This week sees the release of Fall Of The Hulks: Alpha, the first chapter in a story promising some level of closure to storyarcs that have stretch back to 2006 and, with any luck, thinning the Hulk Herd just a little. Because, yes, there are now seven different Hulks co-existing in the Marvel Universe, and that seems like at least five too many. We've come up with a scorecard for the Hulks of various colors, just to make it easier for you to jump onboard Marvel's latest big event.

The Originals
Bruce Banner and Jennifer Walters, these are your lives.
The Reds
Bruce Banner and Jennifer Walters, these are your potentially evil dopplegangers.
The Bastards
Bruce Banner, these are your children. Jen, you're off the hook for this one.

Fall Of The Hulks: Alpha is released on Thursday.

As the Hulk's son, he has the same enhanced strength and healing power as his dad, but is into tattoos and bad rock music.

Lyra
The result of the Hulk's DNA being stolen by a time-traveling feminist who came from a future where no man was worthy to father her child and sabotage had left technology unable to propagate the human race - I promise, I am not making this up - Lyra has returned to the present day to assure the future of her kind, Terminator-style, by breeding with Norman Osborn. Understandably, she realized that wasn't really something she wanted to do, but decided to stick around in this timezone to fight crime and find some other way to keep the future (and her past) safe.

Unlike her father, Lyra actually gets weaker as she gets angrier, as the result of genetic manipulation by her mother's race, the Femizons. Yes, the Femizons. I refer you to the part about me not making this up.

Hiro-Kala
After Skaar had left to go to Earth, Hiro-Kala was revealed to be the other Son of Hulk. Raised unaware of his parentage and as a slave, Hiro-Kala inherited his mother's powers, and has revealed himself to be an able and more-than-a-little-ruthless little bastard; he managed to avenge Galactus' destruction of his home world by tricking him into eating another planet that he'd "poisoned". Sure, destroying an innocent civilization and planet for revenge may seem extreme, but it got the job done.

As opposed to all of the other Hulks, Hiro-Kala isn't on Earth right now - which is probably good, or else he might poison here as well - and hasn't met any of the rest of his family yet.

We're not sure whether or not the Red Hulk has some large plan behind all of his actions, or whether it's just unsubtle writing, but so far we've seen the character kill two long-standing Hulk foes (The Abomination and the Wendigo, AKA the character that Wolverine fought in his first appearance - A moment of silence, please) and cause an earthquake in San Francisco, before joining up with various time-tossed supervillains in order to prevent the Hulk from finding true love. That's right, he's definitely evil. We just don't know why.

Red She-Hulk
If little is known about the Red Hulk, even less is known about the Red She-Hulk, other than the fact that she has similar powers to her male counterpart, and may or may not be the original She-Hulk, former X-Men spin-off character Domino or even former Daredevil spin-off character Elektra in a new radioactive form.

After a particularly destructive rampage, a collection of Marvel's superheroes decided that everyone would be happier if the Hulk was sent to a nice alien planet where he could do whatever he wanted without hurting anyone. Of course, things didn't go plan, and he ended up on a planet filled with enslaved aliens that he helped free, becoming that planet's ruler and, in the process, falling in love with Caiera, who becomes his bride before being killed by the explosion of the spaceship that brought him to the planet. (All of this is from the Planet Hulk storyline, soon to be a DVD animated movie:

In many ways, that trailer hits the highpoints of the story.)

Following the death of his wife, the Hulk got together with a bunch of freed slaves and returned to Earth to punish the heroes who'd sent him to space in the first place, blaming them for the explosion and Caiera's demise. After fighting a lot of superheroes and turning New York's underground into a modern Gladiatorial battle between Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic, it was revealed that it was one of the slaves who'd caused the explosion - He was worried that a happy Hulk was a soft Hulk, and so wanted to make him mad. Never a good move with the Hulk - and the Hulk pretty much let himself get defeated, turning back into Bruce Banner and being contained by the US military (This was World War Hulk).

