BHOC: INCREDIBLE HULK #238

This issue of INCREDIBLE HULK was another book where my household wound up with two copies. Once again, my younger brother Ken had picked up his own copy of this particular issue for some reason. He’d always been a big fan of the Hulk television series (and monster movies of all sorts) so it wasn’t surprising that he’d gravitate towards the Hulk. And I’m sure this may simply have been a purchase of opportunity, as he didn’t buy or read any other issue around it. Could be just that this fun Bob Layton cover called to him in some fashion.

This issue was another in the long string of stories illustrated by Sal Buscema. Sal has said that INCREDIBLE HULK was his favorite assignment, so it’s no surprise that he remained on the title for years and years. This particular issue was inked by Jack Abel, a very nice man who later on life worked as a proofreader in the Marvel offices. I can’t say that I was really a fan of his line, though, which struck me as a bit lifeless and dead. His characters often seemed to be staring oblivious off into the distance, and there was something messy about the feel of his hatching. I also didn’t love that he tended to do the Hulk’s hair as a single black mass with only a slight bit of highlighting. This issue looks perfectly fine, but it’s far from the best Sal has ever looked.

This is another in-between issue of the series in what was becoming a string of in-between issues. In it, writer Roger Stern begins to move to wrap up another dangling plotline from Marvel history, that being the question of who They-Who-Wield-The-Power (most often referred to simply as They) might actually be. They had been introduced in the pages of MARVEL TEAM-UP as the behind-the-scenes manipulators of a number of one-off adventures in an attempt to craft some larger ongoing plotline into the series. But creator Len Wein left Marvel for DC, and thereafter they’d faded into the background with no revelations forthcoming. So Roger saw an opportunity for a story and took it.

This issue opens with sitting President Jimmy Carter surveying the carnage left across Central City in the wake of the Hulk’s battle with the Corporation in the preceding issue. Senator Hawk uses this as an opportunity to restructure the activities of Gamma Base, the military outpost assigned the duty of hunting down and containing the Hulk. Meanwhile, our star is making his way across the country aimlessly on foot. He comes across and freaks out a truck driver and his young daughter, leading to the cover-depicted scene and the father attempting to ram the Hulk with his truck in order to protect his daughter. This goes about as well as you might expect, but the little girl begs the Hulk not to hurt her daddy, and the Green Goliath could never refuse a crying child, so he once again leaps off into the distance.

As he’s secretly observed by They, which serves as a broad introduction to what little we know about this shadowy cabal, the Hulk alights on a nearby mountaintop and, exhausted, decides to bed down for a nap. Unfortunately, the place he’s decided to sleep is directly atop Mount Rushmore, and when his presence is detected it sets off alarms in the corridors of power, fearful that the man-brute may inadvertently destroy the national monument. Back at Gamma Base, Senator Hawk discovers that Doc Samson has tendered his resignation. He’s taking the incapacitated Thunderbolt Ross off-site as well, to where he can be nursed back to health. Additionally, recurring supporting player Kropotkin the Great senses that changes are coming for Gamma Base and that’d he’d best make his exit as well. It’s all a bit of house-cleaning to set up for the next movement in the series.

From here, our focus shifts to an unassuming repair shop in Brooklyn which is visited by a man in a concealing trench coat and fedora. This shop, though, is really the secret headquarters of the Tinkerer, who supplies weapons and gear to super villains and the underworld for a generous fee. The Tinkerer tells his visitor that he’s got everything ready and shows the man the new bug-ship he’s crafted to specifications. At this point, the man pays the Tinkerer in solid gold bars and reveals himself to be Goldbug, a recurring villain mainly seen in LUKE CAGE, POWER MAN up to this point. He’s been retained by They to engage the Hulk, whom he intends to capture and use as a power source for his new vehicle. But that’ll be next month’s problem.

And as the issue wraps up, the scene shifts to the divorce law offices of Dr. Sanchez, who is completing the paperwork finalizing the divorce between Betty Ross Talbot and her husband, Major Glenn Talbot. Upon seeing that her father has suffered a mental breakdown in the newspaper, Betty races off to go help him, leaving Glenn to wrap up his business and stew in the regrets of his life; chief among them that Betty never loved him the way she did the Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner. And that’s the note this issue wraps up on, the bubbling hatred of Glenn Talbot that will soon carry him into conflict with the Green Goliath once again. This is far from the most memorable issues of the series, comprised almost entirely of subplot sequences and without a strong central story narrative. And while the Hulk does destroy a truck and leap around a bit, he really doesn’t do a whole lot that’s noteworthy in it. Heck, it’s so slow that the main character falls asleep 2/3 through the issue and never awakens. So it wasn’t a bad issue per se, but neither was it especially exciting. But next time: the secret of They!