Broken Frontier

On a film set, the shooting schedule tends to follow logistics rather than chronology — meaning every scene in the pet store gets shot on the day we’re at the pet store, regardless of when those scenes actually appear in the screenplay.  So as a film director, I’ve had to train myself to keep the chronological flow of the story in my head while shooting out of sequence — which turns out to have been excellent preparation for the craziness of comic book scheduling.

Looking back through my files, I see that I turned in the final script for “Incredible Hulk” #107 on January 16, the final script for “World War Hulk” #1 on January 18, and the final script for “Incredible Hulk” #105 on January 26.  That’s the exact opposite chronological order of how the books actually came out. But when artists’ schedules open up, writers need to provide pages.

Now I’d outlined all of these scripts weeks or even months beforehand, so I knew how the whole story held together and how each script set up the next and was able to apply my filmmaker’s training to write out of sequence.  But “Incredible Hulk” #107 provided even more extreme challenges.  The tightness of the schedule meant that penciller Gary Frank needed pages before the whole script was completed.  So we gave him a few pages at a time as I polished.  That can be a scary way to work — under normal circumstances, I’ll finish an entire script and then polish the whole thing — and usually discover that I want to tweak something on page one in order to better set up page twenty two.  That’s no problem when the script’s only been seen by me and my editors. But once a penciller has started work, changing images becomes a big, big problem. 

On the other hand, our crazy schedule made writing “Incredible Hulk” #107 one of the most creatively stimulating times I’ve had in comics.  Hulk editor Mark Paniccia and I were talking several times every day, trading note and inspirations.  And it was a thrill getting pages back from Gary while I was still writing.  It’s a bit like seeing dailies on a movie set — I got to see the characters Gary was drawing come to life, which helped me get an even better feel for them as I finished the script. 

We also got a chance to fix some of my mistakes — after seeing Gary’s awesome first few pages, Mark and I realized the aftermath of the S.H.I.E.L.D. attack really needed to be seen.  So in the next chunk of script, I included the splash page of Herc tearing into Gabe Jones’s helicopter, which was exactly the “Holy cow!” moment the scene wanted.  And Gary Frank, as you can see, absolutely knocked the ball out of the park.

And now on to Reader Q&A!  (And please click here, dear readers, to submit your own questions for next week’s column.)

HRUNGR:  First off, congratulations for getting WWH off to a great (and obviously very well-received) start! I’ve read your first couple of columns here and Michael Kang seems to have done a good job at getting all of the big in-book questions out of the way so mine I direct a little further afield…

I noticed that there is no issue of Incredible Hulk solicited for October, the month that WWH wraps up. Further, I had (sadly) heard that issue #110 would also be Carlo Pagulayan’s last. So is IH skipping October and picking up again in November? Are they re-launching the title? And with Gary Frank moving over to DC, can you tell us who will be on the art chores when it does come back? Barring that, I loved Carlo’s work on Planet Hulk, can you say what he’ll be working on post-IH?

GREG PAK: Thanks for your kind words, Hrungr. Those October solicits haven’t actually come out just yet — keep your eyes open!   I can’t reveal too much at this point about what happens after “Incredible Hulk” #110.  I’ll just say that we’re working on a wild story that will absolutely surprise everybody. Regarding Carlo, I can’t yet reveal just what’s next on his plate.  But I just saw some pencils from him that are out of this world.

And now a slew of questions from Broken Frontier EiC Frederik Hautain. 

WARNING:  “INCREDIBLE HULK” #107 SPOILERS AHEAD!

BROKEN FRONTIER: I never thought the Civil War tagline ‘Whose Side Are You On?’ could be used again so quickly, but it really is the best way to sum up Hulk #107...

GREG PAK:   It is pretty applicable, isn’t it?  “Incredible Hulk” #107 continues the quest of self-appointed Hulk champion Amadeus Cho to round up those heroes who might just be crazy enough to side with the Hulk for “World War Hulk.”  In a way, the stakes for the characters who join him are even higher than they were during “Civil War.”  The heroes were split roughly down the middle during “Civil War,” with dozens on each side.  During “World War Hulk,” it’s just about every superhero on the planet versus the Green Goliath.  It takes a pretty extreme kind of courage — or insanity — to side with the Hulk under those circumstances.

BF:  That said, can you go into a little bit more detail than how it was conveyed in the story on why each of the people on the last two pages of the issue want to side with Hulk?

GP:  Amadeus Cho is a kid genius whose family was murdered by a nefarious secret agency — he’s idolized the Hulk ever since the Hulk saved his life.  Now Amadeus is ready to return the favor. 

Years ago, as members of the Champions, Angel and Hercules attacked a rampaging Hulk, only to discover later that the Hulk was just trying to get his cousin to the hospital.  Both have long hoped for the chance to make things right with the Hulk.  When the magnitude of the Hulk’s fury and the reasons for his rage are revealed, Hercules’s resolve to help him only increases — Herc’s had his own tragedies connected to rage in his ancient past.  Angel’s far more dubious of the correctness of their actions, but the fact that Amadeus has hijacked his bank accounts and that his buddy Herc has committed to this crazy course of action has kept him on board for now. 

Namora is the cousin of Prince Namor, the Submariner.  She was frozen in ice for fifty years, forgotten by all.  So the Hulk’s story of betrayal by his so-called friends appealed to her.

