The Incredible Hulk has been around since 1962, one of the many many many creations of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby : the epic story of a man trapped inside of a green monster, or vice versa. These dueling personalities have given rise to a wide array of personalities through the course of the comic, and have made many friends and enemies.

This cast of characters, of course, means action figures. In 2003, ToyBiz released eight Hulk-related figures in a line that they called ‘Hulk Classics’, which coincided with their ongoing ‘Marvel Legends’ property. While the set of eight was comprised of six very diverse incarnations of The Hulk himself, the two villains (Absorbing Man and Abomination) proved very difficult to find, and now reach prices of over $100.

More recently, Hasbro has released a line simply called ‘Hulk’, a figure line that focuses on the Hulk comic rather than the current movie, and spans another eight characters as a kind of informal continuation of the ol’ Hulk Classics line. Because of the large size of most Hulk figures, the included bonus pieces of a buildable Fin Fang Foom, and the skyrocketing price of plastics and cost of transporting them, each figure costs about $15 at retail - an all time high price for a domestic action figure of this scale. So, are they worth it?

Let’s start with the Savage She-Hulk, as the smallest and rarest of the bunch. Hasbro’s previous She-Hulk figure remains one of my favorite Marvel Legends figures of all time, so there’s definitely a prejudice. This new Savage She-Hulk stands a full head shorter than her taller predecessor (which is acceptable, due to the nature of the Hulk family’s size-changing abilities), and is the only figure to include a fabric costume piece. I’m not a fan of mixing cloth and plastic on this small scale, because something never syncs up, and while the tattery white undershirt that she wears serves to allow for full movement, it doesn’t seem to be an accessory that will last long. Of course, action figure purists and weirdos alike can display her sans shirt, as Hasbro conveniently sculpted underthings onto her form. The angry face and messy hair belies her ‘Savage’ nature - something that she learned to control, subsequently joined the Fantastic Four for a little while and became a successful lawyer. I’m up for any She-Hulk, so I’m a fan.

Doc Samson is the next figure of the group, and also my favorite. Maybe it’s just something iconic about a guy with a lightning bolt on his chest, but it’ll always sucker me in. Madman, Captain Marvel, The Flash - all visually appealing guys. Doc is a great figure, cast in the soft plastics that allow for soft, sturdy movement, very simple in execution and just neat looking. He has the double-jointed knees that are rarely seen anymore (but were once responsible for making Marvel Legends a revolutionary force), and the points of articulation in his ball-jointed hips are cleverly masked by the stripes in his pants. If nothing else, he’s a classic Marvel character who we’ve not seen in this scale yet, and he’s a pretty great basic body for customizers who are interested in making him into different guys. Captain Hammer, anyone?

Absorbing Man is probably the disappointment of the set, and not really worth picking up (except for the Foom piece) - even as a stand-in for the excellent but rare Absorbing Man that ToyBiz made in 2003. While the ‘leg-made-of-brick’ is a pretty neat aesthetic choice, and the gentle transformation of his body from flesh to stone is well done, it doesn’t feel like enough. Carl Creel is a guy who once beat a teammate to death using the dead body of another teammate, so never in his life has he appeared as placid and pensive as he does here. Not only that, but the guy can turn into diamond, water, denim - hell, the guy could turn into a delicious buffet if he wanted to - so why limit him to a little bit of stone? As one of the most violent, insane characters in the Marvel universe, Hasbro’s recent penchant for bizarrely narrow heads and simplicity doesn’t match up with the character.

Wendigo is the largest figure of the line, and probably a figure I’d dig more if I enjoyed the character. He’s a big furry monster- what’s not to adore? Well, we already got a similar Wendigo in this scale a few years back, and I don’t feel the desire for another when we could have had something like Zzzax or Valkyrie (who was originally scheduled for this line), or even Psyklop. Yes, Psyklop. Regardless, this extra Wendigo is well made, and even features an uncommon ‘paint wash’ to bring out the details of the sculpt. Hasbro’s kinda eschewed the whole paint wash thing lately - mostly because it takes a little longer to produce, and thus, more expensive.

