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The Infernal Hulk and Merleau-Ponty: Body Schemas and Structuring Absence

Won't the Real Hulk Please Stand Up? The Infernal Hulk comic series grants Bruce Banner his wish of separation from his monster, but the progression of the story reminds us to be careful of what we wish for. One of the most unsettling ideas in The Infernal Hulk is not that Bruce Banner loses the Hulk, but that losing him doesn’t bring relief. Banner is free of the monster, yet he is weaker, disoriented, and haunted by something that refuses to stay gone. The Hulk persists, not as a body, but as an absence that still shapes Banner’s life. This dynamic closely mirrors what philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes through the phantom limb. Amputees often continue to feel sensations in limbs that no longer exist. For Merleau-Ponty, this happens because the body is not merely a physical object, but a lived structure, a body schema through which we orient ourselves in the world. When something is removed, the body’s orientation does not immediately adjust. Banner’s condition in The ...
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Splash-Page Spotlight: Violator Origin




Violator: Origin


We Were Not Always As We Are Now


Violator situated himself as one of Malebolgias more resilient and resourceful henchman within Hell's hallways, and an otherwise beloved and irreplaceable fixture in the Spawn universe as a whole. Yet even this conniving servant of the dark realm has a past, a remarkable past chronicled in Violator: Origin by Marc Andreyko. The following are the striking and inspiring images brought to the fore by the tag team of  Brad Simpson and Piotr Kowalski. Enjoy.


 In the Beginning...



Before his fall, the one we come to know as Violator was a beautiful angel named Baziel. Swayed by the words of Lucifer, Baziel came to doubt the will of his Creator and was the first to harness the residual waste of creation to become the very first Hell Spawn.  


War


The striking image of Lucifer's war on heaven is delivered in the all too familiar artwork style that the Spawn comics have come to be known for. 


Re/Birth


The birth of The Violator struck me a massively iconic and crucial. The embrace of the fallen form punctuated so well by the image of the infernal baptism. 



Anguish




One of the rare occasions where we see the anguish and torment that even The Violator was capable of feeling. I liked the symbolism of the graveyard and its ability to communicate the unity of life and death, beginning and the end. An appropriate place for Baziel to lament the choices he had made - a tragic ode to the Cross and the skull. 

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Location: Glasgow, UK

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