Tom Foster is the nephew of Bill Foster, aka Goliath, the hero killed by the Thor clone created by Reed Richards and Tony Stark during the Civil War.  Tom’s ready to see Richards and Tony Stark get theirs.

And then there are number of other civilians who have come to Manhattan to cheer on the Hulk — among them, the sick, the poor, the forgotten, and the insane.  Anyone with a stake in the stability and security of the status quo has to fear the Hulk’s return.  But in the minds of some people, the Hulk represents a chance to smash all the institutions that have denied them their dreams or corrupted the world as they see it.  Whether the Hulk has any interest at all in their concerns remains to be seen.

BF:  Apart from Amadeus Cho, who's convinced Hulk's never the aggressor, do these other people see Hulk more as a 'human being' than he does see himself?

GP:  Tom Foster, for one, may have a very different conception of the Hulk — but not one that relies much on a sense of the Hulk’s humanity.  Tom wants vengeance for the death of his uncle and sees the Hulk as maybe the only one strong enough to deliver it.  And some of the other pilgrims may have exalted expectations of the Hulk that reflect a desire for him to be far more than human.   In a strange way, Hercules, an honest-to-gosh demigod, may be the person most able to relate to the Hulk as a human being.

BF:  Through the first half of the issue, I continually got the feeling that Amadeus is not laying all his cards on the table, even though he's bought the Hulk a sanctuary and all that...

GP:  Amadeus is a cocky teenager who happens to be the seventh smartest person on the planet and whose family has been murdered by a secret agency.  He doesn’t trust anyone with the exception of the Hulk and always has something up his sleeve — as evinced by his secretly forcing S.H.I.E.L.D. to attack Herc and Angel in order to get those heroes on his side.  But thus far, he’s done nothing that raises questions about the sincerity of his desire to help the Hulk.  Whether there’s another plot behind his plots remains to be seen.

BF:  Spinning off of that a bit, and since he's as much a key player here as the Hulk himself, how will we see Amadeus Cho evolve in the pages of this book?

GP:  Amadeus will have the chance to discover whether the Hulk he’s been idolizing and the Hulk he’s finally meeting face-to-face have anything at all to do with each other.  In “Incredible Hulk” #110, Amadeus will get his answer — along with a shocking revelation about the true nature of the Hulk.

BF:  ‘Warbound’ is pencilled by Gary Frank. Did Frank stepping in for Pagulayan and Lopresti have anything to do with the more superhero-oriented nature of the arc, as opposed to the all-out sci-fi setting of Planet Hulk?

GP:  We always knew the tale would feel more superhero than sci-fi when the Hulk returned to Earth — that was determined more by the story’s geography than the pencillers involved. But of course Gary’s knocked it out of the park in “Incredible Hulk” #106 and #107.  And fans of the “Planet Hulk” art will be pleased to know that Carlo Pagulayan is pencilling “Incredible Hulk” #109 and #110, the last two issues of the “Warbound” arc.  These are Carlo’s first pencils here on Planet Earth in over a year, and they’re pretty astounding.  His Herc in particular is a sight to behold.

BF:  Keeping continuity in mind: looking at the events in last week's World War Hulk #1, where does the Hulk's brief fight with Hercules take place?

GP:  “Incredible Hulk” #107 begins the day before “World War Hulk” #1 begins and ends shortly thereafter.  I can’t say exactly where the Hulk/Herc fight fits in just yet for fear of spoilers, but all will become clear when you read “World War Hulk” #2.

BF:  Oh, and about Hercules, when I read of Hercules' saying he got e-mail, I responded like Angel did... how the heck did he get a Verizon account?

GP:  Heh.  Herc may be thousands of years old, but he’s smart enough to jump on a good thing when he sees it.  In particular, he totally digs those cat attack vids on YouTube.

I have to say, Hercules is probably the character that’s surprised me the most in this story.  I’ve absolutely loved writing him and think there’s an enormous amount of potential in the Prince of Power.

BF:  Now, seriously, over the course of the next three issues, will ‘Warbound’ remain really closely tied to what's going on in WWH proper, or will it travel on its own course, like, say, WWH Front Line will?

GP:  “World War Hulk” tackles the story in the biggest, most epic way imaginable — the James Cameron summer blockbuster version, if you will.  The “Warbound” story arc in “Incredible Hulk” takes a quirkier, more personal, but just as entertaining angle on the story — the Steven Soderbergh sleeper hit version, if you’re still with me.  So both stories revolve around the same enormous events. 

But the “Incredible Hulk” story will take you down some surprising paths in exploring the emotional ramifications of the material while providing its own rollercoaster of action.

BF:  Rounding things off here, what's coming up next in Incredible Hulk #108?

GP:  It’s the showdown between Rick Jones, the Hulk’s greatest Earthbound friend, and Miek the Unhived, the Hulk’s first ally from Sakaar.  Worldviews collide as the two sidekicks defend their radically different conceptions of the Green Goliath — with pencils from the fabulous Leonard Kirk.  Speaking of which, how ‘bout we show you some? 

   
Pages 5 and 6 of Incredible Hulk #108

Thanks for reading — we’ll be back next week with more.  Please click here to submit your own questions and see ya next time! Oh, and pick up this banner and insert it in your signatures, put it on your websites... whatever it takes to prevent the Hulk from finding his way to your doorstep!

© 2007 Greg Pak.  All rights reserved.  For more about Greg Pak’s comics and films, visit www.pakbuzz.com.