He was released from captivity to fight the Red Hulk, but ended up having all the gamma radiation in his body drained by his crimson counterpart, meaning that he was stuck as Bruce Banner forever... Or, at least, for a couple of months; while Incredible Hulk #600 made the "Bruce Banner forever" claim in July 2009, it only took until October for Banner to get re-irradiated for future Hulk adventures.

She-Hulk
Jennifer Walters became a Hulk when she had an emergency blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce Banner. Unlike her cousin, though, she's had no history of mental illness, and so keeps the same personality when she hulks out, meaning that she's the respectable member of the family. That probably explains why she's been a member of so many superteams, including the Fantastic Four, Avengers and Defenders.

Currently, she's missing, following an explosion. The Red She-Hulk has claimed that she's dead, but, come on. It's comics. That never works.

Spinning out of this week's Incredible Hulk #600, the storyline - that will join Loeb's Hulk series with Pak's revived Incredible Hulk for its duration - follows Bruce Banner now that he is unable to become the Hulk ever again. According to Loeb, the de-Hulked Banner isn't the nerdy, nervous scientist we're familiar with, but a "kick-ass guy" trying to help the Hulk's son, Skaar, survive in a world where the mysterious Red Hulk has made life more uncomfortable for gamma-irradiated beings. Just to complicate matters, the storyline will also feature Loeb's newest creation, Red She-Hulk, due to debut soon in the Hulk series. "And if I'm not told you who Red Hulk is, I'm definitely not gonna tell you who Red She-Hulk is," Loeb joked.

World War Hulks begins in December's World War Hulks: Gamma, written by Loeb and drawn by John Romita Jr.

"Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again!": What you have to remember at all times is that you should use this line, or variations on it, at all times when talking about your event, but fail to actually follow through on it. On the rare occasions when you appear to follow through, leave yourself at least two different ways of getting out of it if the fan backlash becomes too loud. Case in point: Marvel's Civil War can easily be undone if all of the pro-registration heroes are revealed to have been undercover aliens or brainwashed into becoming fascist dictators. Or, for that matter, if the Scarlet Witch re-writes reality, as per-House of M. Or Mephisto gets rid of another marriage. Or one of another hundred of reasons.

(The corollary of that statement is "What the hell happened?": There should be a point in the center of each event where even the most jaded fan feels the stirrings of something resembling hope that maybe, just maybe, this one will be different and actually mean something. A plot point, perhaps, which promises the potential of real change and growth for characters or a situation. This point should be immediately followed by a return to the status quo or as close to the status quo as is possible while still pretending to be something new. Think of the aftermath of Civil War where none of the "unregistered" heroes had to actually deal with the fact that they're theoretically being hunted down by government forces and breaking the law. Yes, I know that the New Avengers keep being threatened with arrest every couple of issues. But each time that they do, those threatening arrest always change their mind and let them walk away, so it really doesn't count.)

"No-one Gets Out Of Here Alive!": No "event" is complete without a superhero or two dying. What you have to remember is to make sure that the superhero dying is one who is well known enough for fans to feel something approaching nerd emotion but not popular enough to actually matter. See: Any of the body count in DC's Infinite Crisis. I mean, people got their arms ripped off and their heads punched off their bodies, and besides the fact that they were Teen Titans, I have no idea who they were. This idea ties in tightly with...

"From Out Of The Ashes... A Hero Reborn!": If you're killing off some characters, it's only fair to renew some trademarks at the same time. The ideal crossover book will set up multiple new comics to spin off, most if not all of which will be critical and commercial flops that ultimately sully whatever credibility your event will have. For example: Civil War spun out Heroes for Hire, World War Hulk spun out Warbound and Gamma Corps and Infinite Crisis spun out (deep breath) The Trials of Shazam, OMAC and a Creeper book that I can't even remember the name of.