Skaar, or ‘Son of Hulk’, is a very recent addition to the Marvel universe, and not one I’ve caught up with yet. As we get into these larger characters, the plastic become slightly harder and less yielding, as parts are cast hollow to save on plastic, and they also become so muscled that they can’t really put their arms down at their sides anymore. As a result, they’ve always got that ‘chafed pits’ stance. Skaar has this cloudy-green paint scheme that seems to drift across his body at random, not really adding any definition, but instead serving to confuse the sculpture of the toy. He comes with a sword, a sheathed dagger that loosely pins to his loincloth, and hair sculpted in front of his eyes. Whenever I see the whole ‘hair sculpted in front of eyes’ thing, I just want to scream ‘JUST TUCK IT BEHIND YOUR EARS!’, because the last thing we need is an angry, orphaned, cross-eyed Hulk baby running around.

The last three figures of the set are all incarnations of The Hulk. First, we have the Savage Grey Hulk. This is how The Hulk first appeared (even though that was already covered in a previous ‘First Appearance Hulk’ figure), and the form that he sometimes reverts to when the ‘monster’ personality dominates the ‘Bruce Banner’ personality. He’s about standard size for a Hulk toy - a little above average in height and girth when compared to Spider-Man and the like, but he really doesn’t offer that much more than the previous Grey Hulk, or even Grey Hulk’s gangster personality, Mr. Fixit. That guy came with a hat - the best of all possible toy accessories - not to mention a trenchcoat and a classic mobster gat.

‘The End’ Hulk depicts him as the last survivor on a dead world, almost unable to die (even as Bruce Banner dies inside of him) because of his regenerative powers. As a result, he’s something of a zombie figure, skin all tearing and hair falling out. As with these larger figures, he’s all hard plastics, and the paint and sculpt are simpler than they absolutely need to be, but as a new interpretation of The Hulk, I enjoy it enough.

The final Hulk is ‘King Hulk’, another recent incarnation of the character from the ‘World War Hulk’ storyline. It’s a very similar character to the previous ‘Planet Hulk’ figure, and even re-uses the same torso. Ultimately, the newer figure drops a bit of the previous articulation, again simplifies the paint, and adds a few new details specific to the slightly-different character. Again, I’d just like to throw Psyklop out there. Just sayin’. Cyclops represent.

The scaling back of detail is an acceptable loss, because a more ‘cartoon’ aesthetic does lend itself towards seeing them as comic figures, instead of ‘comic figures trying to look realistic’, but I can’t say that the cutting back in articulation really aids in anything. Bring back the double-joints, Hasbro. Drop us a few paint washes. With recent reports that you’re going to be raising prices on everything anyhow, give us something to drool over so that the hobby doesn’t collapse upon itself like comics did in the 90s. We can’t afford to be moving backwards, financially or aesthetically. Were it not for the giant Fin Fang Foom made from collecting all eight, I could have passed on six of these eight. Damn you and your space dragons, Hasbro.

Collectors, buy these guys for the Fin Fang Foom, but don’t expect all that much from the figures themselves. The whole set will be available as a boxed set at San Diego Comic Con 2008, complete with all 8 figures and the assembled Foom - but it’ll be a heck of a task to try to ship that thing home. The set just might make an appearance on Hasbro’s website, but until then, keep hunting!

True to Hollywood marketing form, every superhero-adventure-summer-blockbuster film has been accompanied by a line of collectible action figures. Mattel produced 2 lines of figures and vehicles to coincide with The Dark Knight (which were exceptionally hot due to the untimely death of Heath Ledger), and Hasbro gave us an array of Iron Man and Hulk toys for the selfsame movie.

While Hasbro’s Hulk movie figures were met with derision due to their substandard quality and ad nauseum repetition the Hulk himself (all with different action features), Hasbro also took the opportunity to ride the Hulk hype and produce an entirely different, comic-based line of Hulk figures - which are selling with wild success, even at the unusually high $15 price tag.

