Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2021 23:43:17 GMT
Been reading some old hulk comics and these are some of my faviort less well known villains.
The Wendigo
First appearing during a time when the hulk was travelling the world and fighting random monsters, the Wendigo is marvels take on the native American legend. When a human commits the sin of cannibalism in the Canadian wilderness they risk being turned into a hulking, white monster with limitless strength, an almost unkillable body and an insatiable hunger for flesh. While the monster has almost no personality of it's own, what make it work is both the horror and tragedy of it. Anyone can become this and most only do so out of a desperation to survive. Also despite appearing in 1973, the Wendigo has some soft horror element what were ahead of there time it's first story, when Bruce stumbles upon the skeletal remains of it's victims. Another intreasting aspect is that during these early years the Wendigo was one of the few enemies not to crumble under the hulks ever increasing strength, with most of their fights ending prematurely with no conclusive winner or with the hulk getting help to take it down. Even the hulks main nemesis, the Abomination could not achieve that. The Wendigo's second appearance also heralded the first apperances of Wolverine, befor he joined the X-Men. As a result the Wendigo is also seen as one of Logan's recurring enemies also. Sadly, despite the monster's power, he is often seen as a C list villain at best who is only famous because of his connection to the two heroes. There is some truth to this but at the same time Wendigo is still popping up even today, and far more often then many old villains and getting into fights with other characters besides the Hulk and Wolverine. The Wendigo is not the titan it once was, with the Hulk's, and many other heroes, ballooning in power, especially in recent years, the white monster nolonger stands as as the hulk-like threat. It's appearance even reflects this change. It was at first bigger then the hulk, then changed to being roughly the same size, then smaller, then the same size but having an emaciated look that, while better reflected the legend it was based on, did make it look far less threatening to Hulk and those like him.
It's a sad decline for what is a very intreasting, if limited use, monster. That said, he still keeps popping up as I've said and when in the hands of a good writer proves to be a powerful threat that not easy to take down. It main powers included claws and fangs powerful enough to penetrate even the hulk's skin and a body that was almost indestructible with insane regenerative abilities. It should point out that the Wendigo's strength has fluctuated over the years, mainly due to bad writting, though this has been retconned explained as the curse manifesting differently for each person. Other powers have include an infamous bite and the power to grow stronger when eating flesh, two modern abilites used to try and give the monster more relevance in this new era.
Bi-Beast
Appearing the same year as the Wendigo, the Bi-Beast is a rarely used yet powerful foe of the green goliath. He is a robot created by an acient, avian race, to act as a repository of their culture and a guardian of their floating city. Long ago the avian race died out and the Bi-Beast remained in the city alone, until it developed a fault that would result in it falling to earth. Because of this the Bi-Beast sought out aid, for it while it's bottom head was gifted with the avian races cultural knowledge and the top their arts of warfare, it had none of their scientific knowledge. It captured the hulk and Betty Ross, who at that time had been mutated into the bird-like gamma mutant the Harpy, and subdued the pair. When the Hulk changed back to Bruce, the Bi-Beast asked him for assistance, and the scientist agreed. Sadly the villain MODOK would attack the city with his forces resulting in it's destruction and the Bi-Beast's apparent death. Later, however it would be discovered that it had actually survived by uploading it's minds to a backup body. Bi-Beast is a vary rarely used villain yet it has not completely disappeared after all this time. In fact based on my research it tends to roughly make an appearance in some form at least twice a decade since it first appeared in the 70s. Sadly like the Wendigo it's lack of popularity means that it has not grown in power along side the Hulk, making it less of a stand out threat and is often not used to it's full potential.
