Incredible Hulk #157. The Leader becomes the Rhino

(Cover from November 1972.)

"Name My Vengeance Rhino!"

Written by Archie Goodwin.
Drawn by Herb Trimpe.
Inked by Sal Trapani.
Lettering by Jean Izzo.

Bad tempered? You'd be bad tempered if you were the Rhino. It seems like every time we're reintroduced to the horny henchman he's in a coma. Not only that but he's only ever roused from those comas by people who want to use him for their own evil ends.

This time, the Leader wants to revive him, so that, like Satan himself, he can take possession of his body. The cranially capacious villain managed to paralyse himself the last time he took on the Hulk and so, to get round the slight problem of not being able to move, he wants to take over the Rhino's body in order to claim revenge on the Hulk. When the Leader/Rhino finds the Hulk, he promptly discovers Betty Ross is to marry Glenn Talbot, promptly changes tack and promptly sets off to bushwhack the wedding and kill Betty.

It's a bit of a make-weight tale, with the Leader not really even having an initial plan other than finding the Hulk and hitting him a few times, and the combination of the Leader, the Rhino, the Hulk, and Betty Ross's nuptials has already been done in The Incredible Hulk # 124, meaning there's a certain feeling of redundancy about it all. Still, at least we get the return of Jim Wilson and we get the Leader's cyber-lackey Omnivac warning him his plans have become muddled and over-complex. A Leader plan becoming overly-complex? Surely not.

It has to be said Betty Ross is a fickle one. All those years while he was the Hulk, she was hankering after Bruce Banner but the moment he lost his Hulk powers she started dating Doc Samson. Almost as soon as Doc Samson lost his super-powers, she started dating Glenn Talbot. It's just a good job Talbot has no powers to lose or you'd fear for him too. We do however know that, deep down, no matter what she says, Betty loves Bruce Banner most of all.

Of course she does. For one thing, this is a comic and, "Bruce and Betty," alliterates. But more than even that, the great god of human drama demands she does.