This line of eight Hulk-related figures has been a holy grail for me since I first saw them back at Toy Fair. While I have a causal collection of Hulk toys (because really, the guy’s gone through about a million changes and ‘costumes’, and he’s iconic), I was more interested in the enormous figure that you can build if you collect all eight - Fin Fang Foom. While the name might be ridiculous, the character is a shining example of the wacky energy that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby pumped into their comics in the 1960s. As a semi-rabid Kirby devotee, this was a thing that I needed to have around. Plus, he’s a giant space dragon - a combination of three of the greatest words in the English language. You know, aside from ‘naked sandwich robot’.

Other great Jack Kirby names : Arnim Zola, Flippa Dippa, Agnar the Fierce, Baron Zemo, Bombu, Devil Dinosaur, Galactus, Annihilus, MODOK, and Giant Man. Interestingly, nearly every ‘build-a-figure’ that’s been made in the Marvel lines is a Jack Kirby / Stan Lee creation, from X-Men’s Sentinels to The Blob, excluding Onslaught, Apocalypse, and The Brood Queen. Kirby’s just that epic. You need to buy eight figures just to build one of his.

Whenever a new line of figures comes out, I hit the message boards and browse for sightings. Toys generally start out in California, and over the next three weeks, slowly make the crawl to New York. The original plan for this Hulk line was to release the first four figures in July, and release the second quartet in August. There would be a two-month long interim in which you’d only have half of a space dragon built. It was a strange plan for Hasbro to make, especially when collectors feel very unsettled about half-completed things, but it was Foom. My love affair with space dragons could endure.

I hit Toys ‘R’ Us one morning and found the first five figures, and immediately loaded them into my arms and ran to the checkout counter. I was so excited (and possibly sweaty) that I didn’t even bother checking deeper into the pegs, since the back of the package now revealed a change in Hasbro’s plans. These first five would ship now, and the remaining three would ship in August. Because these were being touted as ‘limited edition’, reports were also coming in that if your local Toys ‘R’ Us (my only real buying option, due to my remote location) was going to get any at all, they were pretty much limited to one case - and that these were all shipping at once. My Foom was legless, and even after returning to the store about 4 times each week, my search turned up nothing. When the pegs were finally taken down and replaced with Batman stuff, I resorted to eBay. Again, for the unrequited love of a space dragon.

But for a while, I was on the hunt again. The toy collector climate in my area isn’t all that heated, since I’m friends with one other serious collector, and the only other collector that I know of is the ‘greasy hat’ guy that I’ve caustically written of before. I’m not the kind of guy who’ll wait outside of the store, breathing heavily on the windows until I’m let in. My dedication isn’t worth the cost of my soul or dignity, or a healthy breakfast. I’m of the mindset that if I’m meant to find something, it will present itself to me, and that stress-less (and somewhat Zen) attitude towards collecting has served me well enough. But somehow - I was really serious about Foom. I was hunting hard, just short of wearing a snazzy camo getup and carrying a compound bow through the toy aisles. I had something to look for - but it was never about ‘having’. Somehow, it was more about Jack Kirby, and having something of his around to inspire me creatively. When it comes to creativity, I’m relentless, remorseless, and have no budget.

Today, I finished my Fin Fang Foom, legs and all, and he’s a towering monument to the heart of comic culture - and by far the best ‘build-a-figure’ made since Hasbro’s taken over the ‘Marvel’ lines from ToyBiz. Sure, Foom has no formal relation to The Incredible Hulk, as he’s more of an Iron Man villain than anything else, but I’ll take him where I can get him. While the classic Marvel Legends line seems to be either fading out or spinning into less ‘Legendary’ characters since Hasbro rook over, the Hulk line keeps true to both recent and classic comics.

Stay tuned for a detailed review of the eight Hulk figures!

Today, just to get out of the house, we set a budget of $15 and let ourselves go out to the rummage sales. We’ve got a houseful of stuff (it’s about time for a rummage sale of our own), so we’re trying to limit how much we bring in, which means tinier budgets. We can’t risk not going out, lest we miss out on something cool.