The most important lesson to remember when crafting your ideal superhero crossover epic, of course, is "Everything Can Be Solved With Punching": Sure, it makes the rubes lay down their hard-earned dollars by having some kind of psychological hook to sell your story on ("The heroes of the DC Universe have ideological differences regarding killing!" "The heroes of the Marvel Universe don't know who to trust because of alien invaders!"), but just remember this: There is no problem that can't be solved with good, old-fashioned violence. And if there is, then that's not something that people will want to read (Who really remembers, for example, DC's Genesis, where superheroes tried to discover the shared root of their superpowers without punching, or The Final Night, where superheroes tried to relight the extinguished sun without punching? Exactly). Look at some recent greats: Infinite Crisis started with Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman having fallen out over the murder of a supervillain, and by the end had turned into everyone punching an evil Superboy. Result? Happy fans.

Civil War was initially about whether superheroes needed to be trained in order to be superheroes, but ended with Captain America whaling on Iron Man before losing when he was too much of a pussy to beat his privileged face into mush. Fans may have been upset when Cap lost, but it wasn't because he had the better argument - It was because he had given up punching. That's why he had to die. Almost everyone who has ever read a comic agrees that the greatest recent crossover was World War Hulk, because it started with punching, and then kept punching for each and every issue following. Yes, the conclusion may have disappointed, but that's only because they replaced punching with a deus ex machine laser beam that made the Hulk happy and non-Hulklike or something like that. If it had ended with someone punching the Hulk to death? Comics could've just given up as a medium right there and then; it wouldn't have gotten any better.

So now you know: Promise change, fail to deliver, kill off minor characters, service trademarks and have lots of punching. Follow those simple instructions and one day, you too may be the one person fans pretend could manage to kill Batman.

Marvel & DC - The Summer's Events In A Nutshell [Comic Nerd]

For those of you who haven't read the Planet Hulk and World War Hulk series, here's the quickie back story: Iron Man and his gang called the Illuminati blast Hulk into space for the "safety" of the human race. (Because, you know, the Hulk is always smashing and stuff.) Hulk crash-lands on a planet where he can at last be the hero he never was on Earth — he fights with a bunch of oppressed aliens against evil humanoid overlords, wins, gets crowned king, and marries an ultra-awesome, super-strong alien who becomes his queen.

Everything goes bad when the ship Iron Man and Co. sent him to space in suddenly blows up. Queen is killed, and Hulk's new home is ravaged. He and his alien buddies (his "warbound") go back to Earth to get their revenge on Iron Man. Hulk is so mad, and so righteous, that he's gotten bigger and greener than I've ever seen him. I mean, he is so strong he can withstand space vacuum and smash up the moon.

His showdown with Iron Man stretched across several comic book crossovers. I highly recommend the series, especially Planet Hulk. And for the record, Wolk is totally right in this clip. You won't be able to deny it after reading.

Another famous recent example of comic book allegory that Wolk discussed is in Mark Millar's Civil War series, all about the Superhero Registration Act. Apparently, however, Millar denies the importance of allegory in the series, calling it "just gravy." Wolk also talked about Grant Morrison's 7 Soldiers of Victory ("It's about meshing together different forms of enlightenment.") and Green Lantern vs. Sinestro ("Green Lantern is thoughtful about how power can affect the world, while Sinestro uses fear to gain power.").

Want more Wolk? Check out his book Reading Comics.

When we watched Battlestar Galactica: Razor, it reminded us of your BSG comics. Did you invent the idea that Adama's call sign as a pilot was Husker? Or was that in a bible you were given for the show?

I wish I could take credit, but Adama's call sign was introduced in the miniseries that launched the new show. Adama's crew has restored his old Viper from his days as a pilot — and "Husker" is painted on the side. Originally, I misread that as "Husher," and in the comic book I had him explain it with the sardonic line, "Guess I was always running my mouth." When the our sharp-eyed letterer Simon Bowland caught the glitch, we tweaked Adama's explanation to: "Just had a sore throat the day they handed out nicknames."

