Incredible Hulk #150. Havok and Polaris

(Cover from April 1972.)

“Cry Hulk, Cry Havok!”

Written by Archie Goodwin.
Art by Herb Trimpe and John Severin.
Lettering by Sam Rosen.

Sometimes a comic can be defined by just one panel, and Incredible Hulk #150’s just such a case as the Hulk lifts an entire cliff face while the helpless Lorna Dane kneels atop it. It’s a glorious image by Trimpe and Severin, the kind that might linger in the memory long after the rest of a comic’s forgotten. Fortunately, the rest of the issue’s not in the mood to be overshadowed and gives us an atypical but memorable tale.

Fleeing Thunderbolt Ross’s Project Greenskin, the Hulk finds himself in the desert where he encounters a green-haired woman he thinks is Jarella. In fact it’s Lorna Dane otherwise known as Polaris of X-Men near-fame but that doesn’t stop him doing the King Kong thing and abducting her, prompting sometime boyfriend Alex (Havok) Summers to take him on.

It may say The Incredible Hulk on the cover but this story’s well and truly about Lorna Dane and Alex Summers and how Summers comes to find himself. We’ve seen the Hulk as a supporting character in his own mag and now we’re seeing another use for him, as a catalyst in the life of others. I’m not sure if he’s played this role before - I can’t think of an occasion when he has - but, given his intellectual limitations and his force-of-nature disposition, it’s a role that suits him and the comic well.

Meanwhile, Betty Ross finds out something that definitely doesn’t suit her well as she finally finds out about Jarella. With this, and Thunderbolt Ross summoned to Washington, it seems Alex Summers isn’t the only one about to have a turning point.