Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Asking Nicely (was Re: Hulk)
From: burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Jonathan Burns)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:04:22 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia


In article <69160@cup.portal.com> Peter_A_David@cup.portal.com writes:

> In regards to Delphi's vision of the Hulk's mental state, laughing with blood
> on his hands...why,it was right there in Hulk #400, page 46, panel 1.  I'm
> surprised no one has commented on it.

> PAD

Jeez, root me with a weasel, Astro, I should've seen that one coming...

Well done. A consumnate gotcha.

To business now. You have always been, in your r.a.c.(m.) correspondences,
a complete gentleman, fielding criticisms with considerate and witty 
answers that turneth away wrath, disparaging no one, and never poor-
mouthing your employer even in these times when general frustration
with editorial policy and such is the common grievance. So I'm going
to say this civil.

Please, Peter, bring Marlo Chandler back to us, unharmed and in her
right mind. As someone said once of Alicia Masters, "this innocuous
and pleasant character...has so far remained untouched by super-
powers of either good or evil implication". In Marlo's case, she
has established herself as one of the gang, a person we always like
to see, and this because of her sunny disposition, her wisdom and her
fetching mundane shockability, all so much to the point while Betty
has been coping with marriage to this volatile walking arsenal. There
are, after all, rather a lot of places in which we can find statuesque
females with extraordinary bazoobs to contemplate. Marlo is special.

Despite the prevelance of resurrections hereabouts, we readers do
generally share a healthy sense that characters are at risk when
the writers say they are; that dead is dead; and that the level of
violence in these stories is excessively high for human civilization.
We have no doubt that even worthwhile characters, with stories yet to
tell, can be killed. You made the point with Jean de Wolff, and I
here wish to take the stand that you can choose to make it once again,
or not.

Whether reviving Marlo would be to strain the dramatic integrity of
the story, through a cheap d.x.m. device, is a serious question. If
it were that easy, of course, they'd all be doing it. I note that
the body in question has been preserved through extremes of super-
science. There is no conclusive reason why the person herself might
not also be (and I do think that the window-dressing surrounding
"Soul-man", and the bit with Gen. Ross, are perhaps redolent of red
herring...). An enormous number of stories have predisposed us to
think, "Ah, but the Soul has fled." Please feel free to give this
example of bowdlerized pseudo-Christian cliche a drop-kick into the
next ontology, and work with what is established within the Marvel
universe.

We can assume organic health? Good. But the mind will have crashed
during anoxia, the backups unrecoverable through hydrolysis of the
cells? The problem still might not have been beyond the combined
resources of Banner, the Leader and the Pantheon, had Banner chosen
to cooperate. (Your point, no?)

Failing this, however, one really need look no further for an established
mechanism than Rachel Summers, whose original distinction was the ability
to form a mental bridge over a period of about twenty years, and 
transfer her own mind entire across it. So, from Marlo then to Marlo
henceforth.

Where there's a will, there's a way. So come on, give us a happy ending
now, and I promise we'll still respect you in the morning. 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jonathan Burns        |      Next week this show having new name
burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au|          ! RONOMOTO, ATOMIC GUMSHOE !
Computer Science Dept |     and no Buddhist scriptwriters either....
La Trobe University   |                        -Firesign Theatre
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