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Hulk Smash! And the Winners Are…


rip planet hulk.JPG

?After reading this past weekend’s TR contest, I have come to the conclusion that we have some issues. Sometimes our issues are about comic book issues. Still, I hope writing down your moments of nerd rage — as well as reading others’ tales — helped you get some of that anger out, or at least put things in perspective. If not, whatever, it was still fun to read.

Since tales of videogame saves getting deleted and beloved childhood toys getting sold by misguided (or actively cruel) parents were so common, I tried to look for tales of anger a little more unique. Kind of like this one, which I want to immortalize anyways:

Steven said:
This one doubles as an ashamed of being a nerd moment, but here it is.
At lunch one day, a kid came up to my table and started talking to my friend. At the same time, I was having a conversation with a friend about comics. When Batman came up in the conversation, the kid turned to me and said “Batman is so on steroids.” I immediately became angry. HOW DARE HE SAY THAT BATMAN COULD POSSIBLY BE ON STEROIDS. He trained for SIX FUCKING YEARS to become what he is today. It infuriated me to no ends. I said, and I quote “You’d have to be retarded to say Batman was ever on steroids.”

Now comes the shame part. After my moment of anger, I calmed down and resumed my conversation. After a while the kid went back to his own table. Then I noticed something. He had sat down at the special needs table. The kid was literally retarded. Was my first thought shame, frustration, anger? No. My first thought was “See, you DO have to be retarded to think Batman was on steroids.”
And for this I will be forever ashamed.

JOBSQUAD replied to Steven:
Feel no shame my friend, he would have to be retarded. Doesn’t he know that HE’S THE GODDAMN BATMAN?!?!

Now, before I announce the honorable mentions and the winners, I would
like to thank Lionsgate for offering two copies of the Planet Hulk
Special Edition DVDs for the winners; if you didn’t win, the DVD comes
out tomorrow. Now let’s embrace our rage!


Since I made the mistake of tacitly allowing people to write 999-word diatribes for their entries, I went ahead and summarized most of the Honorable Mentions. Hope you don’t mind.

? Kryptoknight, who watched his friend’s comic shop become the victim of a bitter divorce
? RoyDemarco, for actually fever-dreaming he could become the Hulk during a bout of mono

? Neural Khan, who had an old man working at Wal-Mart tell him “”Marvel Universe is a DC Comic book.”

? MattK, whose “friend” concocted an elaborate but incredibly stupid lie about knowing the screenwriter of a Harry Potter film
? LadySheeana, for “I also wanted to Hulk smash Rob a little when he referred to the Mandalorians as “Mandalores”. Mandalore is the title taken by the leader of the Mandalorians.”
? White Lightnin, for “There was this one time I painstakingly photoshopped two exclusive images of a Captain America statue and another nerd website passed them off as their own and a third geeky site put them up without giving me any credit. I had a hissy fit that made the entire Internet slow to a crawl to choose sides and weigh in.”
? DoctorSmashy, for “I have six simple words, people: ‘Our Princess Is In Another Castle’

? J_S, for rightfully getting angry when furries defended a crazy woman who thinks she’s a werewolf and cut off a dead dog’s head and ate it
? SpecterM91, whose Twilight-loving mother who switched out his Nosferatu DVD with Twilight while he was in the bathroom
? Abraxas, for the omninous “losing my legendary FFF status to bags full of Sherlock Holmes constipation shit and an upstart who collects passed out severed Cyclops heads…. this means war….”
? Joel, for “I was watching Star Wars episode IV, and Han was talking to Greedo, then, suddenly, out of nowhere, GREEDO SHOT FIRST.”
? Arsenal, who had a mass effect of bad luck
? Aaron Riveteran, for meeting a girl who confused Bela Lugosi with Bella from Twilight
? Awesomecakes, for “The day Topless Robot sold out to Lionsgate. (I’m kidding.) (Or am I?)”
? jolly bitch, for a Wal-Mart employee assuming she didn’t know the difference between Batman and Superman because she’s a woman
? CleverNamePending, for purchasing a book that was missing the last three chapters [This is like my nightmare. -Rob]
? Glitchy Goblin, for opening his home to a friend in need, and that “friend” taking apart and effectively destroying his computer
? Rocco, for getting chastised for spending money on Yu-Gi-Oh cards — while sick, mind you — while his dad was buying lingerie for a prostitute
? LJSLarsson, because he still wakes up in rage monthly over how shitty Superman Returns was

And I’d like to give a special Honorable Mention to Pokefreaks, who shares his anger at living in a non-Topless Robot-loving country:

First off, I’m in Burma(Myanmar), and everything is banned here. I’m a
big video game/anime/movie fan and everything is banned for no fucking
apparent reason, everything by means, toplessrobot, blogspot, youtube
and fucking animepaper.net where I can download totally SFW moe girl
pictures. AND YES THEY ARE ALL BANNED HERE BY OUR ONE AND ONLY ISP.