Bi-Beast was created to be an enemy with the strength of the Hulk and the intelligence of Bruce, and this made the robot very dangerous during it's hay day. The first Bi-Beast was 20 feet tall, while it's new and possibly more advanced body was more the Hulk's size. Like the Wendigo, Bi-Beast is another foe not to break under the Hulk's rage, and keeps fighting him on an equal footing even when enraged. The two-headed robot has withstood blows from the Professor Hulk of the 90's who is much stronger then the normal Savage Hulk. More impressive Bi-Beast has even gone up against and held its own against Thor, at a time when Thor was treated as Marvel's answer to Superman and considered the Hulk's superior in strength. In fact the Bi-Beast has never lost to the Savage Hulk in a one-on-one physical battle, only being knocked out by the combined power of the Professor Hulk and She-Hulk (and with it's two heads not working together properly due to the lower one being smitten with She-Hulk) and only losing to Thor when the thunder god cut loss. It also dose not feel pain thanks to being a robot and it's durability is nothing to sneeze at either, with it's new body never suffering any visible damage in any of it's fights. It also possess genius level intelligence, with the accumulated knowledge of the avian people's culture, warfare and eventually their science, as it's new body had the information stored in it. It was able to completely take over the S.H.E.I.L.D Hellacarrier by itself and turn it's weapons against the Hulk, as well as building a machine to brain wash people. It's new body also possessed the power to shoot laser beams from it's hands, though it only did this a few times.
Another intreasting aspect of Bi-Beast is it's personalities. The top and bottom head's refer to eachother as skull-brother, it's top head (sometimes referred to as warrior) is more belligerent and aggressive, while the lower head is more reasonable. How they control their body is never properly explained. They seem to not know eachother thoughts, always speaking outload to one another, yet control their body with perfection except when when one of the heads is distracted. This was shown when the lower head became infatuated with She-Hulk and the upper head seemed to have no control over their body. This implies that either the lower head is the one primarily in control or that one head can dominate the body if their will in the matter is stronger.
Xemnu A.K.A The Living Hulk
Xemnu is a very intreasting character, not least of all because he is the original hulk. Appearing two years befor the jade giant, in Journey into Mystery, under the title the Living Hulk, Xemnu was from an era when marvel printed anthology comics and was known for their many monster stories. Xemnu appeared in two stories and then was shelved once the marvel super hero era kicked off. He would eventually appear in the main marvel comic universe in the 70's, in fact he was the first of Jack Kirby's monsters to do so (though Fin Fang Foom the alien dragon is the more well known of these) and would do battle with the Hulk, the Defenders and She-Hulk in constant attempts to repopulate his home planet after his race went extinct in his absence. Xemnu is on paper a very great villain, he is strong enough to fight the Hulk, has powerful hypnotic an psychic abilites and generous level intelligence which allows him to make advanced technology and even perfect clones of other Marvel Monsters and even the Hulk himself. Sadly the character just seems to keep getting saddled with stories that never let him be used to his full potential. He often has great plans but rarely ever good fights, this has been pretty consistent right up to his very impressive appearance in Immortal Hulk, which once again had the character at the centre of a very intreasting villainous plot but once again is beaten far to easily once things get physical. It's a shame because again he's a very cool character, a golden age, anything goes power wise, villain who in a way is the oppasite of the Hulk in motivation, Xemnu wishes to nolonger be the last of his kind while the Hulk just want to be left alone.
Madman
Phil Sterns A.K.A Madman is a very rarely used villain who first appeared in 1989 but would not be a threat until the 90's. He appeared twice there, then disappeared and randomly popped up in a Thunderbolts 2013 story were he was poorly used and unceremoniously killed off. For anyone who knows details on the Hulk, they will recognise Phil Sterns' last name as being the same as the Hulk's enemy the Leader. That because Phil is his brother. While the Leader was originally not very intelligent but became so thanks to his gamma mutation, Phil was actually a scientist, though of a poorer quality then his peer Bruce Banner. Obsessed and jealous of Bruce even then, when Phil learned that Bruce had become the Hulk he attempted to replicate the mutation himself. While he did succeed in giving himself hulk-like power eventually, Phil's mind and body were badly affected by the process, in a way far worse then Banner's. At the time of Phil's apperance, Bruce was transforming into his Grey Hulk persona Joe Fixit. Joe was not as powerful as the Savage Hulk but was smarter and devious. Joe himself fluctuated from being in total control of their body, to appearing only at night as the grey hulk had done when Bruce first became the Hulk or transforming under stress. Phil by contrast developed an alternate personality called the Madman, an evil genius who was also dangerously unstable. While the Hulk's transformations had some conditions, Madman's were far more chaotic, reflecting the struggle for control within. He infected Joe with a poison that was slowly killing the Grey Hulk, in a story called "Countdown". With the help of the Leader, Joe tracks down Madman to try and get the cure only do find he is no match for the insane monster. Weakened and emaciated, Joe is on the verge of death until Phil makes one last push to saves the Hulk's life though after this Madman "kills" his alter ego. Joe and Bruce are able to beat Madman and leave him for dead, having injected him with the same poison he had used on them. Madman would survive however, teaming up with the Redskull and creating the one off villain Piecemeal. After this defeat Madman disappeared and was not seen till 2013
