The Identity of Marvel's THE TOTALLY AWESOME HULK Revealed
Marvel Comics has been teasing the "All-New, All-Different Hulk" that will be introduced in the new The Totally Awesome Hulk comic for months now. The identity of the Hulk has now been revealed, and it looks like fan speculation that it was kid genius Amadeus Cho was spot on, because that's who it is! This is the first Korean-American lead character in a Marvel comic that is also written and drawn by a Korean-American creative team, which consists of Greg Pak and Frank Cho.
Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso talks about the new Hulk comic in an interview with EW:
"For Banner, the weight was like a boulder. For Cho, it’s like a feather. And I think that’s the distinction here. He loves being the Hulk: that’s why he’s called the “Totally Awesome Hulk.” But I also want to say that he will be the only Hulk in the Marvel Universe. He will be the Hulk, the green Hulk, that will be him. Just like there’s one Thor in the Marvel Universe and she’s a she, there is one Hulk and it is Amadeus Cho. But I also want to say that there is a story to be told for Banner. Banner’s story is not over. And I don’t want people saying, 'Oh, these guys hate Banner, and they don’t like him and they’re sick of him.' No — we love Banner. And in fact, that was one of the things that Greg and Mark and I discussed, how fascinating Banner’s life will become now that he no longer has this weight on his shoulders. What is his story? It’s far from finished. People shouldn’t think that we’re jettisoning Banner — he has a place in the Marvel Universe, and I think it’s going to become more fascinating what that place is in the coming months."
Pak talks about what we can expect from the new comic series:
"The story is working on three levels: we’ve got the big crazy action level — the big monster hunt — that’s what our big story arc is. Which is also up Frank Cho’s alley, because if you know Frank Cho, you know he draws monsters like nobody’s business, and he’s going nuts with this. So, we’ve got the monster hunt, we’ve got the mystery of what happened to Banner and what’s going on with Banner, and then there’s an emotional story, of course. My favorite kinds of stories are the ones that have these big crazy genre hijinks and then a real honest, meaty, emotional story where we’re watching a character grapple with some real things. And we’re going to see if Amadeus’ dream of being the greatest Hulk ever and his total confidence of that is really warranted. And we’ve got some great supporting characters that are going to be challenging him in some interesting ways."
Alonso adds:
"The link to what happened to Banner, of course, is how did Amadeus get the power? The first arc is going to tell two stories: one is going to take place in present time, which is going to be Amadeus being totally awesome as the Hulk, and kicking ass and getting a threat that is scaled to his power. And I’ll also tease that there are seeds in this story of something larger, that will be relevant to the entire Marvel Universe sometime toward the end of the year. So there are seeds there for something much more interesting. The other story told in flashbacks will tell you how he inherited to power and what happened to Banner."
You can read the rest of the lengthy interview here to get more information. For those of you who are big Hulk fans, what do you think of Amadeus Cho as the new Hulk?
Totally Awesome Hulk #1 hits stores in December.