So, here I am, reading topless robot and nerdy sites every day by using
proxy websites like vtunnel while the connection is so slow and posting
comments take lots of time. Also, I can’t watch the youtube videos that
you’d posted. (I can still use some software to overcome the ban but
It’d still a hour or two to wait a 10 mins video to load). I’d been a
TR fan ever since the Star Wars drinking game post but I also want to
see the Storm Troopers dancing para para dammit.

So, EVERY TIME YOU POST A NERDY AND AWESOME YOUTUBE VIDEOS THAT I CAN’T WATCH, IT MAKES ME GO HULK OUT!

Poor bastard! He doesn’t have to just read my typo-ridden screeds, he has to wait to read them. The horror! The winners are on the next page.

—-

I judged this contest by one criterion — how angry did these tales of rage make me by proxy. Now, as you recall, I only have two Planet Hulk DVDs to give away. What gives? Well, Yellow Bird ignored my requirement to keep it nerdy, but his tale is so heartbreaking and infuriating I’m sending him two shirt anyways — you’ll see why.

YellowBird said: Last weekend, after being denied approval for a visa renewal twice at a hefty cost of money each time, my girlfriend was forced to leave the country on a bloody technicality. She had been given only a week to do so. It broke her heart because she loves living here and she loves being with me. I stayed strong enough for her and me both; I told her not to worry. Things will be okay. I told her she could re-apply when she arrives in her country and that I’d help her in any way I could. In the meantime, I have to stay where I am because my career is here and I’m not in a position to just up and relocate my entire life to another country… like she just had to in under a week.

As I watched her disappear behind the terminal gates at the airport, all the anger, sadness and frustration I had pushed aside over the last week came to a head and all I wanted to do was smash everything: The airport, the cars, the roads, the planes, everything.

I came home and looked at all the things she left behind at my place because she didn’t have enough time to pack nor room in her luggage to bring it back with her. I wanted to destroy my own apartment, my building, my city block and leave a giant crater of destruction in my wake. I screamed and roared in my living room until my throat was raw.

That night, after her plane had landed and she was home again with her family, I spoke with her on Skype and finally admitted how I really felt. I’d been her rock for over a week but I’d been so angry that day I just couldn’t hide it anymore. Being the geek that I am, I actually said to her during the course of our conversation: “All I want to do is Hulk Out on everything.”

To which she said: “No, beb?. Eres mi Superman. Superman no har?a eso.” This is why she’s awesome.

People might think its kind of cheap of me to use this story for a contest, but to tell you the truth, that’s not why I’m writing this. In fact, since I’m not American, I’m probably not eligible for this prize anyway. I’m writing this because… well… you asked your question. And… I don’t know… Reading your question, all this came bubbling up and I just really wanted to share my story. If anyone else has ever had to go through or is going through something like this: Don’t give up. It may look bleak, but there’s always hope. My girl and I are working together now and we’re staying optimistic. There is light at the end of the tunnel, we just have to fight for it.

Thanks for asking, TR. Thanks for reading, all.

A Planet Hulk DVD wouldn’t do them much good anyways, but it’s my hope that they can wear their TR shirts and be reminded of each other. Helpful? Possibly. Stupid? Maybe. Overly sentimental? Hell yes. I am a total sap for shit like this. But now for the shirt and DVD winners — grab onto your stressballs for these:

FireKraken said: This one’s a bit of a long story, but it’s my angriest I’ve ever been during my adolescence, nerd-related or otherwise. It all started the summer before I started high school, when I was trying out for JV soccer. My brother, two years older than me and on varsity, badmouthed me the whole time and roughed me up a bit. So when I got home, I went into his room and dumped his baseball cards all over his bed (an appropriate response in my nerd mind). He retaliated by snapping the wings off my X-wing and TIE-fighter models, and stomping on and cracking my Millennium Falcon model in his attempt to break it in half. I was enraged. We fought as I tried to barge into his room to shred his cards until my mom caught us and confined us to the couch until my dad came home. When he did, our parents took us both aside to our rooms. I got my dad.