Madman was created to be an enemy in the same vain as DC Comics Doomsday and Bane, a new villain who would push the hero to his absolute limit to defeat. In this case almost killing the hulk. In terms of powers Madman has far more control of his physical body then the Hulk, he can look like Phil or transform his Madman form, appear as a human sized Madman with an enlarged head or become muscular behemoth almost twice the Professor Hulk's size and base strength. This all combined with his intelligence makes Madman lethal since he is a mastermind, assassin and brute all rolled into one. The problem is that Madman is batshit insane, and his emotional instability can have a negative effect on his power or his focus, leaving him open to counter attacks. Also while he can augment his own strength, it dose not constantly grow like the Hulk's and so, like the Abomination, he will lose once the Hulk gets angery enough.
I'm not shore what happened to Madman, Countdown is a respected story from my understanding and Madman himself is pretty intreasting once you start reading about him. Why he never carried on as a recurring villain is baffling as he really dose tick all the right boxes. Maybe he just appeared at the wrong time, maybe the writer lost interest or felt they had already used up his potential or maybe he just didn't appear enough to catch on with other writers. Another possibility is that he he lost out to another character, for in 1992 the Future Imperfect storyline introduced the evil future version of the Hulk, the Maestro, who proved to be an similar type of, yet more powerful, adversary to Madman with the added bonus of being an evil version of the titular character. If Madman's fate had been left ambiguous I would have been fine with that but his insulting appearance and death in the 2013 Thunderbolts story has left a bitter taste in my mouth.
The Wendigo
First appearing during a time when the hulk was travelling the world and fighting random monsters, the Wendigo is marvels take on the native American legend. When a human commits the sin of cannibalism in the Canadian wilderness they risk being turned into a hulking, white monster with limitless strength, an almost unkillable body and an insatiable hunger for flesh. While the monster has almost no personality of it's own, what make it work is both the horror and tragedy of it. Anyone can become this and most only do so out of a desperation to survive. Also despite appearing in 1973, the Wendigo has some soft horror element what were ahead of there time it's first story, when Bruce stumbles upon the skeletal remains of it's victims. Another intreasting aspect is that during these early years the Wendigo was one of the few enemies not to crumble under the hulks ever increasing strength, with most of their fights ending prematurely with no conclusive winner or with the hulk getting help to take it down. Even the hulks main nemesis, the Abomination could not achieve that. The Wendigo's second appearance also heralded the first apperances of Wolverine, befor he joined the X-Men. As a result the Wendigo is also seen as one of Logan's recurring enemies also. Sadly, despite the monster's power, he is often seen as a C list villain at best who is only famous because of his connection to the two heroes. There is some truth to this but at the same time Wendigo is still popping up even today, and far more often then many old villains and getting into fights with other characters besides the Hulk and Wolverine. The Wendigo is not the titan it once was, with the Hulk's, and many other heroes, ballooning in power, especially in recent years, the white monster nolonger stands as as the hulk-like threat. It's appearance even reflects this change. It was at first bigger then the hulk, then changed to being roughly the same size, then smaller, then the same size but having an emaciated look that, while better reflected the legend it was based on, did make it look far less threatening to Hulk and those like him.
It's a sad decline for what is a very intreasting, if limited use, monster. That said, he still keeps popping up as I've said and when in the hands of a good writer proves to be a powerful threat that not easy to take down. It main powers included claws and fangs powerful enough to penetrate even the hulk's skin and a body that was almost indestructible with insane regenerative abilities. It should point out that the Wendigo's strength has fluctuated over the years, mainly due to bad writting, though this has been retconned explained as the curse manifesting differently for each person. Other powers have include an infamous bite and the power to grow stronger when eating flesh, two modern abilites used to try and give the monster more relevance in this new era.
