BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #231

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, INCREDIBLE HULK went through a consistent pattern with me: it would start with some storyline that I was interested in, then segue into a bunch of issues that left me cold, to the point where I’d be on the verge of dropping it, then a story would come along that I liked and that would renew my interest for a time. And so on and so on. This issue was one of those lull points, a story that was just there and made little impact on me. That said, we had two copies of this issue in our household for awhile as my younger brother Ken was also driven to pick up his own copy at a certain point. Ken maintained an interest in the character for some time, driven in part by the weekly television series.

It has to be said that already by this point, artist Sal Buscema had proven himself a worthy successor to longtime HULK artist Herb Trimpe, and Sal’s version of the Green Goliath would become the default version for a decade, the one that everybody else looked towards when trying to capture the character. Sal has said at times that drawing HULK was his happiest assignment because he related to the big childlike lug, and that sympathy certainly comes through in his work. As does the Hulk’s awesome strength and power, which Sal was never shy about showcasing in the most over-the-top fashion imaginable. He often was saddled with not-great inkers/finishers, such as Mike Esposito here, but Sal’s drawing was so fundamentally solid that it largely didn’t matter all that much. And he told the story powerfully and directly.

This issue introduces Fred Sloane, one of a couple of new supporting characters that writer Roger Stern would begin to pepper the series with. The issue opens with the Hulk coming upon a barroom brawl at two in the morning in a random town. Sloane is knocked into the street by his attacker, a man wearing a soldier’s uniform who doesn’t like Fred’s long hair and hippie attitude. Unfortunately for this guy, the Hulk knows all too well what it means to be attacked by soldiers and he comes to Sloane’s aid, knocking the guy bodily back into the building and almost certainly into traction. Indebted to his new emerald-skinned friend, Sloane offers the Hulk a place to crash at his home.

Meanwhile, back at Gamma Base, following commanding officer Thunderbolt Ross’s recent mental breakdown, the installation is visited by Senator Eugene K. Stivak, who is secretly a high-ranking executive in the criminal combine called the Corporation. He and his associate Senator Hawk question interim commander Doc Samson about the whereabouts of the Hulk–and Stivak gives still visiting psychiatrist Dr. Karla Sofen a corporation codeword that illustrates that he knows that she’s secretly the criminal Moonstone. This is largely all set-up for next month’s crossover with CAPTAIN AMERICA which will bring the long-boiling Corporation subplot to a momentary conclusion. But it doesn’t really feel like much apart from wheel-spinning here.

This is followed up by a delightfully daffy comedy scene in which the Hulk wakes up the next morning and utterly terrifies Fred Sloane’s lady friend who is making breakfast. Despite Fred’s assurances that the Hulk is a friend and isn’t any danger to them, his girlfriend Ilsa takes off, and Sloane is worried that she’s going to call the cops or the army to come apprehend the Hulk. So consequently, Fred and the Hulk go take to the road in Fred’s VW van. Hearing that the Hulk is eluding police in California, Senator Stivak suggests that he, Karla Sofen and Jim Wilson, the Hulk’s young friend, fly to Cali to witness events firsthand, in the hopes that Jim can calm his great green buddy down and bring him to heel. In actuality, this is all a stratagem to allow the Corporation to get their hands on Jim.

Meanwhile, in California, Fred’s van is coming up to a police checkpoint, and his bright idea to get past it is to outfit the Hulk in a poncho and slouch hat so that nobody will notice who he is. This goes about as well as you’d expect it to given the Hulk’s size and green skin. So it turns into a brawl between the Hulk and a bunch of thoroughly outclassed cops. No doubt this sequence is here in an attempt to reach some imagined action quota for the issue, but much like the barroom scene earlier, it’s such a mismatch that there isn’t really any excitement or tension to be drawn from it. It’s all drawn nicely, but that’s really about it. Still, if nothing else, this issue of the Hulk plays more like an episode of the television series than anything else, so perhaps that was the intent here.

And the issue winds up with the Hulk and Fred back on the road again and a 1/3 page ad for the upcoming crossover with CAPTAIN AMERICA. So there really wasn’t much to this one, a few amusing moments, some meaningless action and carnage, and the introduction of a new character who didn’t make all that much of an impression. This was the sort of hole that INCREDIBLE HULK would regularly sink itself with me–I didn’t feel like I was getting my money’s worth. And yet, I never quite got to the point where I stopped following the book. This was I’m sure as much due to the fact that doing so wasn’t straining my budget particularly.

The Green-Skin’s Grab Bag letters page for this issue features comments from future Marvel author Kurt Busiek.