The Totally Awesome Hulk Vol. 3: Big Apple Showdown

great series

Another great installment:}

Pretty good story. Amadaeus Cho as the Hulk is a pretty awesome move.

Sillier than I like my books but it was good seeing Shang Chi in action. Solid Read and good art.

I got this comic along with two others that were very well written. This book introduced other characters such as Ms. Marvel, Asian Kung fu master Shang Chi and Silk. I'm glad to see that Marvel had not only Black Panther but Blade, Luke Cage, Falcon, Storm and Mosaic as primary black characters. This novel did not show the true level of the Hulk's power and potential but it does show teamwork and even the best and mightiest need a little help from his friends. When I was a kid one of the many things that I wanted to become was a scientist. I was curious about time travel and the human genome. I didn't just want to be only a scientist, was a very ambitious kid. I wanted to be a doctor, dancer, lawyer, singer eventhough I couldn't sing, phililantropist, writer and a lot of other things. I wanted to take control of my life and myself at a very early age. I had a very wild and active imagination so it should not come as a surprise to anyone that Stan Lee and Stephen King had a very strong and positive influence on me. Thier work made me question things and ask "what if"? What if people were able to do magic? What if people really were mutants and when they are teenagers, younger or older, develop superhuman abilities? What if when someone is touched by nature, by lightening they become something else? I used to have a very wild and active imagination. When I was a kid the first Marvel Comics hero I came into contact with was the Incredible Hulk. I remember we had one tv with one channel and I was living with my aunt and cousins at the time. I didn't really understand it much but what really stuck in my mind was that this guy became someone or something else when he lost his temper. This guy was intelligent beyond that of a normal human but when he gets mad his anger rules him. He wasnt Superman, who was the best hero that I knew then but the one thing that stuck with me was the fact that he wanted to be alone because he was the most gentle of souls but he was being pursued by the law and one very persistent reporter who knew that there was something different and very curious about him. One line stood out during one of thier many encounters, "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like ME when I'm angry. Fast forward about ten years. I saw an episode of the animated version of the Incredible Hulk, somewhere in the 90's a d I was really blonde away. It was the first time that I saw the Ghostrider. I believe he had come to judge the Hulk to punish him for his crimes against humanity. When finally the Ghostrider was able to subdue or corner the Hulk with his pendant stare, he look into his soul and realized that he was a gentle soul and a very misunderstood creature and it was not he the Hulk that should be answering for crimes against humanity, it is humanity that should be answering for thier crimes against him. He judged the hulk to be INNOCENT! So sometimes when people see you as one way the right person can come along as see you as who and what you truly are. The hulk became who he was due to an act of heroism and humanity set out to punish him for defending himself.

I wasn't a fan of this volume. I have had a great time with Amadeus Cho as the Hulk for the first two volumes, but this one takes a huge nose dive as we get all the other youthful Asian heroes together for an adventure that seems to be very pandering to every diverse group. Speaking very frankly as a person of ethnic descent myself, I like when the characters are awesome characters who just happen to be of ethnic background. I personally like when a character's color and racial background is just that: the background; it is not THE thing that makes them cool, it is the thing that adds to them already being cool. In this volume there is an entire issue almost solely devoted to having an almost literal celebration of how great it is to be a hero of ethnic descent. The reason I think it's pandering is because Marvel Comics has ALWAYS been on the forefront of having a wide spectrum of characters of color, sex, religious beliefs and various orientations. It seems very odd to specifically single out this group that is high-fiving each other with an attitude of "Hey, it's about time we're here"---HEY, last time I checked Sunfire is one of THEE MOST awesome Marvel Characters and he is Asian; he's the hero of his entire nation (not just New York). Then there is more of the story of Amadeus losing his temper and control more and more. But that's not the real store (as I mentioned). This volume is very frustrating and kinda a let down as a result. It also is the start of just random episodes with Amadeus Hulk instead of a continuing story that we had in volumes 1 & 2. I don't really recommend.

Boring. That is all.