Pickings were mostly slim for sales; we drove around a bit looking for signs and ended up at a rather sparse sale. It didn’t have a lot of clothes or kid’s toys, which is usually a good sign, so we stopped. There wasn’t too much, but the guy did have a bunch of old video games for sale. I passed on the Super Nintendo cartridges and dug through his bin of old Atari cartridges. Oh, not all the cartridges were in the bin — he had pulled out the ‘rare’ cartridges, stuff he had looked up and was worth something, and priced those separately. The bin was the bottom of the barrel: stuff that’s not worth much, and not even the gamer wants to keep it. Wifey found a Q*Bert cartridge that she wanted just for the label, but it was rather water-damaged so she passed. Two of the cartridges that I picked up had their labels completely fall off upon being touched. The guy was asking a dollar a cartridge.

I did find two worth buying though:

M*A*S*H — In 1983, Fox Video Games, Inc was one of the early 3rd-party video game programmers. Atari did their best to prevent other companies from producing cartridges for their ubiquitous 2600 console, but in 1983 they relented and, in exchange for royalties, licensed programmers the ability to write new games. The gaming division of 20th Century Fox (making them also one of the first media-offshoot game developers) adapted various Fox properties, such as Flash Gordon, Alien, and — of all things — Porky’s, along with an Atari version of their hit TV show M*A*S*H. The TV series ended in early 1983, which meant the game was released post-finale, but the game relies little on the series itself aside from setting. The videogame, according to atariguide.com, has two parts — the first uses the same sort of gameplay as many generic Atari titles: piloting a helicopter, you pick up injured soldiers or parachuting doctors(!) while avoiding being shot down. Between levels, however, sounds interesting: as a surgeon, you use the joystick to ‘remove’ shrapnel from soldiers, a’la Operation. The “soldier,” understandably looks displeased with the foreign materials inside his body, but the huge passageways through his body make removal relatively easy. The game itself isn’t particularly common, but low demand results in cheap prices. I found a few on eBay for a couple dollars, little more than I paid.

E.T.: The Extraterrestrial — If you know anything about this game, you’d buy every single one you see, too. This is actually the third copy of E.T. I’ve owned: the first copy had its original box and instructions, so it went pretty quickly on eBay for a pretty penny; I’ve still got another cartridge in the basement. Despite already having one, there was no way I was going to leave one in the dollar bin at a water-damaged rummage sale. In 1981, Atari was the king of home videogames, and they had no intention of giving up that spot; arguably, their hubris would catch up with them. They spent a bunch of money advertising two big-name games for 1982: Pac-Man and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. They had millions of each title produced, expecting enormous consumer response. Pac-Man has a reputation of being a very poor version, but today it has a nostalgia quality to it, given the frequency I hear the Atari Pac-Man sound effects used on TV. E.T., however, was an enormous flop. Like I said, the first copy I owned had its instructions included, so in interest of testing the equipment, I popped the cartridge in my 2600 and tried to play it. Oh, my lord, it was unbelievably bad. There was really no indication of where you were going, or even what your character was doing, aside from falling into holes, and there wasn’t really any way to tell whether you were in a hole or not. Gamers all over passed on buying E.T., resulting in millions of unsold cartridges in Atari’s warehouses. Atari couldn’t get rid of them at any price, so every cartridge Atari still held was loaded into a truck and driven to Alamagordo, New Mexico. When the remaindered games arrived at the Alamogordo landfill, they were crushed, buried, and a slab of concrete was poured over them to prevent anything from being stolen or salvaged. Seeing that I’ve owned three in the past decade, the scale of the returns isn’t as excessive as one might expect; there could still be hundreds of thousands of these available, even if 5 million still went unsold. Ebay has nearly a hundred of them listed for sale right now, but even if it’s not as rare as the legend might indicate, I think it’s worth a buck to carry some of Atari’s hubris around in my back pocket once in a while. Maybe I’ll even get to play it again someday.

Oh, didn’t I mention that? I sold my Atari a couple years ago — once upon a time, they were a dime a dozen at rummage sales, so I always turned around and sold them once I had my fun. After a point, they ran out, probably because I was buying them all and shipping them off to California eBayers. I guess, if the intent of going rummaging with a budget was to stop us from bringing home useless stuff, the plan failed miserably. Oh, well; I never thought I’d run across a bin of dollar 2600 games, so I may find another 2600 any day now.

