Currently in the Marvel comics Hulk is a centerpiece to the Fear Itself story arc as one of the Serpent's Worthy. The Red Hulk though is about to be put out to pasture, as Greg Pak's run ends with the August addition. But don't you worry, the big jolly green giant is coming back in October.
After Marvel's "Fear Itself" panel concluded Sunday, Newsarama was able to get details from writer/Marvel Architect Jason Aaron (Wolverine, Scalped). When the story picks-up you'll see a literal split of Banner and the Hulk. The characters will be physically split, which is something we haven't seen since the John Byrne run.
What follows is an excerpt from the article
Nrama: It sounds like that conflict between Bruce Banner and the Hulk is very literal in your series — they're separate — and you'll be looking at Bruce Banner as the real threat, not the Hulk? Jason Aaron: Yeah. I did want to flip that dynamic on his head. For so many years, the stories have focused on Banner as a sympathetic character, and Hulk as this monster that he's sort of burdened with. This is very much a Hulk story. Banner is a big part of it, but we're more looking at things from the Hulk's perspective. This is a situation where for years what was an internal tug of war between these two characters is now being played out literally. For whatever reasons, whatever means, they've been split apart, gone their separate ways, but events serve to drag them back together. No matter what they do, no matter how far they go, they still seem to be brought back together, as we move towards a quite literal Banner vs. Hulk confrontation.
Nrama: Does this position Bruce Banner almost as the antagonist in the book, or is not quite that cut and dry? Jason Aaron:: It's not quite that cut and dry. I'm not changing Bruce Banner; I'm not suddenly turning him into Dr. Doom. But certainly he's got some issues that are compounded by the events of this book. The Bruce Banner we pick up with in the pages of Incredible Hulk #1 is in a very different place than the Bruce Banner we saw at the end of Fear Itself.
The events of Fear Itself, and everything the the Hulk goes through in the pages of that, and everything the Hulk's going through in the pages of Greg Pak's last arc on the book, that all kind of feeds into the situation we see Hulk and Banner both in in Incredible Hulk #1. We don't initially know what happened, what was the breaking point, how this happened, why it happened — but as things go along, we see how all this stuff kind of fed into creating this strange, new dynamic for Incredible Hulk.
Nrama: The Hulk has a lot of familiar characters surrounding him, and a lot have been added — or altered — in recent years. This sounds pretty squarely focused on Banner and the Hulk, but will we see any other familiar faces? Aaron: I did want to do something that would focus more squarely on just Banner and the green-skinned Hulk. The first couple of issues there are references to some of the other Hulks, there's a scene with Betty, but this is the book that kind of comes back to ground and focuses in on getting these two sides of this one persona, Banner and the Hulk. It's not a book where you need to be familiar with the last several years of Hulk continuity. It's a great jumping-on point if you want to check out some Hulk stories, but it's not a reboot. We're not throwing out any of the stuff from recent years, that'll all still come into play. Going forward, I'll be working with Jeff Parker who does Hulk, and we'll be working to create a cohesive Hulk universe. But with this book I wanted to focus in again on the original Hulk, and give people a fresh point to jump on.
Nrama: And a very big element of this series is Marc Silvestri on art. Aaron: Yeah, a guy I've never worked with before, obviously I've known his work for years, been a huge fan. I've been hitting him with a lot of crazy stuff. The first couple issues there are new characters, new threats, a lot of crazy monsters. He's had a lot of big things to draw, and he's just been knocking it out of the park. I've been really thrilled with the stuff I've seen coming in.
Nrama: Going back a little bit, you mentioned new characters — is adding to the Hulk mythos one of the priorities of the series? Aaron: You'll see a new supporting cast emerge. For the most part our cast will focus in pretty squarely on Banner and the Hulk, but outside of that we introduce some new characters, so you can expect some new big, burly creatures for Hulk to punch in the face — all manner of big, burly creatures, I should say. Some new sort-of allies — sometimes allies, sometimes enemies — that will be a part of the Hulk title for the foreseeable future.
To read the full article, and to see more of Silvestri's art, just click the newsarama link below. Videos courtesy of bleedingcool
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