As I went about producing these first two issues I was constantly second-guessing the entire story. While I'm pleased with how the issues look and read, I have to say that this origin was not "fun" for me. Mainly because the story I really want to share is about Banner on the run, searching for answers about the Hulk, his childhood, and how mankind is evolving (the arrival of superpowered people, mutants, aliens, etc).

Before I could get to that "fugitive" story, I wanted to create a new origin for the creature, one that was a combination of the different origins that the Hulk has had in assorted media. An "Ultimate" origin, if you will, one that would (hopefully) be familiar to all Hulk fans, whether they happen to be only a fan of the comic, or only familiar with the TV show, and so on.

Working the death of Betty Ross into the Hulk's origin was important to me. As I mentioned before, I've tried to take The Incredible Hulk TV pilot and replace Elaina Marks with Betty. Adding the guilt of Betty's death is a huge benefit to the story and to the character of Bruce, in my opinion. Not only has he ruined his own life, but he's destroyed the lives of those around him too. And like Bixby's Banner, he willingly experimented on himself, ignoring the pleas of his friends. That also adds some drama to the character.

So long-story short, in order to reach the vision I had for Banner, I had to create this new origin, which ended up having major problems of its own. How to work Rick Jones into it for starters...


A Certain Point of View...

Originally, way back when MKA was in the early stages, I was going to have the entire tale be from Rick's POV; not just the Hulk origin, but everything. Rick would be there for the Hulk's "birth"; He'd be there when Galactus first arrives; He'd witness Captain America's return, the death of Gwen Stacy, Wolverine versus the Hulk, and so on. Rick would sort of be like Forrest Gump, present for all these major "Marvel" moments. Anyway, it's still an interesting idea, but I gave up on it as I struggled to try to find a way to include Rick in the updated Hulk origin. For a brief time I eliminated Rick from the early scripts, broke my heart to do it, but I eventually found a way to squeeze him in.

Anyway, the real dilemma I faced with Issue #2 is that in Issue #1 I established that the "incident" (the gamma exposure) took place in the past. Banner riding on the bus was the "present". So in Issue #2 I was faced with the prospect of presenting flashbacks within flashbacks. Talk about a headache within a headache. The narration is still coming from Banner in the "present" (perhaps he's still on the bus, maybe he's sitting in a motel room, you decide), but Banner and Rick in Banner's house is a flashback, and then the Hulk-out in the lab is another flashback. I was very worried that readers wouldn't be able to figure out what's going on when and where. I was also concerned if it was understood that Banner's narration (the green caption boxes) were meant for you the reader, not Rick. All these little things preyed on my mind while writing and laying out the pages. In the end, I think it works. It's flawed, but it works. And I've learned so much over these past two issues it isn't even funny. This has definitely been a great learning experience.

It's a serviceable origin for the Hulk, not perfect, not as in-depth as I'd have liked, and not anywhere near as scary as I had hoped to make it (remember, I wanted to return the Hulk to his horror roots), but it serves it's purpose, much like Star Wars: Episode I. ;)

Even though I'm not really happy with these first two issues, I'm glad I was able to work all the kinks out. I've gained a confidence going forward into Issue #3 and beyond that I didn't have going into Issue #1.


Time and Space...

When you sit down to draw them, 12 pages are a lot of work. I'm a procrastinator, but when I buckle down I can get a lot done in one sitting. Even still, a 12-page comic is a lot of work, especially with me being a one-man show. But when you're writing and story-boarding, 12 pages is an incredibly small amount of space to tell an effective story in. As a writer, I could have stretched the Hulk's origin to 100 pages and even then I probably couldn't fit all the things I'd have liked into the script. As an artist, I'd never be able to produce that kind of artwork and the entire project would fail. Using a 12-page format, you have to cut corners and find ways to make things work. You have to eliminate scenes you love and dialogue you enjoyed writing, because there's no way you can fit everything in. If you're lucky, maybe you can find ways to include some of those great "deleted scenes" into future issues. Maybe it's a conversation between two characters, an action scene, whatever. Certain scenes I will be able to work in to future stories, but others have been lost.

Without a doubt I wanted to have more in Issue #2: The army pursues the creature out of the lab, Hulk destroys a tank. I wanted to have another comic tribute, a homage to the car chase transformation sequence from Incredible Hulk #1:

RICK: "Doc! Keep your hands on the wheel!"
HULK: "Wheel? Who cares about the wheel?!"

I love that stuff.

There were going to be more Betty/Bruce scenes, more hints at the failed romance. The death of Betty was a much longer sequence, with her professing her love for the man inside the monster as she dies in his arms. Again, that's straight out of the Bixby pilot. I was going to explain more about Bruce's childhood, to explain where the anger is coming from. I wanted to get into Rick's backstory a little. And how does Tony Stark play into all this?

Because of the 12-page format, I had to cut and trim to keep it brief, to keep things moving. These issues read at a very quick pace, something I'm not happy about at all, but that's how things have to be. In a way, the quickness of the panels works in the story's favor. Issue #2 is fragmented because it's Banner's memory of the incident. It's meant to be disorienting for the reader.

For future hulk-outs we'll be on the outside looking in, here we're on the inside looking out. We share Banner's perspective of events. I'm leaving the events of Issue #2 purposely ambiguous, I don't want the readers to know exactly what happened. Is Betty dead? Did the Hulk kill her? It's gotten to the point where I don't even know myself. But this is something that we're going to explore this as the series progresses. During Banner's "Hero's Journey", I hope to explore many topics:

-Why did Banner survive the experiment?
-Why does he become the Hulk?
-Why is he green?
-What exactly happened to Betty during the first two issues?
-What happened to Rick after issue 2?

It certainly isn't easy producing a comic like this, and you absolutely learn by doing. It's harder than it looks, but if I didn't care so much about the story, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

Another thing that I'm really concerned about is the style of the artwork I'm using for this project. While I really want it to have an "animated" feel to it, I fear it may detract a little from the drama and seriousness of the stories. It's not so noticable in this first storyarc, but it'll become especially evident when I get to the DD/Punisher stories. It's an immense challenge, not only to tell an interesting story with these characters that's familiar but "new", but also to do it in a cartoonish "PG-rated" style.