I did notice, however, that I did scoop "Razor" on another detail. When we showed the old school Cylons for the first time in the comic book, their first words were, of course, "By your command." "Razor" played their version of the scene the same way, which made me chuckle. Guess we're all osBSG fanboys at heart.

Your comics were also the first time we came across the idea that the human-looking Cylons could have been patterned on actual humans. Sharon Valerii thinks she's the "original" Sharon whom the others are patterned on. Was this something you came up with, or were you told it might be true?

I came up with that idea and wrote those stories before the show itself had made any big reveals about the origins of the Cylons. I think Universal let us run with it because in the comic, Sharon's belief that she's "Sharon Prime," a real human that all of the Sharon Cylons are modeled after, turns out to be part of a fantasy — the kind of dream that a machine with emotions and no clue about her actual origins might have. I'm just as clueless and curious as you regarding the actual explanations that may come in this next season of the television show.

Speaking of robots with emotions, one thing that really blew us away about Robot Stories was its portrayal of robots having unexpected emotions. At one point, two androids designed only for office work fall in love. At the same time, you have people having emotional reactions to robots that clearly can't feel anything (like action figures). Do you think people will have trouble telling the difference between humans projecting emotions onto robots and robots having emotions of their own?

Absolutely. I read something recently about people already attributing emotions to things like Aibos and Furbies — even after being told that the machines are absolutely non-sentient. And no doubt robots will be designed to recognize and mimic emotions long before they have any of their own. On an everyday, individual level, I don't see any real problem with that — people already personalize their stuffed animals and computers and cars — it's just in our nature. The big challenge will come the day everyone who fantasized that their robots had emotions will have to confront the responsibilities and moral and ethical challenges that arise when robots really do have emotions. The fantasy's so much easier — because the main thing we'll fantasize about is unconditional love, or maybe a bit of cute mischievousness. But the reality very well may include less pleasant emotions such as anger or contempt or more complicated things such as neediness, existential dread, or mental illness.

That sounds like it could lead to some awkward moments.

I imagine it could be a bit like the experience of some folks who adopt baby raccoons — so cute! But then they turn into adult animals with very distinct needs and instincts that have very little to do with the comfort level of their owners.

We loved Planet Hulk, your storyline where the Hulk gets trapped on an alien world and forced to become a gladiator. One of the coolest parts was the planet Sakaar itself, with its patchwork of different species and cultures. How did you come up with that concept for the planet?

I'm mixed race — half white and half Korean — which I think made me hyperaware of race and racism and the promise of a genuinely pluralistic society from a ridiculously young age. So it was a natural thing for me to populate Sakaar with a variety of different sentient species interacting in a society dominated by racist and classist ideology — and then to turn the various prejudices and stereotypes about the various characters on their heads as the story progressed.

Was the planet's mix of cultures something that evolved in the process of writing the story, or did you spend a lot of time on world-building beforehand?

Under the expert guidance of Hulk editor extraordinaire Mark Paniccia, I spent a huge amount of time developing the world ahead of time, but also developed a great deal of the specifics as we went along. It was a great way to work — I'd nailed down all of the big picture ideas about the planet's ecology, history, society, politics, mythology, zoology and theology before I started writing the first issue, so I knew how all the working pieces fit into the story we were telling. But there was space to explore and expand and discover along the way, which was incredibly invigorating.

The most engaging character in Planet Hulk was probably Miek, the cute bug who turns into a warlord. In some ways, Planet Hulk seemed to be Miek's story as much as the Hulk's. I was glad he turned out to have a pivotal role in the end of World War Hulk, the sequel. But do you think the ending of World War Hulk would make sense to people who only read the World War Hulk miniseries and not the Incredible Hulk issues (which focused more on Miek)?

