“Anger can make you old, yes it can. I said anger can make you sick, children… oh Jesus, anger destroys your soul” From Anger, written by Marvin Gaye.

I love our language. Honestly, I have gotten into many long discussions with several different professors about the use of one word over the other. I strongly believe our language is a living, ever-evolving function of our lives.

For example, the phrase “Hulking out” is known to and used by people who have never experienced the literary character upon which that phrase was based. These days “Hulking out” is used to refer to a person losing control or unnecessarily going over the top. Why, it’s even been used as a reference to our president du jour.

Making contributions to our language is nothing new to the comics art field. Certainly, those phrases made popular in media adaptations of comics still rattle though our conversations, such as “look up in the sky” and “holy ANYTHING.” Come to think of it, the phrase that predicates “Hulking out” is “You’re not going to like me when I’m angry.”

Of course, there’s that other Marvel phrase that started its invasion of our consciousness about, oh, 63 years ago that, after about a half-dozen Spider-Man movies, became a genuinely standard cliché: with great power, obviously, comes great opportunity.

One of the best — and oldest — of such references may be apocryphal. I sure hope not, but, then again, I long have been in the business of printing the legend. So go know. I’m here to rat out the hot dog. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Hulking Out” →