‘How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way’ is pretty much my bible… with Spider-Man, of course, playing the role of Job, and The Thing as Moses.

A battered, blue copy of ‘The Marvel Way’ has been knocking around my house since the late 70s, and I appropriated it for my own devices in the 1980s - replete with clean, dynamic John Buscema artwork and Stan Lee knowledge. From it, I taught myself an amazing array of basics and visual storytelling techniques. Such a valuable resource it is that it’s still published today in its original form, and I regard it as an essential tool in the arsenal of any comic artist - so intensely that it’s just about ridiculous.

Still, comics are a language more than they are a simple artform, and just like language, they’re ever-changing. ‘The Marvel Way’ has moved to the hallowed position of ‘Old Testament’, while a crop of new ‘how to’ manuals have sprung up to address this changing world of comics - not all of them good. The DIY comic movement, the indie & manga genres, online comics, changing materials, and the digitization of the process have given us a whole new lexicon to communicate with, based on these Marvel fundamentals. I’ve collected ‘The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating a Graphic Novel’, Scott McCloud’s ‘Making Comics’, and more graphic novels than I can count as I try to dig deeper and deeper into the culture and language of Comics. I’ve avoided the manuals that were obvious half-assery.

Most recently, I acquired ‘Drawing Words and Writing Pictures’ from First Second Books (who make all kinds of wonderful), and by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, always seeking a few pearls of wisdom that the other books might have omitted, and the only thing I’m disappointed about is that this was published AFTER I finished teaching a high school level comics course. I’m still questioning whether or not I totally sucked as a teacher, and I’m even exploring this introspection, coincidentally, in an extensive comic. I think that this book would have helped significantly. Also, having students that were a little less preoccupied with The Hills.

‘Drawing Words’ is structured like a 15-week course, each chapter adding onto previous lessons with new layers of knowledge and technique, and even providing sample assignments to hone these new ideas, making it completely ideal for a semester’s worth of drawing classes, while still working for the solo aspiring comic artist. It provides plenty of examples from throughout the history of comics, with a large visual focus on the indie comics scene. I’d like to see superhero comics and ‘indie’ comics play nice together, because there’s almost no acknowledgment between the two about how influential and important they are to one another. I’ll just assume that this was due to copyright issues and not a conscious omission. Regardless, it’s the first manual in the collection of manuals where the authors come from a dominantly ‘indie’ perspective, and it’s well-informed about all manners of comics anyhow. As a side note, Jessica Abel was one of the people gracious enough to sign my Bizarro Comics book sometime last year.

The content in any of these books is pretty standard stuff, but it’s the presentation that brings it to life. Talk of clarity in storytelling and images, penciling, panel layouts and their uses, lettering, inking, basic anatomy, characters - it’s all there, while still basic and intelligent enough to keep the reader following. The book even speaks of a forthcoming second volume to delve into these principles even deeper, and given the depth of this one, I can’t wait to see what’s next. I have a feeling that volume two is where all of the real secrets live, even if I can’t figure out what’s missing yet.

The book itself is a big, floppy paperback - almost unwieldy, but very handsome and conveniently tabbed on the side, to easily find your current lesson. So far, it’s gotten me to move outside of my familiar ballpoint pen world and into exploring different india inks, brushes and pen nibs - which is a good thing. Somewhere inside, in some intangible place, it offered encouragement to try a few new things, which is really a gift - and at $30 (and even less on Amazon), it’s a completely affordable alternative textbook. I’m a little in love with it.

Every artist in the medium - or at least the really good ones - will add completely new phrases and words to the language of comics, will do something to resonate in a new way, or will communicate something important to just one new person. It’s not an easy job, but the more, the merrier. Come on in and learn the language - it’s one thing to understand it, but another thing to speak it.