Bi-Beast
Appearing the same year as the Wendigo, the Bi-Beast is a rarely used yet powerful foe of the green goliath. He is a robot created by an acient, avian race, to act as a repository of their culture and a guardian of their floating city. Long ago the avian race died out and the Bi-Beast remained in the city alone, until it developed a fault that would result in it falling to earth. Because of this the Bi-Beast sought out aid, for it while it's bottom head was gifted with the avian races cultural knowledge and the top their arts of warfare, it had none of their scientific knowledge. It captured the hulk and Betty Ross, who at that time had been mutated into the bird-like gamma mutant the Harpy, and subdued the pair. When the Hulk changed back to Bruce, the Bi-Beast asked him for assistance, and the scientist agreed. Sadly the villain MODOK would attack the city with his forces resulting in it's destruction and the Bi-Beast's apparent death. Later, however it would be discovered that it had actually survived by uploading it's minds to a backup body. Bi-Beast is a vary rarely used villain yet it has not completely disappeared after all this time. In fact based on my research it tends to roughly make an appearance in some form at least twice a decade since it first appeared in the 70s. Sadly like the Wendigo it's lack of popularity means that it has not grown in power along side the Hulk, making it less of a stand out threat and is often not used to it's full potential.
Bi-Beast was created to be an enemy with the strength of the Hulk and the intelligence of Bruce, and this made the robot very dangerous during it's hay day. The first Bi-Beast was 20 feet tall, while it's new and possibly more advanced body was more the Hulk's size. Like the Wendigo, Bi-Beast is another foe not to break under the Hulk's rage, and keeps fighting him on an equal footing even when enraged. The two-headed robot has withstood blows from the Professor Hulk of the 90's who is much stronger then the normal Savage Hulk. More impressive Bi-Beast has even gone up against and held its own against Thor, at a time when Thor was treated as Marvel's answer to Superman and considered the Hulk's superior in strength. In fact the Bi-Beast has never lost to the Savage Hulk in a one-on-one physical battle, only being knocked out by the combined power of the Professor Hulk and She-Hulk (and with it's two heads not working together properly due to the lower one being smitten with She-Hulk) and only losing to Thor when the thunder god cut loss. It also dose not feel pain thanks to being a robot and it's durability is nothing to sneeze at either, with it's new body never suffering any visible damage in any of it's fights. It also possess genius level intelligence, with the accumulated knowledge of the avian people's culture, warfare and eventually their science, as it's new body had the information stored in it. It was able to completely take over the S.H.E.I.L.D Hellacarrier by itself and turn it's weapons against the Hulk, as well as building a machine to brain wash people. It's new body also possessed the power to shoot laser beams from it's hands, though it only did this a few times.
Another intreasting aspect of Bi-Beast is it's personalities. The top and bottom head's refer to eachother as skull-brother, it's top head (sometimes referred to as warrior) is more belligerent and aggressive, while the lower head is more reasonable. How they control their body is never properly explained. They seem to not know eachother thoughts, always speaking outload to one another, yet control their body with perfection except when when one of the heads is distracted. This was shown when the lower head became infatuated with She-Hulk and the upper head seemed to have no control over their body. This implies that either the lower head is the one primarily in control or that one head can dominate the body if their will in the matter is stronger.
