How The Incredible Hulk is All About You and Me

Or, What’s the Deal With the Hulk Persona?

Years ago, I was playing around with a copy of Photoshop Elements on my dad’s computer, alter pictures for my own amusement.

This was about the time that the Eric Bana Hulk movie directed by Ang Lee had come out, and if you remember how that movie ended, it implied that a bearded, fedora-sporting Dr. Banner was about to open a can of Hulkification down in South America.

So, with that image in my mind, I made the following picture:

Then, I wondered if I could put my own face on the Hulk, and since I can’t make an angry-face that looks dangerous and rage-filled enough to suit the Hulk’s awesome physique, I went another route and took a picture of myself making a crazed, maniacal clown-face and put that onto the Hulk’s face.

Somehow, I pushed the right buttons and applied the right filters and the result is what you see up above in the header of this website.

I made sure not to get rid of the pictures because I knew that I’d never again have that kind of luck creating a photoshopped picture together so seamlessly (I know you could probably do better, but to me, it’s seamless).

For a few years now, I’ve tried to have a place on the web that would be a hub for all of my online activity. I’ve wanted a place where I could direct people to links I find interesting and also a forum for publishing what’s on my mind.

I have another website, uppercervicaldocs.com, but that’s very focused on my upper cervical patient newsletter business, as well as podcasts devoted to all things upper cervical, so it never made sense to make that my personal hub as well… it’s really one of the spokes on the wheel of my online presence.

I thought Twitter might be the answer, but while I love Twitter, and Twitter is excellent for what it’s good for, the 140 character limit is too much of a limit to be an online hub.

I tried Facebook, and I love Facebook for staying in touch with my family and friends. I have published notes there, and it’s definitely a hub for much of my online activity, but it’s also very restricted… only my Facebook friends can see much of what I have there (and rightly so) and part of the fun of the web is discovering and being discoverable.

Tumblr. is great, and I love my Tumblr. blog, but Tumblr. is really good for anything you can’t do on Twitter. When I’ve written on my Tumblr. blog it never comes across as very readable… Tumblr. was made for quick successive posts pointing people to other things, and I intend on continuing to use it for that.

The answer to my hub on the web was under my nose all the time… just start a blog.

As I was setting up this WordPress install, I was filling out the tagline, and the following statement just popped into my head: “Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III, physician/scientist searching for a way to tap into the hidden strength that always eludes him” which is a play on the opening statement made by the narrator of the 1970’s TV show, The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferigno.

I typed that in, hit “save” and forgot about it.

The next day, I continued to style the blog and was deciding whether I wanted a header image or not, when I remembered my Hulk picture and quickly made a banner using that image, uploaded it, hit “save” and went to bed.

The next morning, as I was taking a shower, I started thinking about the Hulk and how the story of Dr. Banner and his alter-ego is the story of all of us. Banner is Adam, in the Garden, not quite satisfied with how God made him, and in order to tap in to something he’s convinced is being kept from him, eats the forbidden fruit and screws everything up royally, spending the rest of the story looking for a way to redeem himself and what he’s done.

This blog will be the hub of my creativity, published on the web. I want to podcast about things other than upper cervical chiropractic. I want to write about all kinds of topics and publish them in a manner that makes for good readability. I want to cover topics like faith, family, farming, health, marketing, writing, podcasting… things that I think about every day.

And running like a thread through everything that I and you and every human being creates (whether we realize it or not), is the thread that runs through the story of humanity: fall and redemption.

I didn’t plan this blog with the idea of identifying with a comic book hero, but each step of putting it together has providentially pointed to the story of the Hulk in one way or another. His story is the story of humanity, fall, destruction and the search for redemption.

So, I hope you enjoy reading, and listening and watching what gets produced here.

I welcome your feedback, comment below, or give me a call and let me know your thoughts on the Feedback Line: 417-551-9136.