BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #237

This issue of INCREDIBLE HULK was another comic book that my household owned two copies of growing up. As had happened in the past, for some reason my younger brother Ken bought himself a copy of this issue at some point after I’d gotten mine. This may have simply been an opportunistic purchase on his part, as while he’d read the series in the past, he wasn’t suddenly getting back into it. But it does mean that this cover sparks more memories than those of the issues surrounding it. Eventually, that second copy fell to me as well, as pretty much all of Ken’s comics did over time.

The series was in the middle of a three-part adventure picking up on plot threads from Jack Kirby’s recently-concluded MACHINE MAN series. I didn’t realize it at the time (though the Bullpen Bulletins page in this issue hinted at the fact), but MACHINE MAN as a title was poised to make a comeback. I can’t say whether writer Roger Stern got into this storyline with that outcome already in mind or whether it was a coincidence, a fluke, and Roger was simply trying to tie off some dangling Marvel business in the way writers routinely did in that period. But it worked out either way. I wouldn’t wind up seeing the first couple of issues of the revived MACHINE MAN title (any more than I had encountered any but one of the Jack Kirby run, as my 7-11 had stopped taking any new series during this period) so I didn’t make the connection until some time later.

Last issue concluded with the Hulk and Machine man caught up in the detonation of the small house in Central City, California where Machine Man and his friends had been taking refuge. But both combatants survived the blast, Machine Man having used his ability to “cancel the gravity equation”, whatever that meant, to ride out the shockwave and send them hurling off into the stratosphere. With the Hulk unconscious, Machine Man sees his opportunity to get to the bottom of the emerald behemoth’s attack on him, and uses his equipment to probe the Hulk’s mind. I can’t recall Machine Man being able to do this sort of thing either before this or after, but here it at least lets him give us a recap of the events of the past two issues, how the evil Corporation had set the Hulk against Machine Man by having one of their operatives abduct the Hulk’s friend Trish Starr while in the guise of Machine Man.

In doing so, Machine Man gets a better send of the Hulk’s experiences and find that the pair have much in common. He’s also able to locate Corporation leader Jackson and his captive Trish in the nearby area by means of telescopic vision. But Machine Man is still in mental contact with the Hulk when he does this, and the awakening man-brute picks up on Trish’s location. Desperate to save his friend, the Hulk bats machine Man away and starts leaping in a beeline towards Jackson’s position in the heart of downtown, the most populated area around. With no other alternative open to him, Machine Man radios his old adversary Colonel Simon Kragg and warns him about the Hulk’s impending approach.

Machine Man heads off in hot pursuit, but he’s constantly being delayed by the need to stop and help out ordinary people who have been put in harm’s way by the Hulk’s unreasoning rampage. At a certain point, Jackson becomes aware of the Hulk’s approach, and he grabs Trish and tries to escape via a waiting helicopter. But before they can reach it, the Hulk plummets out of the sky and reduces it to metal fragments. Jackson attempts to use Trish as a shield to coerce the Hulk into turning back, but his efforts are thwarted by Machine Man, who uses his telescoping limbs to reach out and crush Jackson’s weapon.

So Jackson is captured at last and the threat is over. Trish Starr is safe. But this doesn’t satisfy the Hulk, who has a colossal mad on that needs to be expressed. He wants revenge on Jackson, and he begins to act out in a tantrum that he hasn’t gotten to smash his foe. It’s all that Machine Man can do to levitate himself, Trish and Jackson off of the building as the Green Goliath vets his rage, causing the entire building to collapse in on itself. The text doesn’t explicitly indicate that the building is empty, but the question of casualties here is never brought up, so let’s assume that to be the case. In the aftermath, the Hulk crawls from the ruins, and Machine Man is able to use his Mesmer Effect to put the gamma-spawned monstrosity to sleep.

It’s at this point that Colonel Kragg and the military begin to show up. Still possessing empathy for the Hulk, Machine Man chooses to cancel the gravity equation for the sleeping jug, sending him hurtling away into the distant sky before Machine Man himself collapses due to all of the internal damage that he’s taken throughout the story. And that’s where the issue wraps up–with a plug for the new MACHINE MAN series due to begin the following month.