Nothing can stop the Juggernaut.. from jobbing.

I recently read most of Marvel’s “World War Hulk” crossover event. This crossover was the culmination of some extremely well-written and “Gladiator”esqe events which took place in the “Planet Hulk” story arc. Without giving you my feelings on how satisfying the concept of Hulk beating the assess of and/or pulling the “punk card of” every hero in the Marvel Universe was, and how ultimately unsatisfying the resolution of said “plot” was, let me get right to the point and tell you what my greatest disappointment was.

In the issues of X-men where “WWH” crossover spilled over to, we see the Hulk making short work of all of the young X-trainees at the Xavier mansion. He even shrugs off the combined forces of X-Factor, the X-men themselves, and Excaliber. However, there is one final trump card the “X-forces” have to play, and he’s my favorite, cherry-red penis helmeted super-villian of all time: Juggernaut.

Now, I’ve been out of comic collecting for a few years, so I was mildly surprised to find out that apparently Juggernaut has been a member of Excalibur for a while now, and that has lead to him becoming weaker, since Cyttorak, his sponsor/source-of-powers isn’t happy about him hugging trees and saving the world, when he’s supposed to be out demolishing buildings and single-handedly fucking the x-men up.

So a watered-down Juggernaut against a “powered up” Hulk doesn’t sound very interesting, right? I think Marvel was on my same train of thought – up to that point. So about half-way through the comic, Jug makes a deal with Cyttorak that if his old school power level is restored, then after he gets done putting a size 20 red boot up Hulk’s anus, he’ll go back to beating up the x-men and doing cool shit like leveling sports arenas where emo concerts are happening at. Cyttorak, being a Slayer and Front Line Assembly kind of deity agrees to the proposal, and off we go..

Now before my blow-by-blow, let me put a term out there for those who don’t already know it: JOBBING

I’ve only heard this term used referring to professional wrestling (wwe) characters, but jobbing could colloquially being defined as: “Actions taken by a character who is renowned as being formidable, tough, and generally difficult/impossible to defeat by conventional means, which allow him to be overtaken by a typically much-less established, strong, or otherwise formidable opponent – for purposes of elevating the status of the “lesser” opponent, in a quick and dirty fashion.”

For example: If I started wrestling, and they were serious about making me look credible and advancing my career, they might script a match where by some miracle, I beat Hulk Hogan.

So keep that definition in your head while I define the following:

Juggernaut has been shown to have unlimited healing capabilities, endurance, equal strength to the Hulk (or, non-pissed-off hulk), has beaten the Hulk’s ass before, is wearing pretty-much-indestructable armor, and can make forcefields.. and of course his trademark “can’t be stopped once moving” power.

So with high anticipation, I sat back and expected a hella’ fucking awesome, balls to the wall 20 page throwdown.

but unlike Akira Toriyama/Dragonball Z, I guess Marvel just doesn’t have anyone on staff who appreciates 20 pages of two massive, super-powered characters beating the shit out of each other. So basically what I got was 2 panels of Hulk having some dental work done by Jug’s fists, and then Jug trying to bullrush Hulk and being sidestepped while Hulk says “Unstoppable, huh? Well go right ahead..” – ending with Jug running into the lake in the backyard.

ARE.. YOU.. FUCKING.. SERIOUS? That’s all I could say. I’m almost glad they didn’t make the fight 20 pages, because if they had, that would’ve been so anti-climactic that I would’ve probably had to waste 500+ bucks travelling to NYC so I could visit Marvel’s offices and piss on the side of their building for pissing away would could have been the most “stepped in fanboyism” fight of WWH. Ugh.

So there you have it. Juggernaut jobbed for Hulk. It shouldn’t really surprise me.. he jobbed for Onslaught back in the day, and I’d almost go so far as to say he jobbed for X-Force way-back-when. All I can say is that I hope that was just a dramatic way of setting up a rematch later on.. but I doubt it.

I dunno Marvel, I know you have to be dynamic and change with the times, but you make it really hard for a “true believer” to come back to the fold. Until you can dig a little deeper, I’m still going to have to reserve the $3.50 a month (or whatever it is comics cost now.) for other pursuits.. ‘Nuff Said.