No doubt folks who have been following the story from the first issue of "Planet Hulk" will get the deepest appreciation of Miek's journey. But having talked to tons of fans at Wizard World Texas in November, the ending seems to work pretty well with folks who only read World War Hulk. One of the things I'm pretty proud of, actually, was the way we worked important moments for each of the Hulk's alien Warbound companions within World War Hulk proper. It's not every day that that many new characters get such a big spotlight in the Marvel Universe.

And we're going to see more of the Hulk's companions from Sakaar, who came back to Earth with him on his mission of vengeance, right?

Yes, I'm getting the chance to feature these characters in a brand new adventure right here on planet Earth with the Warbound miniseries (the second issue of which hits stores on January 16).

Another great new character is Amadeus Cho, the angry coyote-carrying teen super-genius who took the Hulk's side during World War Hulk. We're hoping the "Incredible Hercules" issues of the Hulk comic will be basically a vehicle for Amadeus. Is that true?

Heh. Someday we'll do an Amadeus Cho solo book. But the "Incredible Hercules" is definitely the right place for the character right now. And it's definitely a shared book with Herc and Amadeus playing equal roles as foils for each other — the world's most irresponsible god and incorrigible teen genius get each other into a ridiculous amount of trouble in the wake of World War Hulk! What's not to love?

So is there any chance you'll make another independent movie?

Absolutely. I have a dream project or two that I'll get made one way or another in the fullness of time. I can't spill the beans just yet, but I have a few creator owned comic book projects coming up in the next few months that could help the process along.

So what are you working on right now? Anything besides the Warbound and "Incredible Herc" comics you can talk about?

My craziest new project is "Skaar: Son of Hulk," a new Marvel series that launches in the spring. It tells the tale of Skaar, the son of the Hulk and the alien woman warrior Caiera the Oldstrong, as he struggles to survive and conquer on the savage planet of Sakaar. More epic science fiction adventure that picks up right where Planet Hulk left off. And then I have a couple more top secret projects I can't talk about just yet — but the latest news can always be found at pakbuzz.com.

If you're looking for a stocking stuffer for the little kid in your life, you could do a lot worse than the Marvel Adventures Hulk digest, Misunderstood Monster. It's the old-school Hulk, smashing stuff in his purple pants and wanting to be left alone. No planet, no world war. And it's totally kid-friendly.

There are also a couple of worthy X-men collections out this week. X-Factor: Heart of Ice hardcover collects issues 18-24 of the recent series. Post-mutant terrorists react badly to the fact that most mutants have lost their powers. And if you're feeling nostalgic for the massive mutant crossovers of the 1990s, you can pick up X-Men Vol. 1: the Complete Onslaught Epic. Charles Xavier and Magneto have mind-sex and create Onslaught, a supervillain who sends all the greatest heroes to an alternate reality. Really.

As for the floppies, you can pick up two more pieces left after World War Hulk. The Hulk himself is gone (until he comes back as a red-head). But The Incredible Hulk is renamed The Incredible Herc, and follows the adventures of Hercules and the supergenius Amadeus Cho, starting with this week's issue 112. Meanwhile, World War Hulk: Warbound #1 follows the Hulk's alien allies from the planet Sakaar as they try to flee from their puny human pursuers.

Birds of Prey finally greets its new writer, Sean McKeever (Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane.) The Birds lose control over a high-tech menace in Metropolis, and Superman warns them they may not have much future in his city.

Star Wars: Legacy wraps up its storyline about Luke Skywalker's descendant being tempted by the dark side of the force. This series takes place 100 years after Return of the Jedi and has managed to deliver some real surprises on a pretty regular basis because anything can happen to these characters.

Then there's the latest Marvel Comics "What If" special, What If: Civil War. What if all the heroes had united behind Captain America? What if Iron Man had lost? One of the three versions is written by Ed Brubaker (Daredevil, Criminal), so it should be a fun read.