After falling into a literal Corinne Russell rabbit hole thanks to a video from The Benny Hill Show that I included in my still unfinished FLASH FRIDAY WITH PAUL PELLETIER : CHAIN LIGHTNING - PART 1 post I wanted to take a break from compiling all of her pictures anyways. But as always this cursed laptop has forced my hand so I am using the opportunity to write the HULK : CROSSROADS post I would have written if I hadn't been busy going through 113 pages of Corinne Russel stuff the last three days.
Now you may wonder what I meant with " the laptop has forced my hand "and you shall know. As regular blog visitors know ( so they can skip this part and get right to the good stuff ) I had to buy a new laptop because my old one started to slowly but determinedly self destruct ever since I moved to Spain and for whatever reason the person who designed this one - and I am using the term " designed "in its broadest meaning - has obviously not intended to use it for blogging. Or cataloguing pictures.
Or cataloguing anything. Or any other normal thing when you are using a laptop. So the picture archive is linked to a cloud where the pictures apparently also have to be stored but the kicker is that you don't have much cloud storage so it is immediately full and if you want to store more in the cloud you have to pay. Yep, that's right, OneDrive is like the Mafia embezzling you for money or all your precious pictures are gone.
Well, not gone gone but the laptop just stops showing you the preview pictures. Which as you can imagine makes compiling and cataloguing pictures as well as anything else that you basically need to write a blog almost impossible. On top of that you can see preview pictures of the stuff you download but only as long as the folder where you are saving the pictures - and which you need to open BEFORE starting to download the new pictures - stays open. If you close it Today and do open it again Tomorrow all the preview pictures will disappear like dust in the wind.
Which is why for the last three days I had the folders for compiling the Corinne Russell pictures - and the HULK folder - open on a permanent basis so I could still see the preview pictures and keep working. And I was making some great headstart. As I mentioned the threat where I found all of the Corinne Russell pictures has 161 pages and I made my way to page 48 but I was already realizing that I could not finish it on the third day - at least not if I want to sleep so I can continue to function as a halfway lucid human being - and so decided to prepare some material for other posts so I can take a break and finish this later.
Which is exactly when my laptop said " Okay, I think I have been taking things too easy on this guy because he still is doing his stuff without paying the OneDrive protection money. Let's just freeze everything so he has to restart the laptop which means he will loose all preview pictures and has to start all over. That will fix him up. "and so that happened.
Thankfully I already prepared all the pictures for this post Yesterday so I can at least write this post but since the preview pictures for the HULK folder also disappeared I had to resize some of the original artwork in order to have any kind of orientation so I hope my faithful followers can forgive me if the pictures are a bit smaller than usual in this HULK post.
So at this point I have already talked longer than necessary about the genesis of this post - and I wager it will be a lot longer once I finish compiling and cataloguing all of the Corinne Russell pictures because at this point I can not tell you too much about her since I do not know what I will write in my Corinne Russell spin - off posts ( of which there will be at least three from the looks of it at the moment ) - and it's time to go into why I was already preparing stuff for this HULK spotlight Yesterday.
As I have commented a few times in previous posts - and those of you who frequent this blog on a regular basis are probably tired of hearing - I had to sell, donate, give away or throw away almost my complete comic book collection that I spent the better part of the last 40 years getting.
And I am saying " almost "because I managed to ship a few collectibles to Spain once I realized that people were taking advantage of my dire situation ( since I had to sell them all in a hurry and all of the usual comicbook shops who buy collections were closed thanks to COVID I had to rely on private collectors and could not demand high prices - or even regular prices and so had to basically give most of it away if not for free than at least for slightly more than a tip ) and if I wanted to safe at least a few of my most prized possessions I had to act now and act fast.
So I managed to ship the tiniest part of my comicbook collection to Spain - I would wager about just 0.001 percent or less - and I have to give a shoutout at this point to one of the private collectors who not only paid a fair price for all the comicbooks, movie magazine and adult magazines he hauled off ( yes, I also had to get rid of all my adult mags which not only included a lot of cheap german smut mags but also over a dozen of exclusive american editions of PLAYBOY specials ) and almost got into a fight with a friend for this because he told him - and I quote : " that he didn't have to pay me reasonable prices and could rob me blind "but on top of that offered to carry the packages with my comicbooks to the post office which was extremely difficult for me due to my poor health.
Anyway, from my HULK collection I only managed to save the HULK - PARDONED trade paperback ( as longtime readers know JoeSinnotisone of my favourite inkers and this is one of my favourite HULK stories ) and the HULK / PITT, HULK / DARKNESS one - shots as well as the HULK - LAST CALL one - shot written by Peter David and drawn by Dale Keown.
To give you an idea : besides numerous HULK Epic collections, Marvel Essentials, Marvel Masterworks, hardcovers and trades I had most of the issues between 306 and issue 319, from issue 326 to issue 345 ( I was not a big fan of the Jeff Purves issues ) and from issue 369 up to issue 425.
Speaking of Dale Keown, for me he was born to draw THE INCREDIBLE HULK ( if you don't believe me check out the three DaleKeownHULK posts I have written ) which is why back when I was still unaware that we were bled dry with money and was trying if not to reconstruct my old comicbook collection then at least get a few of the essential works of art one of the first omnibus books I got was the INCREDIBLE HULK BY PETER DAVID AND DALE KEOWN omnibus. It was available at amazon with quite the discount ( I think at the moment it is sold out again and you can be sure that when Disney reprints it it will be with a heavier price tag ) and I also got the following omnibus which has all of the Gary Frank stuff plus a lot of Liam Sharp material. Which did have more of a discount but the main reason why I decided to buy it was the inclusion of one of the best HULK mini series ever - FUTURE IMPERFECT by Peter David and thegreatlateGeorgePerez - which alone is worth the price of admission.
