The Jade Giant

Incredible Hulk

The Hulk has never been a favorite character of mine, but I do understand the enjoyment of seeing him go all  rage-monster and smash everything in sight.

I probably wouldn't even put much thought into a Make My Marvel relaunch of the character if an idea hadn't popped into my head unrequested.  According to my limited Hulk readings, the last we saw of the Hulk around the time of Civil War was the Planet Hulk and World War Hulk storylines.  Here, the gamma-irradiated goliath was launched into space by some of his so-called friends, and then came back for some sweet, sweet revenge.  At the end of World War Hulk, I guess he was captured by the Army and wasn't seen for a while until the launch of his follow-on series?

After 50 years of being hunted by the Army, I thought, why not turn things on their ear and have the Hulk work for the Army.  No threats, no coercion, just Hulk agreeing to atone for his crimes. Or, more specifically, Bruce Banner agreeing to atone.

This may actually be the premise behind Agents of SMASH, I've never seen it, 

but I'm very tempted to steal the title anyways.

I don't want there to be any doubts about the Hulk's sincerity, so the decision will be driven by a guilt-ridden Banner, appalled at seeing what he'd done during WWHulk.  As a former employee of the Army, he returns to his position as an adviser, with the primary task of identifying events which warrant the Hulk's intervention.  

An added bonus of kicking off my Hulk following WWH is that, at that point, the Red Hulk had not been introduced.  Not only do I get to dodge such an unnecessary character as "Rulk", but I get to keep Gen. Ross purely as a military foil to Banner.  Ol' Thunderbolt will chafe at not being able to use Hulk as his personal tool of mass destruction.

Even thought Banner's intellect decides when the Hulk is released, don't loose sight of the fact that Hulk himself is a raging monster.  Banner has to be careful about what calls for his gamma-intervention, but when he does cut loose, expect his alter-ego to go all HAM on the enemy.

Another job well done for Team Hulk

Ol' Web-Head

The Spectacular Spider-Man

Rolling forward in my change points for Make My Marvel, we come to the moment Marvel chickened out hard.

One of the boldest moments of Civil War was when Peter Parker unmasked, revealing his long-held secret identity to the world.  It took almost exactly one year for them to undo this with an ill-advised deal with Satan.

Technically speaking, Parker's deal with Mephisto was to save his Aunt May's life after she was shot by one of Spider-Man's enemies.  The bonus for the editorial staff was that Mephisto's price was to undo everything they didn't like about the evolution of the character over the past 20 or so years.  They reset the whole thing back to a time when Spider-Man was his most iconic, an understandable goal, but one counter to my "make your bed, you lay in it" philosophy.

Here's how I'd run with Parker's outing:

After receiving amnesty for his actions during Civil War, and gaining national sympathy for the murder of his Aunt May, Peter finds his public identity brings a level of fame and celebrity he'd never had before.  He's finally achieved the showbiz career he initially sought in his first outing as Spider-Man, and becomes the world-famous Spider-Man we saw in 'House of M'.  Movie offers and product endorsements are coming in, he's a valued member of the Avengers, and even Mary Jane's acting career is taking off thanks to her marriage to Spider-Man.  He even has a crack legal team tying up J. Jonah Jameson's lawsuit against him for faking all those photographs over the years.

Heheh

Of course, we all know Spider-Man is at his best when his personal life is in the dumps thanks to his webswinging life, and it's no different here.  With all the adoration and celebrity comes an almost total lack of respect.  Once one of the most trusted superheroes in New York, Spider-Man is now seen as more of a money-grabbing shill, and few people believe any more that his heart is in the right place.  Also, all the work he and MJ are getting has kept them apart enough that they're not enjoying their lives together.  Peter has finally gotten what he always wanted, and it's nothing like what he hoped for.

I've no real reason to change Spider-Man's look at all, although I do favor the shoulder-only web pattern of the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon over the arm-length stripe.  I also kind of like the lensed eye pieces in the Doc Ock version of Superior Spider-Man.  I'm not opposed to subtle changes, so if I were drawing this, I'd probably add those.

Yeah, Superior Spidey had the shoulder things too, but I didn't like the muted colors.

God of Thunder

Thor

Taking a sort of chronological approach to Make My Marvel, I'm kicking off with my first continuity change following my rolling start of Marvel Comics timeline.

As I mentioned in my MMM kick-off post, I'm 100% on-board with Marvel continuity up through the end of Civil War.  My first deviation kicks in in September of 2007 with the never-happened introduction of Thor vol. 3.  Here's why that'll never happen in my Marvel.

Unlike seemingly every other comic book fan out there, I've never cared much for Thor when he focused on his Asgardian heritage.  At my core, I'm a superhero fan, and I like seeing Thor acting in Midgard as a hero, rather than hanging out with all his god friends in Asgard.  In fact, my favorite period of Thor's history was when the son of Odin was banished and his powers bestowed on mortal man, Eric Masterson.