I always keep a short list of cartoons that I’d immediately and happily collect on DVD; Men In Black, Project Geeker, Earthworm Jim and Freakazoid have always been the top four, but because of their obscurity and relatively small cult following, I always just assumed that it would be an impossibility. I deal with this by crying a little, eating my feelings, and going to bed feeling all bloaty. Well, I can finally knock a dozen or so pizza rolls off of the evening’s sad repast, because Freakazoid is here.

Warner Brothers has finally released the first season of Freakazoid on DVD, ten years after the show’s premature cancellation. This DVD set includes 14 episodes on 2 DVDs, while the inevitable Season Two set will likely include the remaining 10 episodes. I’m counting on that, WB! Do you hear me? Freak me.

Freakazoid represents a very unique time in Saturday morning cartoons, inasmuch as it was pretty much the last time they were consistently good and unpolluted. We were still in the halcyon days before Pokemon aired in the US, and Freakazoid was like nothing that had come before it. It was completely dadaist (and often surrealist) in its approach to comedy, pulling influences from decades of popular culture, throwing in a great deal of vocal improvisation and non-sequitur, some ridiculously exaggerated classic slapstick, and finishing it off with a bizarre variety show structure - in no particular order. Not too many kids shows were referencing Jack Valenti, F-Troop, Ed Wood, Jerry Lewis, and Tom Lehrer at the time (or ever, because honestly, these are ‘old people things’, like ointments and brunch specials), but Freakazoid did it, and with Steven Spielberg’s approval - something that the writers are still trying to figure out.

And it was hilarious. I was 14 at the time, and it redefined my whole perception of comedy, even if I didn’t understand many of the references. All I knew was that a 5-minute scene of two hands sloppily making out was comedy gold. I didn’t appreciate the Harlan Ellison cameo until five years later, and it’s taken even longer for many more jokes to fully marinate. I don’t know if this is the mark of madness or genius, but it works well for me. It’s the kind of show that I want to own on DVD so that I can share it with people who haven’t witnessed it, just to see how they react, or if they hit me.

Admittedly, the best parts of the show happen when Paul Rugg, the voice of Freakazoid as well as a writer for the show, is allowed to just go wild - off the script, improvising bizarreness - while the animators try to make sense of it later. Most of the first episode is Rugg’s raw audition tape, and it’s so full of energy that it can barely be matched by subsequent episodes - especially when Freakazoid is scripted. It’s the dada, say-whatever approach to Freakazoid that makes him endearing and amusing to watch.

Of course, there are other heroes (and villains) who make appearances, and most of them are completely ineffectual in their roles - which makes for even more humor, even when the show leans towards the ‘corny’ aspects of the WB cartoon repertoire at the time.

The DVD provides commentary on the first two episodes, as well as episode twelve (which is one of the very scripted episodes). I don’t know exactly why the episodes detailing Freakazoid’s origin weren’t worth commenting on, but the revelations provided in the existing episodes are enjoyable enough to make me want behind-the-scenes stuff on every episode. There’s enough running under each one to keep it entertaining, no doubt.

The other DVD bonus is a small documentary about how Freakazoid began as an action cartoon and slowly metamorphosed into a wacky comedy, with interviews with Paul Rugg, producers, writers, and the revolutionary designer Bruce Timm, creator the animated Justice League universe that I love to much. While nothing is too revelatory, and I’d have loved to see many, many more of Timm’s original character designs, it’s a pleasant watch.

There are a few instances when it’s clear that WB hasn’t tried to clean up the dusty prints of the show, as segments might appear blurry or with lines running across the sides, and in two instances, entire half-episodes are repeated as filler within other episodes - which is how they originally aired, but is it really necessary to have the same 30 minutes of video repeated twice on the same DVD when it could have meant more space for a Bruce Timm design gallery or something? I’d have been happy to settle for a 15-minute episode, understanding that that’s just how things work when an episode isn’t done on time. It’s a strange choice to include this duplication, but it doesn’t make the existing stuff any less awesome.

For me, Freakazoid isn’t a ‘want’ so much as a ‘need’, and it remains 98% hilariously absurd. The DVD is scheduled to be released on July 29th, and I think it marks a very important point in televised animation.