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Buchenberger, Stefan. "Future Imperfect: Dystopia, Time Travel, Absolute Power, and the Incredible Hulk." Dialogues between Media. Ed. Paul Ferstl. The Many Languages of Comparative Literature. Berlin u. Boston: de Gruyter, 2021. 25–32. Added by: joachim (1/11/21, 8:11 PM) Last edited by: joachim (2/28/21, 10:52 AM) |
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| Resource type: Book Chapter Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: Buchenberger2021 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Hulk", Science Fiction, Superhero, USA Creators: Buchenberger, Ferstl Publisher: de Gruyter (Berlin u. Boston) Collection: Dialogues between Media |
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This article considers a recent graphic novel and its ability to create new challenges for an invincible superhero. One of the greatest difficulties in writing the Incredible Hulk was always to create challenges for him: his most dangerous adversaries, like the Leader and the Abomination, also created by gamma radiation, are just different versions of himself. However, in 1992, Peter David, together with the artist George Perez, created one of the most memorable stories of the green giant with the two-part prestige-format series Future Imperfect. In this text, the Hulk came face-to-face with a monstrous future version of himself, the Maestro, the absolute ruler of a post-apocalyptic world where all the other superheroes had long since perished. Compared to the two Hulk foes mentioned above, the Maestro takes the idea of the mirror-image villain a step further, as he is the monster hiding inside the original monster: all the madness of the Hulk, of which we have only seen glimpses so far, comes to life. Future Imperfect uses traditional science-fiction plot elements like a dystopian future and time travel to give a new twist to the eternal struggle between the Incredible Hulk and his alter ego, Bruce Banner. As destructive as the Incredible Hulk can sometimes be, his monstrous future self reaches new heights when it comes to madness, which in return makes him even more powerful, since the Hulk gets stronger the madder he gets.
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