They added some armoring to his costume, but without going full-on Viking like in recent years.

This aesthetic will influence my costuming decisions for MMM Thor.

By coincidence, when last we saw Thor, he and all of Asgard were destroyed in the most recent period of Ragnarok during Avenges Disassembled.  That was back in 2004, so by the end of Civil War, Thor had been dead for three years, with only his hammer, Mjolnir, appearing on Earth as it crashed into Oklahoma in 2006.

Thor vol. 3 sets the big Asgard reset button as a Doctor Don Blake latches onto the hammer, revealing himself to be the son of Odin, and going on a quest to revive all the previously-dead Asgardians.

I call bull%@#$.

The death of Thor was one of those bold moves I really appreciated, all the more because it sets me up for the Thor stories *I* want to tell.

See, following Mjolnir's appearance, I imagine tons of people and organizations would be attempting to claim it, but for all the wrong reasons.  Thanks to the hammer's enchantment, none were able to lift it.  Time passes and, other than the reactivation of nearby Fort Cobb as an Army outpost to keep an eye on the artifact, nothing much has developed from it.  

This volume of Thor introduces the character of Grant Stewart (or whatever I decide to name him), a former sheriff's deputy who was retired from the force due to injuries received in the line of duty.  Grant's opening storyline will have him be the first person to attempt to claim Thor's hammer for entirely selfless reasons (in general terms, related to the circumstances behind his injuries) and gaining the powers of Thor.  Without retreading old ground of having Thor's mortal form being a medical man, he still retains his status as a civic servant, and his connections with the sheriff's department tie him into the crime-fighting community of the region.  On the throw-back side, though, his injuries do require him to walk with cane, so he gets that old familiar device for summoning Mjolnir.  I admit Broxton, Oklahoma is a tough sell for supervillainy, but since I'm writing these stories, all I have to do is write stories with supervillains.  I think we're past the point of needing to justify their appearance.

Grant's supporting cast include his friends at the sheriff's office, significant members of the nearby Army base, whatever conspirators were involved in his injury, and the townsfolk of Broxton.  Three townsmembers in particular will demonstrate a penchant for getting into trouble and, while they will become strong allies of Thor, their tendency to need rescuing will take steps toward cancelling that out.  Although I've no intention of resurrecting the Asgardians, these three will have shades of Warriors Three, and may even take on that name during their adventures.

The only exception to my "No Asgardians" rule is the survival of Loki.  If anybody's clever enough to survive Ragnarok, it's Loki, and he returns to pester this new wielder of the power of Thor.  I may even pick up on events in the comic where Loki took on the form of a woman. I don't think I ever understood the reason for that in the comics, but I like the look the artists generated for Loki's female form, and can probably think of a reason Loki would need to change forms in order to survive Ragnarok.

Thor's appearance would also change to mirror his new "host body," and I'm even tempted to make Grant a redhead, not only to dial into the mythology of Thor as a ginger, but also to match this awesome illustration of a redheaded Thor by a bloke named "MasterOniHunter" over at Superbuddies.net:

Although I would very definitely include the masked helm as seen on Erik Masterson.

Make My Marvel

My blog entries petered off there for a bit as I sort of used up all the DC Comics titles I'd introduce in my My52 publishing empire.  With the exhaustion of my favorite DC titles (and not ready to develop pitches for titles I don't care much for), I turned my attention to doing the same thing with Marvel's comics.

While my My52 pitches were rooted in the single event of Blackest Night, my most recent Marvel Comics awareness is spread over a few "recent" Marvel events.  It's hard to pick just one point.  While I see 2006's 'Civil War' as a reasonable starting point, there were a few follow-on events and bold moves I appreciated enough to want to keep in my timeline. Unfortunately, there were just as many backpedals and reverses for my tastes, and I'd like to excise those.

For these reasons, I'm opting for a sort of rolling start to Make My Marvel.

MMM Canon is solid up through the conclusion of 'Civil War'.  That mini-series saw Marvel's hero community violently split down the middle over support or resistance to a newly-enacted Suuper-Hero Registration Act.  Iron-Man's supporters ultimately won the battle against Captain America's resistors, and the whole thing ended tragically with the assassination of Cap on the afternoon of his arrest for his actions.

Right on the heals of Civil War was 'Secret Invasion', the revelation that a number of Marvel's characters were actually shape-shifting alien Skrull invaders.  While this story was even better than Civil War, the time in-between saw a couple reversals I never wanted to see, and my MMM timeline will tentatively progress through Secret Invasion, but with some retcons to maintain some of the bolder elements I'd liked from previous stories.

If you think I'm being vague on which elements I'm keeping, that's intentional.  No spoilers here, gang, you'll have to keep reading to see where I'd take My Marvel.