—After giving the standard lines about how what we did was wrong and how violence doesn’t solve anything, he came at me with a line about how in the end my brother may have ended up doing me a favor. Apparently this was the appropriate time for him to tell me that I was getting too old for sci-fi fantasy stories and that going into high school, it might be a good idea to find normal, “healthy” hobbies like my brother, in an effort to be popular like him. He told me that the transition to high school gave me an opportunity to re-brand myself as more mainstream. To illustrate, he pointed out that no one of consequence brandished their early involvement in nerdy things after achieving success the way they did about, say, sports. I was floored. Here was my dad, the supposed vanguard against negative peer influences, pedaling the “don’t do it if it’s not cool” line. My dad. The man who appreciated more than anyone how much I wanted those models, how expensive they were, how much time and energy I put into their construction, and how proud I was of them. Then he delivered the piece de resistance: “After all, your mother wants grandchildren one day.” After that he chuckled and gave me one of those shoulder punches before taking me out to the hallway.

—He set me face to face with my brother who was brought out by my mom to exchange apologies. My brother went first, with that smug look that screamed insincerity. When he was done, I was so angry that I could only choke out an apology from between clenched teeth. My suddenly eagle-eyed folks noticed this and told me that my brother was being grown up about this, so I should be too. I couldn’t take it. I stormed off to my room and barricaded myself there until the next day. For that, I bought myself two weeks grounding, compared to my brother’s one week.

—Never did I want to smash something so badly in my life. I wanted to smash some of my brother’s sports memorabilia to wipe that smile off his face and make him appreciate how I felt in a language he understood. I wanted to smash because my habit of sulking when angry never seemed to be taken as seriously by my parents as my brother’s habit of screaming, which made them France to his Hitler. I wanted to smash so my parents would appreciate how I felt about having the important things I identified with be condescended to. Don’t get me wrong. I have a loving family and we get along great. But for whatever reason, that episode is burned into my mind.

Mike said:
Here goes my tale of rage. Might as well give it a shot, right?
About six years ago, I was dating a girl. A geek girl. She got me into cosplaying and invited me to my first convention. She convinced me to organize a group to go down to Otakon, so I booked the hotel rooms, got the group tickets and bent over backwards to get the trip going. It was about 16 people, mostly from our college anime club. Everyone was supposed to pay me back for the hotel before the trip, but a few of her closest friends hadn’t, but I didn’t worry since I thought I could trust them.

Well, I got dumped at the con, found out she had been cheating on me for months, she had kept up the facade so that she could have my mom make her a costume, and so that she wouldn’t have to front any money for the trip. She also convinced me to do a costume I would have gotten ridiculed in, had I ended up wearing it (a tubby guy doing Johnny from Guilty Gear? Not a good idea . . . ) Her and her friends spent the entire weekend making fun of me and trying to make me snap. I ignored, for the most part.

Until the last night in the hotel. Her and her friends were in one room, I was in another with people I didn’t know. There were 14 places to sleep between 16 people, so 2 people had been sleeping on the floor. One of her friends came into my room the last night to tell me that they had voted and I was going to sleep on the floor so the others could have my bed. I explained that I had fronted the money for the hotel, as well as the extra money because of how many people we had staying in each room. That didn’t go over well, so they spent a good hour trying to get me out of bed. Finally, they sent in the jackass I had been dumped for. He told me that he wanted me to leave the hotel (that I had paid for) and walk three blocks to sleep in one of the cars because I was “causing trouble.” And then threatened me.

Long story short, I got up, considered throwing him through the sixth story window, thought better of it and gave him the most terrifying glare I have ever given anyone, cracked my knuckles, and he ran. The only way it would have been better is if I had purple pants on and made some quip about not liking me when I was angry, because that was seriously the most I wanted to smash someone in my life . . .

GRR. Your brother breaks your shit, you get utterly backstabbed by your dad, mocked for being nerdy, and then grounded for being upset about it? Getting emotionally and financially abused by your ex-nerd girl girlfriend? (Seriously, nerd girls, this is what I mean — you have power, please don’t use it for evil.) FireKraken and Mike, I hope that the Planet Hulk DVDs and TR shirts help quell your rage somewhat. But if you want someone to punch your brothers, fathers, or evil ex-girlfriends, I believe the Topless Roboteers know some people. Congrats (kind of, I guess) and thanks to everybody for entering.