Hulk And The Agents Of Smash

daydream-hq

5 months ago

I feel the need to add to this, as I have watched Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. And can provide a different perspective. Especially since the show follows a different storyline than the comics, with different characterizations of the heroes.

The first thing to get out of the way is 1) Hulk and the agents of S.M.A.S.H. Is a kids show and due to limitations imposed by networks and parents, they would probably never be able to cover the true extent of Bruce’s childhood. Allude to it, tell part of the story, yes, not never the full version of it. 2) Marvel and any show related to it is owned by Disney, so, again, certain things would never fly with them.

That all being said, Agents of S.M.A.S.H. Missed a HUGE opportunity to explore the fact that Skaar is Hulk’s son and the implications of that. While the show alluded to it, it ended before they revealed it, and is if they were ever gonna reveal it, since they never made any inclination that Hulk had ever been to Sakaar in the Arc where the SMASHERS were stuck there.

If they did ever decide to reveal that Skaar was Hulk’s son, I think it would have been followed by an arc of Hulk and Skaar bonding as father and son, while also having to redefine their relationship since Skaar never had a dad and Hulk never had a good father. I also think Hulk would have fallen back into his overprotective nature, but rather than with A-Bomb it will be with Skaar. I think it would also open the door for Jen/She-Hulk to have more fun interactions with Skaar, as she would 100% take to the auntie role. It could have also helped lead Hulk to Red for advice - or at least what not to do - with parenting.

All that is to say, while you take is not necessarily wrong since, let’s be real, the comics did not foster a great father-son relationship between the two, I wanted to share mine since I thought it might help expand it.

Yo I'm watching Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H and what the fuck is Skaar???😭😭😭 I haven't read nearly as much Hulk as I legally should, but in the series he's so freaking funny, there's this moment Jen goes "Skaar, no smashy-smash", and he just gives her a side-eye and says "🤨Skaar know☝️, 🥱Skaar not dumb🙄😤" in the most gen z way possible, and it's so freaking hilarious💀 I hope to God he's like that in the comics because the world is not ready for his ass...

What I mean with this rant is, any takes on Skaar?

I haven't seen agents of SMASH and I'm definitely not the biggest Skaar expert, but have a Skaar rant anyway!

My hottest Skaar take is that Marvel missed a huge opportunity to make Bruce deal with raising a child that he failed in some way. Having a wife and kids was always a dearly held goal for Bruce (that he thought he could never achieve because of the hulk), but he also obviously was scared of repeating the cycle of abuse with any hypothetical kids. But he DID have a kid, and he DID hurt Skaar -- at first by unintentionally abandoning him on post-apocalyptic Sakaar, and then by training him to kill the Hulk.

Whether or not Bruce's actions toward Skaar are abusive when he's training him to kill the Hulk is kind of muddied by the fact that Skaar seems like an adult in Hulk form, and I do think there's a difference between sparring with your fully-grown-adult son and asking him to kill you vs sparring with your like-10-years-old son and asking him to kill you. In my opinion, Skaar's adult-seeming Hulk form is closer to how Joe Fixit describes his origin -- a kid acting like how he thinks an adult would act, based on all the grown-ups in his life having been total dicks. That's why he has the sort of edgelord personality that he has in the comics, much like Joe back in the day. So, yeah, Skaar was a kid, and it was Not Cool of Bruce to train him and ask him to help Bruce kill himself!*

At the end of that arc, Green Scar and Skaar have a fight where Skaar's supposed to finally kill the Hulk, but they both end up de-hulking and hugging and it's a really sweet moment. But then Bruce never really has to reckon with his actions or raise Skaar at all. He never has to face his fear of being an abusive dad. Skaar starts filling the role of "edgy emo son of Hulk," and is aged up super quickly. I think the next time he shows up he's doing Norman Osborne's jerk Avengers which is like... idk man he would not work for the government.

TL; DR: Bruce should have had to deal with the consequences of being a bad dad, and should have had to figure out how to raise his kid even after failing him. But they aged up Skaar even faster than real-world time, let alone the sliding timescale, so we didn't get that, boo.

If you want to read early Skaar, try Incredible Hulk (1968) 601-611. It's good! I think Skaar's most recent appearance was as a living avatar of daddy issues in Al Ewing's Gamma Flight, which is a really great spin-off of Immortal Hulk and I recommend checking it out.

*ofc, bruce should stop asking EVERYONE in his life to help him kill himself

Hulk And The Agents Of Smash - Blog Posts