BHOC: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #83

MARVEL SUPER-HEROES continued to feature reprints of Incredible Hulk stories from only a relatively few years earlier, but the character was popular enough that the title kept going even throughout this period when most of the other Marvel reprint series began to wind down. The weekly Incredible Hulk television show on CBS undoubtedly contributed to the series’ longevity. I also found these reprints to be consistently entertaining, and they gave me an increased appreciation for the work of artist Herb Trimpe. In more recent years, his style had started to grow a bit more stiff and labored, but at the time these stories were produced, his pages had a bit more spark to them. Some of this was due to the powerful inking of industry legend John Severin. The duo was a good combination: Trimpe provided the storytelling and the page breakdowns and Severin contributed the finish.

This particular two-part story was built around a central premise that was obvious as soon as it had been done. But despite the fact that there’d be later stories that did the same thing, this was the first time it happened–so the situation had a freshness to it. To cut to the chase, at the close of the previous issue, Bruce Banner and the Hulk had been separated from one another, incarnated as two separate individuals. The Hulk, now free of the mitigating influence of Banner, still has a mad-on for his former alter ego, whom his limited intellect instinctively knows had kept him trapped for long stretches of time in a deep, dark place. On the other hand, without Banner being a part of the Hulk and potential collateral damage, the military could go all-out on destroying the rampaging monster. So that’s where writer Roy Thomas picked things up this time out.

This was also the story that introduced long-running supporting character Jim Wilson to the book. Jim was cast in the mold of his predecessor Rick Jones, a young teen whom the Hulk would befriend and who would serve as his buddy, confidant and helpmate. Jim’s treated a bit stereotypically here–when we first meet him, he’s stealing a purse because, living on his own on the street without any family, he doesn’t have any other way to survive. And when he comes across the Hulk, the pair bond over the fact that they’re both outsiders among regular society. Jim agrees to help the Hulk lure Banner to him so that the Hulk can destroy his hated enemy.

So Jim sneaks onto the army base, where he’s able to overhear Banner speaking with General Ross, and works out that he’s an all right guy. Banner, for his part, has come to the conclusion that he and the Hulk need to be reunited, that the only way of containing the angry beast is within his own form. Wilson tells Ross and banner about his encounter with the Hulk and agrees to help them trap him. But the question remains as to how. At that moment, warning claxons go off, and the issue’s special guest star arrives. This is Iron Man, who is featured on the cover so his appearance here isn’t actually a surprise. The armored Avenger has come to lend a hand after Ross’s request for reinforcements. Banner swiftly briefs Iron man on his plan, and the two men reckon that there’s a 50/50 chance that if Banner and the Hulk are recombined in a certain way, the Hulk will be permanently submerged within Banner’s psyche. So that’s at least the pretense under which putting the two characters back together is undertaken.

The military chooses to take advantage of the fact that the Hulk is a bit dim in setting up their trap–the Hulk is still in the center of the city, so any sort of prolonged confrontation is likely to result in stacks of civilian casualties. They send Jim Wilson back to lure the Hulk onto the street in front of the abandoned tenement in which the Green Goliath has been holed up. Meanwhile, Iron Man has brought in the Gamma-Tron device intended to recombine Banner and the Hulk disguised as an ordinary semi-trailer. The trap is sprung, but as soon as the Hulk realizes that he’s been betrayed, he grabs Jim Wilson intending on smashing him. With Jim in the line of fire, Iron Man and company can’t use the Gamma-Tron on him, so Iron Man is forced to leap to the attack in order to rescue Wilson.

It’s obvious that this is the point in which a page or two was cut out of the original story in order to fit it into the diminished page count that the Marvel books had at this moment. But either way, the Hulk and Iron Man mix it up a little bit, with Ross and his crew unable to get a clear shot with the Gamma-Tron while the two heroes are battling and Jim Wilson is still within the field of fire. The Hulk doesn’t have much of a problem running roughshod over his armor-clad opponent, and so as a bit of a desperation ploy, Iron Man unleashes with his repulsor rays, causing the entire tenement building to collapse upon the Hulk. Everybody’s fairly certain that the Hulk’s been killed by having an entire building dropped on him.

But this is the Hulk, after all, and so a moment later he comes bursting out of the rubble of the demolished building, ready for more. But this move had gotten everybody else in the clear, and so Ross opens fire with the Gamma-Tron, which staggers the emerald brute. At this moment, Bruce Banner comes racing up, and he and the Hulk begin to combine with one another. But as the issue closes out, it’s Banner who loses that 50/50 bet, as when the dust clears, he’s been totally subsumed into the unconscious Hulk, possibly never to re-emerge. To Be Continued!

This issue also was were I first got to see this next month’s new edition of the Bullpen Bulletins promotional page. In his Soapbox, Stan spends some time plugging the upcoming magazine ODYSSEY, which would eventually be rechristened EPIC ILLUSTRATED. Then he moves on to promising that in the future, Marvel would be producing its own television shows rather than licensing the rights to other people. This promise turned out to be about three decades premature, but we got there in the end. The page also promotes the first appearance of the new Giant-Man in an issue of MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE that I bought that same day, and will cover tomorrow.