Xemnu A.K.A The Living Hulk
Xemnu is a very intreasting character, not least of all because he is the original hulk. Appearing two years befor the jade giant, in Journey into Mystery, under the title the Living Hulk, Xemnu was from an era when marvel printed anthology comics and was known for their many monster stories. Xemnu appeared in two stories and then was shelved once the marvel super hero era kicked off. He would eventually appear in the main marvel comic universe in the 70's, in fact he was the first of Jack Kirby's monsters to do so (though Fin Fang Foom the alien dragon is the more well known of these) and would do battle with the Hulk, the Defenders and She-Hulk in constant attempts to repopulate his home planet after his race went extinct in his absence. Xemnu is on paper a very great villain, he is strong enough to fight the Hulk, has powerful hypnotic an psychic abilites and generous level intelligence which allows him to make advanced technology and even perfect clones of other Marvel Monsters and even the Hulk himself. Sadly the character just seems to keep getting saddled with stories that never let him be used to his full potential. He often has great plans but rarely ever good fights, this has been pretty consistent right up to his very impressive appearance in Immortal Hulk, which once again had the character at the centre of a very intreasting villainous plot but once again is beaten far to easily once things get physical. It's a shame because again he's a very cool character, a golden age, anything goes power wise, villain who in a way is the oppasite of the Hulk in motivation, Xemnu wishes to nolonger be the last of his kind while the Hulk just want to be left alone.
Madman
Phil Sterns A.K.A Madman is a very rarely used villain who first appeared in 1989 but would not be a threat until the 90's. He appeared twice there, then disappeared and randomly popped up in a Thunderbolts 2013 story were he was poorly used and unceremoniously killed off. For anyone who knows details on the Hulk, they will recognise Phil Sterns' last name as being the same as the Hulk's enemy the Leader. That because Phil is his brother. While the Leader was originally not very intelligent but became so thanks to his gamma mutation, Phil was actually a scientist, though of a poorer quality then his peer Bruce Banner. Obsessed and jealous of Bruce even then, when Phil learned that Bruce had become the Hulk he attempted to replicate the mutation himself. While he did succeed in giving himself hulk-like power eventually, Phil's mind and body were badly affected by the process, in a way far worse then Banner's. At the time of Phil's apperance, Bruce was transforming into his Grey Hulk persona Joe Fixit. Joe was not as powerful as the Savage Hulk but was smarter and devious. Joe himself fluctuated from being in total control of their body, to appearing only at night as the grey hulk had done when Bruce first became the Hulk or transforming under stress. Phil by contrast developed an alternate personality called the Madman, an evil genius who was also dangerously unstable. While the Hulk's transformations had some conditions, Madman's were far more chaotic, reflecting the struggle for control within. He infected Joe with a poison that was slowly killing the Grey Hulk, in a story called "Countdown". With the help of the Leader, Joe tracks down Madman to try and get the cure only do find he is no match for the insane monster. Weakened and emaciated, Joe is on the verge of death until Phil makes one last push to saves the Hulk's life though after this Madman "kills" his alter ego. Joe and Bruce are able to beat Madman and leave him for dead, having injected him with the same poison he had used on them. Madman would survive however, teaming up with the Redskull and creating the one off villain Piecemeal. After this defeat Madman disappeared and was not seen till 2013
Madman was created to be an enemy in the same vain as DC Comics Doomsday and Bane, a new villain who would push the hero to his absolute limit to defeat. In this case almost killing the hulk. In terms of powers Madman has far more control of his physical body then the Hulk, he can look like Phil or transform his Madman form, appear as a human sized Madman with an enlarged head or become muscular behemoth almost twice the Professor Hulk's size and base strength. This all combined with his intelligence makes Madman lethal since he is a mastermind, assassin and brute all rolled into one. The problem is that Madman is batshit insane, and his emotional instability can have a negative effect on his power or his focus, leaving him open to counter attacks. Also while he can augment his own strength, it dose not constantly grow like the Hulk's and so, like the Abomination, he will lose once the Hulk gets angery enough.
I'm not shore what happened to Madman, Countdown is a respected story from my understanding and Madman himself is pretty intreasting once you start reading about him. Why he never carried on as a recurring villain is baffling as he really dose tick all the right boxes. Maybe he just appeared at the wrong time, maybe the writer lost interest or felt they had already used up his potential or maybe he just didn't appear enough to catch on with other writers. Another possibility is that he he lost out to another character, for in 1992 the Future Imperfect storyline introduced the evil future version of the Hulk, the Maestro, who proved to be an similar type of, yet more powerful, adversary to Madman with the added bonus of being an evil version of the titular character. If Madman's fate had been left ambiguous I would have been fine with that but his insulting appearance and death in the 2013 Thunderbolts story has left a bitter taste in my mouth.