From: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Why does PAD *stay* on the net?
Date: 26 Dec 92 18:28:26 GMT
Reply-To: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Dept., Madison, WI

In <1992Dec21.183744.21960@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
>Where I think you most need to concentrate in the next year or so is in --
>God help us -- _plot_.  I need to add quickly that I'm hypersensitive to plot
>issues, because I realize that it's my _own_ weakest area, so you can take
>this with whatever size salt crystal best suits your taste.

>More specifically, I'm talking about plotting on the very largest level, the
>level most closely related to "what the story's about."  Particularly in the
>comic book work, there's frequently a degree of perfunctoriness to the large-
>scale plotting that makes it predictable.  I am rarely surprised by the
>larger scale turns of plot in a PAD story.

[...]

>Likewise with the recent HULK four-parter.  [Get the feeling I'm
>concentrating on TIH?  I guess I am, because it's what you've done most of
>and so it provides all sorts of good examples.]  Sigh.  The _little_
>surprises were all there -- the Thunderbolt Ross zombie... uh, pardon me, I
>mean "zuvembie"... is an excellent example.  But and contrariwise, the
>big-scale stuff was, well, predictable.  Marlo dies: Rick's going to go
>looking for a cure, and we all know something bad will come of it.  The
>Leader shows up and promises to fix her for him.  Yawwwn.  We're going to get
>her back in a way that's worse than keeping her dead.

Well, I sort of agree, and sort of disagree.  I think that Peter's earlier
Hulk stories (up until the "cure" issue) had that large-scale plotting, and a
lot of *direction* in them.  Peter was telling stories in 12-20 issue
"chunks":  First, cleaning up the Byrne/Milgrom sequences, culminating in the
X-Factor issues.  Then the "on the run" parts, chasing the Leader with SHIELD
right behind them.  Then the Las Vegas series, which had a straightforward
plot, but was a perfect backdrop for the characterization developments which
were needed.  And finally the sequence leading up to the personality
integration.  All of these parts were, I felt, very well plotted.

However, since then I've been less satisfied with the book.  It's seemed to me
that it's *lacked* direction.  I've had a hard time getting a handle on
Banner's new personality, and really have not found myself very interested in
the Pantheon at all, because I don't know who they are, why they're doing what
they're doing, or, really, what any of them are like, individually, beyond the
level of caricatures.  At first I had thought that this was intentional, but
now I don't think that it was.

I haven't really felt that the book has had much direction during the past two
(or so) years.  I'm not sure where it's going, and I'm not really sure what
it's accomplished since the Hulk's personalities were integrated.  How have
the characters or the situations evolved?  Do any of the characters have any
well-defined goals to achieve?  Hard to say.

It's still an entertaining book with many good individual issues, but I don't
get the sense that it really knows where it's going, right now.

-- 
Michael Rawdon				  rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department,  Madison, WI
( Now in the Boston, Massachusetts area! )

"So if you ask me how do I feel inside, I could honestly tell you we've
 been taken on a very long ride."
					- Marillion, "That Time Of The Night"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc