Consider this: Hiroim the Shamed acted as a true friend, in performing the ritual that allows the Hulk to take out his anger and rage only on those who deserve such a response…and his ol’ pal, Stephen Strange, never thought to try such a thing? How sad is that, huh? I guess Hulk was right, all of those years, when he railed against the Defenders – he was a useful idiot to be aimed like a cannon at their problems, to be ignored when he was no longer useful.

Now – in regards to Hulk damaging Strange’s hands while in ectoplasmic form…remember that Hulk can see astral projections – why would it be such a stretch that he could interact with them? Now, I’ll grant that what I posited is a bit of a stretch, but consider also that Hulk’s strength is so incredible (!), and clearly, Strange understands the depths of power the Hulk can summon, Strange could be suffering from psychosomatic pain.

What can I say? I enjoyed House Of M (the main series, hardly any of the individual series); Civil War kept me on the edge of my seat; Planet Hulk was a great parallel series and excellent character development for the Hulk (as was Annihilation for Nova); but WORLD WAR HULK just makes sense. It’s just too bad that we couldn’t see what would be the ultimate Hulk/Juggernaut battle, or the Hulk/Super-Thing war (Englehart & Simonson’s run on FF).

I’m also SO pleased that there aren’t any delays in this series (considering that JRjr drew the 9/11 WTC issue of Spider-Man in a matter of days, and excellently so, really warms my heart), I think that we should all relate that to the torture of waiting in between issues of CW. Steve McNiven did a kick-@$$ job, but man…that wait made me nutty – especially since he was kind enough to make it clear that Thor wasn’t actually Thor – but no one would believe me until #4! Whoa…get me off of that beaten horse…anyway, thanks again to Greg, Johnny, Klaus and Christina! And kudos to Joe for taking the chance on the House of Ideas. You have my continued support.

Ok, all in all, here’s my synopsis: Strange is angry beyond bounds and will beat the crap out of Hulk, and their previous friendships will stop Strange to resist himself from giving the final blow. Seizing that moment either Hulk or his new found buddies will turn the tables on the doctor.

By the looks of it, Strange is all set to go down the Captain America way.

An exhortation indicating that a character is exhibiting a powerful and dangerous persona, using a piece of dialogue (“I’m the Goddamn Batman!”) used in Frank Miller’s Batman parody work “All-Star Batman and Robin.” Can be used to indicate dismay at a certain character arc (“I’m the Goddamn Mary Marvel!”) or to show that one is impressed by a rare display of badassery (“I’m The Goddamn Sorceror Supreme!”) or also just to show contrast between a gonzo, over-the-top character and one who is equally interesting in a different oeuvre (“I’m The Goddamn Booster Gold!”)

See also: Bat-Dickness, Levels Of.

I completely disagree. I liked the use of the long friendship between Strange and Banner/Hulk, and the fact that only Doctor Strange had the rapport with him to get close enough to make the Hulk question himself, even for a moment. From a character perspective, it answers one of the most important issues behind Planet/World War Hulk: the status of Bruce Banner.

Banner’s split personalities are united by their rage, and he’s subsumed himself into the Hulk (who actually comes across as a composite of the “Professor” and “Mr. Fixit” personas) to find revenge. It’s a nice moment, for me.

Story-wise, there simply isn’t any point to writing Strange vs. the Hulk unless it’s to show that there are situations that brute strength can’t handle.

SRS

P.S. Thanks for the shoutout, Matt.

Well, the obvious answer is one of preparation. Strange has spent three issues preparing for the Hulk’s fight. He was blind-sided in mid-air by the New Avengers plane crash… Either way, the real answer is “because somebody wrote him that way” and whether the plot points work for you depends mostly on how much you like the story.

I didn’t care for his weakness in New Avengers. I very much enjoyed his moment here, even if some would say he was overpowered.

I didn’t have any problem with the effect being physically shown on the Doc, mostly because it was a tool to an end, to show that Hulk is formidable, even for a mystic.

Essentially, it was a McGuffin to give us a story. The mechanics honestly didn’t matter to me because it didn’t matter to the story, it was just a way to get Stephen and Bruce a moment to talk, and for Bruce to show that he has as much emotional pain staked on Caeira’s death as the Hulk did.

Your mileage may vary. I liked the book.

I suppose that Pak modeled his Strange-Hulk encounter on telepathic battles fought by Xavier (and others?) in the X-books, but he chose the wrong models. Strange’s ectoplasmic astral form is not Xavier’s telepathic projection; the astral plane that mystics travel on is not a stage for psionic energy constructs; the soul is not the mind.

As neat as the Hulk’s “crushing” of Strange’s hands might have appeared, that would have had no effect on Strange’s body. There was no telepathic battle occurring. Pak made things worse by claiming that the injury to Strange’s hands would interfere with spell casting, ignoring the injury when the time came to turn Strange into a giant, and casually having Strange’s concealment spells negated.

A telepathic battle really isn’t suited for comics, because of the abstract nature of the conflict–psionic energy aimed at each other’s brain. Non-violent telepathic encounters aren’t much different. Because the interaction has to be pictured, the writer will go for striking images that have nothing to do with the mundane transmission of psionic energy from cell to cell, or from brain to brain.

I can appreciate the problem writers for WWH and the tie-ins face by having a character whose only powers are being really, really strong and invulnerable, but they created their own problem by bringing Dr. Strange onto the scene. He never should have been part of the Illuminati–chalk that up to Bendis’s ignorance regarding the character–and was particularly unsuited for a battle with the Hulk.

Pak got into a situation, in WWH #3, that was certain to make him look bad.

SRS