Guava Paste is People!

Originally published October 30, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1302

And now, let us step onto the elevator in the BID Department store. Going up….

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The “Where’s The Rest of Me?” Department:

In the newly released trade paperback, The Ultimate Hulk, edited by Stan Lee and Yours Truly (and featuring a now-ironic foreword in which I discuss how inconceivable it would be for me to leave the comic book series), there is a short story entitled “Truck Stop” by Jo Duffy. To quote Stan’s description, “A deadly gang terrorizing a small, Midwestern town—with Bruce Banner and the incredible Hulk working for opposite sides!” But the story as published, for reasons that remain murky, is missing its last third, the section which pulls it all together. It’s too late to do anything about it now, obviously, with the thing already in print.

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The “Where’s the Rest of My Title?” Department:

And speaking of Hulk, it’s fairly well known at this point that Marvel cancelled the series just two years shy of issue #500 (because, y’know, there’s so many issue 500s out there, why add to the glut?) Instead, the company—wanting to take no chance of the title continuing its hemorrhaging of sales—will be restarting it with a #1. Furthermore, there will be no adjective. He’ll just be plain old “Hulk.”

Now, I’ll tell ya, the Hulk’s been gray, green, gray and green again, he’s been dumb as a peanut butter cracker, smart as a five-time winner on Jeopardy, he’s been all kinds of things—but for thirty years, he’s always been, without fail, Incredible. But that adjective is no longer welcome. It is retired, finished, kaput.

That just doesn’t seem right somehow, losing one’s adjective. Spider-Man is still amazing. The X-Men remain uncanny. The Four are, to this day, Fantastic. (Okay, granted, Daredevil hasn’t been “Here Comes Daredevil” for a long time, but really, how impressive is it when people say, “Watch out for Daredevil! He’s coming!” That was always pretty lame.)

So I threw it open to the fans over on AOL. I said, “Fans (I call them that. We’re very close.) “Fans,” I said, “since the Hulk will no longer be ‘incredible,’ perhaps someone should do a top 10 list of new possible adjectives.

And the fans, bless their hearts, came through.

Some of them had a few good ones. Eric Y., for example, suggested “Macho Hulk,” “Pantsless Hulk,” and “Hulky Hulk.” Jesse T. (a.k.a. Latveria23) came up with “The Bodacious Hulk” and “The Extreme Hulk.” But my favorite overall was the following list, submitted by “Madjak,” who bills himself as “the former Benevelont (sic) Dictator, Red Raven revival society!” His top 10 list consisted of:

10) The Humongous Hulk

9) The Inflatable Hulk

8) The Hormonally-Imbalanced Hulk

7) Dr. Bruce and Mister Hulk

6) Bruce Banner: The Hulk

50 David Banner: The Reprise

4) Hulk: The Wonder Years (with Bruce Banner narrating from some future point)

3) Size Does Matter Hulk

2) The Savage He-Hulk

And the #1 title:

1) The Wondrous World of Willy Lumpkin

Marvel, hope you’re taking note.

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The Wisconsin Ham and Cheese Acting Department:

So there we were, at the Saturday night banquet for MadMedia 5, and I decided to indulge in street theater.

MadMedia is a convention in Wisconsin (Madison, hence the “mad” part) which has grown steadily over the past few years. This year’s guest list included Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Furst (from B5), Tim Zahn, Mike Baron, and me. One of the events during the convention that required attendance by everyone was the banquet, and we dutifully turned out in force. Rather than seating us all together, we were each “seeded” at a table so that all of the attendees could sit with one of the con guests. This kind of set up always makes me a bit itchy because I then feel (rightly or wrongly) that I’m the draw at the table. (“We sat at Neil Gaiman’s table! He entertained us for an hour with droll and witty observations! How about you?” “We were at Peter David’s table. He got gravy on his tie and spilled soup on his girlfriend.”)

In short, when I’m in that kind of position, I want to try to make people’s evenings memorable. After all, they paid to get in. I didn’t. I figure I owe them something.

So, after the main meal had been served, Harlan was going around with this stuff called “guava paste.” A gelatinous confection which tastes dynamite, particularly when sandwiched next to a small chunk of cream cheese, Harlan had first gone around to all of his friends at the banquet and had us try it. And then, when he found he had plenty left over, he was doling it out to the fans.

So I was watching this, and things were pretty quiet at my table—and naturally, I felt I should be doing something to keep things lively. And suddenly I leaned forward conspiratorially to the fans and said—and I have no idea how this idea leaped, almost fully formed, into my mind—”Remember Soylent Green?” For those of you who don’t, Soylent Green was a futuristic drama starring Charlton Heston, memorable for its chilling climax wherein Heston’s character learns that the titular food stuff is actually reconstituted citizens. “Tell them! Let everybody know! It’s people! Soylent Green is people!” screams Heston, which—in terms of science fiction warnings—is right up there with Kevin McCarthy shouting “They’re coming! They’re coming!” to heedless motorists in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The fans nodded in recollection of the film, and I continued in a low voice, “What would you think if I jumped up and started shouting, ‘Guava Paste is people!’” Immediately they nodded eagerly. (Why not? It wasn’t their butt on the line if the gag fell flat.) One of the fans fed me the exact wording that Heston had used. But I felt that just jumping up and shouting wasn’t enough. The bit needed something more.

Then another fan walked up to me and asked me to sign something. I took one look at the guy. He was a head taller than I, broad-shouldered and heavily muscled, with a shaved head. Immediately I said, “Care to help me with a gag?” “Sure,” the behemoth rumbled.

So there was poor Harlan, about one table away, handing out this dessert, and suddenly he’s startled to hear me scream, “Tell them!” His head whipped around so fast it could have been accompanied by one of those “whoosh” sound effects from Xena: Warrior Princess, and gaped at me with a combination of deer-in-the-headlights and clear concern that I had completely snapped.

“Let everybody know!” I continued like a crazed loon. “It’s people! Guava paste is people!”

And on cue, the burly fan ran over from the next table, grabbed me from behind, and proceeded to drag me out the door, as if he’d been dispatched by the Guava Paste Company to make sure their secret was not unveiled. “It’s people! It’s people!” I continued to bellow. The entire banquet hall, now understanding, erupted in laughter. I couldn’t see Ellison’s reaction because I was too busy struggling with the fan and I wanted it to look real. The fan hauled me out the door but I clung to the door frame, still shouting, only my desperately clutching fingertips visible before being yanked completely out of view.

We sauntered back in a moment later, me reaching up to high-five the fan. Harlan was laughing as hard as I’ve ever seen. And then Ellison dropped to the floor, to his knees, and proceeded to salaam and bow in a most Wayne’s World “We’re not worthy” manner. The laughter did not subside for quite some time.

Hopefully, that gave the fans their money’s worth.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)