BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #233

Another issue of INCREDIBLE HULK that I bought by rote when it showed up on the spinner rack at my local 7-11 one Thursday. I was enjoying the title well enough, but it was never a huge favorite of mine. The concept felt so limited to me, and I had a hard time relating to the simple-minded brute that was the central character. On the other hand, INCREDIBLE HULK was one of Marvel’s most popular titles throughout the 1970s, and that’s even before the television series increased interest in the character. The book was a satisfying impulse purchase, I expect, as the stories skewed towards being action and spectacle-oriented and not so involved that you didn’t feel like you got a full meal in every issue.

Probably the biggest positive going for the Green Goliath at the moment when this issue came out was his creative team. Roger Stern was proving himself adept at crafting stories that touched upon little-explored corners of the character’s mythology and he worked to install a regular supporting cast of characters around him, while also availing himself of the larger Marvel Universe for guest-stars. Similarly, Sal Buscema had fallen into a nice groove on the book, despite some rotating inkers who weren’t always the best fit to finish his breakdowns. This issue was inked by Chic Stone, who had been a contributor to Marvel since the early 1960s but whose thick-lined inking style and often open pages, devoid of many spotted blacks, could sometimes verge on looking like a coloring book.

This issue picks up on the closing events of the previous month’s crossover with CAPTAIN AMERICA, in which the Hulk pursued the fleeing West Coast head of the evil Corporation, Curtiss Jackson, into a deep shaft in the midst of his headquarters. For the first half of the issue. Jackson is on the run, with the Hulk tearing through everything in between himself and his prey, and despite the missiles and explosives that Jackson launches at him as he runs. Elsewhere, we’re also reintroduced to the last remaining Super Agent of SHIELD, the man currently called Marvel Man. Which was always a bit of a dopey name. Later on, he’d take on the sobriquet Quasar instead. Anyway, Marvel Man uses his star-bands to give chase to both the Hulk and Jackson.

Jackson manages to stay one step ahead of the Hulk, but the green brute is growing closer all the time. Needing to put some cannon fodder in between himself and his pursuer, he heads for another concealed Corporation base nearby, and instructs the guards to prepare for battle while he withdraws. Seconds later, the Hulk comes barreling through the ceiling of the place ready for a fight. As I said at the outset, plot wasn’t really the appeal of this series, action was, and so far the forward momentum has been unrelenting if perhaps a bit thin on motivation and character.

So the Hulk spends a few pages fulfilling the issue’s action-quotient by smashing his way through the assembled Corporation goons. But by this point, Curtiss Jackson is in the wind and the Hulk doesn’t know how to locate him. The beast’s attention is attracted by a nearby truck that is honking its horn at him. This turns out to be the truck owned by the Hulk’s pal Fred Sloan, and Sloan has been left tied up inside it. The Hulk frees his buddy, just in time for Marvel Man to arrive and insist that he return with him to SHIELD where they can debrief him. The Hulk isn’t really about debriefing, and when Marvel Man tries to press his point, the Hulk slaps him halfway across the city. Stern sets up for the upcoming name-change to Marvel Man by having a kid laugh when he tells him his code-name.

The next bit of the issue is setting up subplots for the future as the Hulk and Fred Sloan take off on the road in Fred’s truck once again. Back at Gamma Base, Doc Samson and company are shocked to learn that Senator Stivak was really the Corporation chief Kligger and Karla Sofen was in actuality Moonstone. But this news isn’t enough to get the remaining Senator, Hawk, from thoroughly completing his investigation of Gamma Base, Elsewhere, Betty Ross and her husband Glenn Talbot reconcile after a couple of years apart. Having married Betty and Glenn previously, nobody seemed to quite know what to do with either of them, and they’d bounce into and out of the narrative for several years until Talbot was eventually killed off.

And the issue ends on a somewhat weird note, one that requires a bit of previous knowledge about Marvel history to really land. Fred has driven the Hulk to the home of a friend of his, figuring that they can bed down there and figure out their next move. But this friend is already known to the Hulk–it’s Trish Starr, who had appeared in a number of DEFENDERS stories and who was now transplanted to this series as another regular supporting player. It’s a very quiet wrap-up to a relatively underwhelming issue, but that was the way of things sometimes.

The GREEN SKIN’S GRAB-BAG letters page this time out includes correspondence from Peter Sanderson, who would work for both Marvel and DC at different times as a historian and proofreader. And it also carried this year’s Statement of Ownership, which gives us the opportunity to ascertain just how well INCREDIBLE HULK was performing. According to the numbers, the book was selling 188,567 copies on a print run of 364,819, giving it an efficiency rating of just short of 52%, a high number for this period and a reflection of the impact that the television series was having on the title’s sales.