(news techno theme music)
- [Voiceover] Ooh yeah, the mega powers
of Scott from NerdSync
and Joel from Caped-Joel are proud to present
another smartacular episode of Super Suits.
The internet comic book show where we
go beyond the mat to discuss the history
of the most famous comic book lawsuits and trials.
And on today's show we got two great tastes
that taste great together because we're going
to take a closer look at one of the many
times the world of professional wrestling
crossed over the world of comic books.
Now I know what your thinking,
at first glance super heroes and sports entertainment
don't exactly seem like they would make
good bedfellows but upon closer inspection
it becomes apparent that they both actually
share quite a few similarities.
Comics and wrestling both have
larger-than-life heroes and villains
dressed in wonderful costumes,
ongoing story lines that lead up to major events
where they usually expect you to pay
more money to get the whole story.
And that's not even mentioning the long
and storied history that spans generations
worth of fans or the fact that comics
and wrestling push a ton of plastic
in terms of action figures, t-shirts
and other such merchandise that arguably
make more than the main products do.
And for today's topic we're going to be looking
at this guy right here, Terry Bollea.
Now Mr. Bollea began his wrestling career
in 1977 and since then he had had a number
of different ring names through out his career
ranging from Terry Boulder,
Sterling Golden,
Mr. America and perhaps my personal favorite
The SUPER DESTROYER.
But chances are even if you are just
tangentially familiar with wrestling,
you will know him better by the name that made him famous,
Hulk Hogan.
Now wait, I'm sure you're all thinking,
didn't Marvel already have a popular
certain green gamma giant at that time
who went by the same moniker?
They most certainly did.
The way the story goes is that
when Hulk Hogan was wrestling for CWA in Memphis,
he got a chance to be on a morning talk show
next to, none other than, Lou Ferrigno,
TV's very own ever-lovin' Hulk.
Backstage, Mary Jarrett, the wife of CWA owner,
Jerry Jarrett, noted how much bigger
and muscular Hogan was than Ferrigno
and as such, Hogan, still Boulder at the time,
decided to start performing as Terry The Hulk Boulder.
Now, in 1979, Hogan joined Vince McMann's WWF
and The Hulk moniker came with him.
Wrestling was about to enter a golden age
right around this time and Hulk
got more and more TV time.
So you can bet Marvel Comics came a callin'
wanting a piece of the Hulkster's action.
Now, if you've been watching the last ten episodes
worth of Super Suits, you can't be blamed
for thinking that this might have led to
some manner of crazy legal battle
that spanned the years, only it kind of didn't.
Marvel, Hogan and the WWF managed to reach
a compromise that worked for everybody involved.
The way it worked was Marvel would hold
the Hulk Hogan name and license it to
the World Wrestling Federation for a fee.
Now, no one can exactly confirm how much
but you have to imagine it wasn't cheap.
And considering how huge Hulkamania was
for a moment in time, it was a cost
they were more than willing to pay.
But yeah, as crazy as it might sound
for a bit there, the House of Ideas
owned the Hulkster and it had some
long reaching ramifications that
I'm sure nobody considered like for one,
certain Hulk Hogan action figures actually
carry the Marvel logo with 'em.
And when Valiant Comics decided
to dip their toes into doing wrestling comics,
Steve Ditko, was not allowed to use
Hogan for their WWF Battlemania series.
Stranger still, Marvel never really bothered
to do much owning the Hulk Hogan name
even thought theoretically they could have
done whatever they wanted.
The closest they came was in Marvel Comics Presents
number 45, where a wrestler that looks
a lot like the Hulkster, crosses paths
with the grey-skinned Joe Fixit.
Seriously, this guy was so huge at one time,
why didn't he team up with like a bunch of Marvel heroes?
Couldn't you see a whole mini-series
where the Hulkster teams up with Spider-Man
to tell kids to say their prayers
and eat their green vegetables.
I mean, imagine if Hulk Hogan had to go
one-on-one with the Champion of the Universe
and they just went back and forth leg-dropping each other.
While we're on the subject, upon closer
inspection of the Marvel Wiki,
we can see there's actually couple minor background
characters who are listed as Hulk Hogan.
But, you know, they never really did
anything of note, so, moving on.
In 1996, Hulk Hogan jumped ship over to WCW,
Ted Turner's rival product to the WWF.
There, he was a member of the NWO stable
and his character was reworked into
Hollywood Hogan, granted, they still
would occasionally call him Hulk
but it's believed that the name change
was due in part to WCW not wanting to pay Marvel
nearly as much money nearly as often.
Now, in 2005, this arrangement would
come to an abrupt end when Hogan
would just buy the name from Marvel for use.
Once again, I can't get anything concrete
on how much he paid or even why it took him
so long to finally go through with this
but that was, if nothing else, the end
of all these legal shenanigans.
And whatever happened to the man with hair
as golden as wheat and skin like a hot dog?
Oh man, what's a nice way to say
messy divorce, followed by sex tape,
followed by legal battle with Gawker,
followed by racist comments,
followed by victory over Gawker
that more or less torpedoed his career
and got him scrubbed from the now
World Wrestling Entertainment record books?
Oh, oh yeah I guess there was no nice way to say that.
Well, there's the bell and the three-count
which pretty much means we're done
for another episode of Super Suits.
As always I hope you enjoyed it,
I hope you learned a little something
and for more educational videos
be sure to subscribe to Scott and NerdSync.
Or if you'd like to see what I'm doing
over at Caped-Joel, I do all sorts of
weekly reviews podcasts and fun videos.
You can check out that link as well.