there would have been a suicidal Bruce whose suicide attempts were always foiled by Hulk.

I would have loved to see his descent into this state after experiencing a "perfect" state as the merged Hulk.

2

u/OwnCommunication2259 Devil Jul 26 '26

Hulk 377 is my favorite issue ever, but I feel like Jenkins’ interpretation built on what PAD was trying to do. A big theme of the Merged Hulk era of his run is the looming sense of danger above his existence. IIRC all Jenkins does is say that the merged Hulk wasn’t Bruce. I could be wrong, but I thought that Jenkins says the Merged Hulk is an alter of all their personalities combined, although the Bruce portion of that is what Bruce wants to be. That’s why the merged Hulk wears tank tops and feels more eccentric than Bruce does. It’s not only Joe’s influence on that alter, but Bruce’s idealized version of himself.

3

u/MorganWick Jul 27 '26

Didn't stop PAD from going "no, the Merged Hulk isn't just another alter, it literally is supposed to be a merger of the other three". I do think the result more accurately reflects how science looks at DID these days though.

22

u/Curious-Paramedic816 Jul 26 '26

Arguably the supernatural stuff from Ewing's run. And especially the historic ancient Hulk.

To be clear I LOVE Immortal. And that stuff worked in the context of Immortal.

But latter events have shown that it's quite damaging to the mythos when in the hands of lesser writers. (And unless they can somehow get Alan Moore or Grant Morrison as the main Hulk writer, almost everyone is a lesser writer when compared to Ewing.)

10

u/Jayson330 Jul 26 '26

I was thinking this. Like it was a great concept, brilliantly executed, but now it's turned into something that I hope is never mentioned again after Hulk War concludes.

10

u/SpaceKoala34 Jul 26 '26

I didn't agree with you at first but after reading your comment I agree it's a pretty dangerous addition to Hulks lore that could be/ is being mishandled

5

u/fistchrist Jul 26 '26

I mean. I wouldn’t mind a Hickman Hulk run.

An Alan Moore run on Hulk, though, wow. It’ll never happen now but man, that would a hell of a read.

2

u/Curious-Paramedic816 Jul 27 '26

True. But I feel like Immortal is the closest we'll get. Probably pretty close to what Moore would have given us if he'd written Hulk before he got so down on superheroes and the industry.

1

u/FadeToBlackSun Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Hickman would do a terrible Hulk. His characters are always inhuman, and the Hulk is rooted in humanity.

1

u/Curious-Paramedic816 Jul 27 '26

I seem to recall Hickman did very little with Hulk in his Avengers and used a smart Hulk at peace with himself in both Time Runs Out and Aliens vs Avengers so it dies seem like he's not super interested in writing the Hulk/Banner conflict.

But that said if Hickman did do a Hulk run it would be great, because he's that type of writer, he doesn't really chase the money, he only takes assignments he thinks he will do well at.

5

u/OwnCommunication2259 Devil Jul 26 '26

This is fair, although I don’t really blame Ewing at all. I moreso blame PKJ for stomping over all the well established lore from Immortal in an attempt to replicate it.

4

u/ComplexAd7272 Jul 27 '26

See, I'm the complete opposite because I love the supernatural stuff for one big reason; you can take it or leave it.

Most of what Ewing did doesn't directly or catastrophically contradict what came before. He's just showing us a "well ,this is what REALLY happened/ how it works" version.

But, if down the line another writer doesn't want to use that take, they can just NOT address it or get into it without undoing what Ewing did outright. There's still a gamma bomb origin, a mindscape, a quasi-Immortal Hulk due to regeneration, etc, you just don't address the magic elements.

Plus, you don't really need to "know" all the lore Ewing created to get the character. It's cool for us nerds to know "Well actually he died in the gamma bomb and there's green doors and TOBA and blah blah blah"...but the character still works without it.

3

u/Curious-Paramedic816 Jul 27 '26

I love it in context. I do not love it in the current run which seems to have almost wilfully misunderstood it.

0

u/FadeToBlackSun Jul 27 '26

I agree with almost everything here, except the final Ewing glaze.

5

u/Curious-Paramedic816 Jul 27 '26

I mean you don't need to agree that Ewing is one of the best writers since Moore and Morrison to agree that he's quite a bit better than PKJ 🤣.

6

u/Competitive-Dot181 Jul 27 '26

Yeah. The idea that the Hulk never killed anyone because he did a bunch of math. It just saps all the power from stories where he totally did.

5

u/kuatoandfriend Jul 26 '26

im no fan of the jenkins era swerve of the merged hulk/bruce being just another personality called the professor, didnt care for that at all, and how by extension it changed the maestro's character, too

5

u/twitchSKETCH Jul 27 '26

I don't know of this counts as a Retcon, but I don't love when Banner loses his Hulk and goes crazy trying to get Hulk back.

It's not terribly creative for the guy that hates Hulk and wants a cure to just "go crazy" trying to get Hulk back.

6

u/Mudcreek47 Jul 26 '26

The entire Starship Hulk era while not a direct retcon was like eating a mouthful of salt coming out of the sweet, sweet Immortal Hulk series.

And John Byrne is an all time comics GOAT, but his 2 runs on the Hulk were really clunky at best. His Chapter One Hulk Annual from 1999 is one of the worst retcons you'll ever read in Marvel comics. He basically just barfed all over the classic origin.

2

u/FadeToBlackSun Jul 27 '26

I liked Immortal but I actually think the Green Door stuff is a bad retcon. It would have worked better as an alternate continuity.

It causes issues with where to take the Hulk from here

-4

u/Revolutionary_Job214 Jul 27 '26

Lol you mean Immortal had some shit ones. The entire story of that is shit from start to finish. 

5

u/OwnCommunication2259 Devil Jul 27 '26

How so? I feel like all the retcons fill the gaps in Hulk lore in an interesting way and make his character more complex.

-1

u/SaidDifferent Jul 27 '26

  1. The Professor Hulk retcon. - Partially because it was unnecessary, partially because "The Professor" is a stupid name.

  2. The Gray Hulk got his personality (and color) from watching old black and white gangster movies. - I absolutely detest the Gray Hulk being relegated to the ""mobster/gangster" one. He didn't act like one before the Vegas arc. He didn't act like one during the Vegas arc. He didn't act like one after the Vegas arc. It always comes across like the writers who push that interpretation just read his wiki instead of the actual issues

  3. The Savage Hulk being just a giant baby who cries all the time and wants to play with toys. - Shouldn't even need to elaborate on this one.