Before the Law: Limits, Malice and The Immortal Hulk

• Main Author: Neal Curtis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Queensland University of Technology 2020-11-01
• Series: Law, Technology and Humans
• Subjects: law; sovereignty; comics; superheroes; the hulk
• Online Access: https://lthj.qut.edu.au/article/view/1581

This article uses Kafka's short story 'Before the Law' to offer a reading of Al Ewing's The Immortal Hulk. This is in turn used to explore our desire to encounter the Law understood as a form of completeness. The article differentiates between 'the Law' as completeness or limitlessness and 'the law' understood as limitation. The article also examines this desire to experience completeness or limitlessness in the work of George Bataille who argued such an experience was the path to sovereignty. In response it also considers Francois Flahault's critique of Bataille who argued Bataille failed to understand limitlessness is split between a 'good infinite' and a 'bad infinite', and that it is only the latter that can ultimately satisfy us. The article then proposes The Hulk, especially as presented in Al Ewing's The Immortal Hulk, is a study in where our desire for limitlessness can take us. Ultimately it proposes we turn ourselves away from the Law and towards the law that preserves and protects our incompleteness.