156 JAY BODNAR REVIEWS YOU CAN USE: A TENTATIVE TITLE – HULK EDITION, Volume 1: And Lo, There Was A Robot Man Punching A Red Guy In The Face

Hulk #25 (Marvel Comics)
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Gabriel Hardman and Ed McGuinness

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Spoilers ahead, maybe? I don’t read this comic, so I don’t know if that’s true. – P.)

Review by Jay Bodnar

The logic of the super-hero is fluid at best. The dual call to altruism and bizarre pageantry of costume design is enough to turn away most casual browsers who don’t have the mindset to dive head first into the borderline unexplainable trauma that the writers of these characters have set up to explain why a supposedly non-insane adult would dress up as a spider, wolverine, bat or flag of a country.

Some characters have a more built-in logic as to how they look, in that I feel if a non-comics reader were to pick up said book, it would become easily apparent as to why the characters look like they do. The two that come to mind are Green Lantern and Iron-Man. Green Lantern clearly wears a militia or law enforcement uniform. Sure, there are slight variations within the Green Lantern Corps from member to member, but there’s enough unity for readers to make that connection. Plus the fact that it plays on the science fiction neck of the woods as much as Superhero-dom helps explain to the layman why they look the way they do. Their outfits are not all that different from the average Star Trek uniform.  If one reads Iron-Man, it quickly becomes obvious it’s not a costume at all, but a fully functioning defensive weapons application, a one-man tank.

155 An Examination of Titillation: Adult Comics & My Gradual Appreciation For Them

by Jay Bodnar

I would like to start by saying this is my third attempt at writing this article. My first two aborted attempts were unusable, because I kept straying away from the topic, which if you don’t know by the headliner is about adult comics, erotic comics, porn.

My first attempt was useless because what started as an article turned quickly into a very judgmental rant about how I hate most people who read comics, and how odd it is to genuinely love something that draws people who repel you to your very soul to the same medium. This comes from a stint of working at a comic shop for a good chunk of a year, and daily realizing how much I honestly despise most of you (not you, dear reader, but let’s say everyone else.)  But I then decided this is an article worthy of itself, so that I don’t feel pressured to spare any details.

My second attempt got sidelined into my thoughts on other Pornography, or you know, actual people fucking. Which of course I’ll have to address at least a little, I just don’t want it to override my main objective.