I also got volume 15 of the HULK MARVEL MASTERWORKS at half price through amazon which I almost didn't buy because you have three issues inked by Jack Abel who really doesn't do SalBuscema any favours as well as THE HULK ANNUAL 9 by Steve Ditko which I didn't care about and the saving grace in this instance is the inclusion of the previous HULK annual in which Alfredo Alcala does a sublime job embellishing Sal's pencils.
And you have one of the best drag down donnybrooks of the Hulk and ALPHA FLIGHT's stunning Sasquatch. Who is a complete dork in the story but we will get to Walter Langkowski's most epic fail later in the post.
Now the reason why I listed all the comicbooks I used to have against the few I have now is not to make myself look cool - which is the impression my late brother always told me he got from reading my posts but I am not sure if that is true for the rest of the world - but to give you a source of reference. Which brings us to the topic of this post, the CROSSROADS story written by the underrated Bill Mantlo with pencils by SalBuscema , inks by Gerry Talaoc and most covers by a pre - HELLBOYMikeMignola .
This is one of those stories that has always stuck in my head, not only because it introduced the element of Bruce Banner suffering childhood trauma because of an abusive father that became canon in comics and movies but also for the nostalgia factor because that is where I came in.
That's right, I didn't get in at the start of this storyline which was arguably issue 297 ( remember, back in those days writers stuck to a title for more than the six issues needed to be collected in a trade to subplots started 20 or 30 issues in advance ) or with the 300th issue which was the big Hulk vs the entire Marvel universe fight that landed the Hulk at the crossroads but with the two - parter of issues 306 and 307 where the Incredible Hulk once again joins the crew of the starship Andromeda to hunt down the Moby Dick - esque energy eater Klaatu.
Those were the first american HULK issues I got from the international press newsstand at Stuttgart Central Station and I had no idea what was up with the Hulk. It would be a few years until Condor Verlag published issue 300 of THE INCREDIBLE HULK as MARVEL COMIC SONDERHEFT NR. 21 and I learned first hand what had happened with old green skin but I did not need to know because they gave enough information in the recaps.
So maybe it was just a sense of nostalgia or me missing my old comic collection that gave me the urge to buy the recently published HULK - CROSSROADS Epic Collection and revisit these familiar hunting grounds.
Or maybe it was more than that. Because there comes a time when we find ourselves at the crossroads where we have to decide which course to take. And maybe not all of us are there of our own choosing or have any real choice about where to go either. But sooner or later we end up at the crossroads without any of our belongings forced to choose and live with the consequences. Because if I have learned anything after coming to Spain is that you can either live your life in the past and mourn all that you have lost or roll with the punches and go on no matter what.
But before we get too philosophical let's get to the story in CROSSROADS.
This follows the happenings of the HULK - PARDONED storyline - about which I have already written in my Joe Sinnott appreciation post from 2015 - where Hulk became intelligent and was granted a presidential pardon after defeating the Leader. But it seems the guys in power at Marvel Comics did not know what to do with an intelligent Hulk back then and so Bill Mantlo spun this yarn where the super villain Nightmare tried to get back at Doctor Strange by unleashing the Hulk's more bestial side and having him go on a rampage with the ultimate goal of getting a furious Hulk to pound the master of the mystic arts into a bloody pulp.
That didn't happen but what came of it was Bruce Banner committing spiritual suicide burying himself in the deepest parts of the Hulk's psyche before facing the prospect of trying and failing to control the savage beast again after a period of peace and adoration by the general public.
Which left a Hulk without any restraint on an unstoppable rampage that would have devastated planet Earth and left Doctor Strange with only two options : either kill one of the few friends he has or exile the Hulk from Earth forever. Being the benevolent humanitarian that Stephen Strange was back then he normally choose the latter - but with a catch.
Instead of sending the anything but jolly green giant to a Planet Hulk he left the choice up to the Hulk by transporting him to the crossroads of a multitude of other planets that were hospitable to the Hulk without the possibility of harming him or being harmed by him. There the former founding Defender could try out any number of worlds and if he was unsatisfied with his choice Doctor Strange had implanted a failsafe spell that would immediately bring him back to the crossroads for another try.
Now I don't want to give too much away ( which is why I won't mention Walter Langkowski's fail of biblical proportions but if you really want to know you can find it in the aforementioned Joe Sinnot tribute post) but before - finally - coming to the original art pages for this post I have to give a shoutout to Bill Mantlo, one of the most underrated writers in comicbooks who build entire cosmos out of toys like MICRONAUTS or ROM, SPACEKNIGHT and finally got some recognition for co - creating such characters like CLOAK AND DAGGER or Rocket Racoon because of the tv and movie adaptions. And now, welcome to the crossroads and may your choice lead you on your path to salvation, fellow traveller.
crossing over
stuff
links
videos
death
haunted and the confession with markie post
mcfarlane hulk
cartoon
bixby
speaking of magic magic magys tops get more distracting with each reaction especially her north las vegas shirt
bill mantlo
killer workout aka aerobicide
I know that Busenwunder Dianne Copeland ( who thankfully has an albeit much too brief bikini scene ) plays Debbie but does anybody know the name of the busty blow up sex doll in the blue outfit ? Any information would be appreciated and as always just drop me an e - mail or let me know in the comments below.
eric prydz
fifth
element
judy landers
gary frank
fist
north star
the anime
watch it
banner - get it ?
quote of the day
