Historians Find Another Spy in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project - The New York Times

[Mark Thibodeau]

Pynchonian is right!

GODSEND sounds like he (or she) could be the boss of underlings named SHOCK
and SHROUD (code-names only, not that GODSEND would be the boss of crash
test dummies). Make a great set of enemies for a superhero comic book
story, I'll tell you what!

And a great, literary inside joke to boot!

Speaking of which, if anybody is interested in wasting their time in a
particularly entertaining way, try picking up the last three issues of The
Immortal Hulk (#23-#24-#25) for a bit of grand old fun. And each issue is
so different from the others!

#23 is a double-sized issue, and a cosmic leap forward to the End of All
Things, where we see the (beautifully alien) last conscious beings in the
universe witnessing the snuffing out of the last civilization/planet/star
in all existence. The last conscious being then breaks every rule and taboo
of his hyper-advanced culture in order to somehow send a message back in
time... and then we see the recipient of said message (probably the only
person in the Marvel universe with the brains to comprehend such an
advanced message... which itself is a hint as to his identity, the
unveiling of whom sent THIS lifelong Hulk fan into paroxysms of nerdish
delight).

#24 features Banner/Hulk going all Greta T, deciding that there's nothing
that the human race is going to be WILLING to do to save themselves or the
planet from their depredations, so he's going to use the Hulk to set things
to right. Prince Namor shows up as a short order cook and listens as Banner
explains his plan to Amadeus Cho, supergenius who took over the position of
Hulk from Banner for a while (starting just before the latter's death and
subsequent resurrection), and who now is just a green-hued, super-strong
handsome Korean dude who retains all his intelligence and remains a friend
to his former mentor (Banner), despite their political differences and
Cho's doubts about Banner's plans.

#25 is a knock-down, drag-out, issue-long brawl featuring an angry,
righteous Banner/Hulk laying a serious beat-down on a team of legitimately
scary minions to the leader of the multinational corporation ROXXON
(Marvel's evil stand in for both Exxon AND Facebook/Google), who himself
just happens to be a frigging MINOTAUR!

Oh, man... so much fun!

Also, the recently completed SILVER SURFER BLACK miniseries (5 issues long)
was fantastic, particularly if you've ever enjoyed Marvel's "cosmic"
characters. A collected edition is surely soon to come.

Jerky the Comics Guy

On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 7:04 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> His code name was pure Pynchon: GODSEND.
>
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/science/manhattan-project-atomic-spy.html
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>