Incredible Hulk #158. Counter-Earth

(Cover from December 1972.)

"Frenzy On A Far-Away World!"

Plot by Roy Thomas.

Script by Steve Gerber.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Sal Trapani.

Lettering by John Costanza.

Has there ever been a second part to a tale that had less in common with its first than this? Last issue, the Leader had possession of the Rhino's body and was off to kill Betty Ross at her wedding. This issue, the Leader's no longer in charge of the Rhino - and forget the nuptials because we're all off on a trip to Counter-Earth.

I suspect this sudden lurch in a whole new direction may have something to do with the fact this has different writers from last issue. Either way, it's only moments after arriving on Counter-Earth that the Hulk and Rhino are caught up in the battle between the High Evolutionary's good and the evil Beast-Men, each of them siding with a different faction.

The change in direction's for the better because this feels a lot more like a Hulk tale should. It could be argued it's a tale that ultimately resolves nothing. We never get to see anything but a snippet of the war between the Beast-Men, and, at the tale's end, the Hulk and the Rhino are on their way back to Earth, with the Beast-Men's dispute as undecided as it was at the start.

It really doesn't matter. The true focus of the tale is the Hulk's brief encounter with the Counter-Earth version of Bruce Banner - Banner as he would've been had he not become the Hulk, happily married, with a son. The meeting changes the Hulk's mind about Banner, the brute deciding he can't hate a man who's a good father.

This isn't coincidence of course. Even as we're seeing the man Banner would've been if not for that Gamma blast, back on the real Earth, the woman he would've married is tying the knot with Glenn Talbot. The contrast in fates is a much more interesting way to handle the situation than to do what was threatened last issue and just have the Hulk and the Rhino/Leader violently gatecrash a wedding.

How the Hulk and Rhino get away from Counter-Earth is another matter too. Who exactly's piloting the ship they're on? It's not the Rhino. He's out cold. It's not the Hulk, unless he's suddenly a qualified space pilot. And it's presumably not the Leader as, for reasons that aren't altogether clear, he wants to keep the Hulk and the Rhino on Counter-Earth.

There's also the question of how the Hulk's going to take it when he gets back to Earth and finds out about the wedding.

I may be a pessimist but, knowing his calm and reasonable nature, I get the feeling it might not be well.

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.

Incredible Hulk #156. The Smart Hulk vs the Stupid Hulk

(Cover from October 1972.)

“Holocaust At The Heart Of The Atom!”

Written by Archie Goodwin.
Art by Herb Trimpe and Sal Tapani.
Lettering by Artie Simek.

So John Severin vacates the inker's seat, and Sal Trapani moves in. It's a fair old contrast to go from Severin's softer style to Trapani's determinedly angular one. The odd thing is that, despite their differences, both approaches seem to suit Trimpe equally well. Severin's style lending Trimpe's work a subtlety, detail and depth it might otherwise lack, Trapani's giving it a greater boldness and definition.

Back on Jarella’s world, the Hulk - once more with Bruce Banner’s brain - finds her kingdom in ruins, with Jarella captured by the evil Lord Visis. Being the Hulk, he quickly rescues her and then agrees to face Visis’ champion to decide the victor in their war.

But the devious warlord has a trick up his sleeve and a machine in his armoury and uses it to make Banner face his worst fear, a version of the Hulk out of all control.

It’s a perfectly pleasant and readable tale but there’re really no new elements introduced from those seen in previous Jarella tales, plus, as I’ve said before, not being a sword and sorcery fan, I don’t find Jarella’s world and its politics all that interesting. That problem’s not helped by the fact that yet again the bad guy’s the somewhat run-of-the-mill Lord Visis who we’d all have forgotten about long ago were he not in the habit of reappearing every time Jarella does.

Still it’s appropriate that the one thing that can defeat an intelligent Hulk is a stupid Hulk. With other Marvel heroes, it’s their intelligence as much as their powers that make them unbeatable. With the Hulk, not for the first time, we’re left in no doubt it’s his total lack of intelligence that does it.

Inevitably, the Hulk survives his encounter with his stupid self but is once more snatched by cruel fate from the arms of his would-be queen. Poor old Hulkie, will he never find happiness? I don’t like to be negative but I think we all know the answer to that one.

Incredible Hulk #155. Captain Axis and the Shaper of Worlds

(Cover from September 1972.)

“Destination Nightmare!”

Written by Archie Goodwin.
Art by Herb Trimpe and John Severin.

Eye-patch wearing chanteuse Gabrielle once told us that dreams can come true. Well, Otto Kronsteig doesn’t wear an eye-patch - although he could do with one - but I’ve no doubt he’d agree with her sentiments, as the still-shrinking Bruce Banner lands on a world where the would-be Hitler’s re-staging World War Two. This time, Germany’s winning and in the process of invading the United States.

To achieve this, Kronsteig’s relying on the Shaper, a giant alien who looks like a cross between a skrull and a Meccano set. As well as being too full of himself, the Shaper has the power to make men's dreams a reality but has no dreams of his own.

Writer Archie Goodwin’s clearly been reading his back issues of The Fantastic Four because last month we had a reference to the time when Dr Doom shrank the FF to the size of atoms and now he gives us a villain, in Kronsteig, who helped Doom develop that technology, before it was used against him by the Latverian despot.

Inevitably the Hulk soon puts a stop to such shenanigans, by being stronger than Kronsteig could possibly dream and, when the Hulk refuses to live in a Shaper-created fantasy of being reunited with Jarella, the Shaper has no choice but to send him to the world of the real Jarella.

It’s another classic tale as we see a world ruined by one man’s megalomania and a bored alien’s desire to be entertained. The sight of Bruce Banner being strafed by a German plane in the streets of a bomb-ravaged New York’s especially memorable, as is a dead German pilot reverting to his real, inhuman, form, and there’s some great art by Trimpe and Severin throughout, not least a closing page in which the Shaper, finally bored with the world he’s wrecked, gives it and its “people” his farewell address before setting off in search of a dream of his own.

Incredible Hulk #154. Ant-Man and Hydra

(Cover from August 1972.)

“Hell Is A Very Small Hulk!”

Written by Archie Goodwin.
Pencils by Herb Trimpe.
Inks by John Severin.
Lettering by Artie Simek.

I’ve always felt the loopier The Incredible Hulk gets, the better it gets.

And it doesn’t come much loopier than this, as the Hulk’s shrunk to the size of a Barbie doll and still gets to whup Hydra’s ass.

Out to be reunited with Jarella, he breaks into the lab of Henry Pym - otherwise known as Ant-Man - and drinks the experimental formula Ant-Man first used in Fantastic Four #16, the one that can shrink its user down to sub-atomic level.

Sadly, being somewhat unstable, it only shrinks the Hulk to doll size, whereupon he’s captured by the Chameleon who hands him over to his Hydra pay-masters who want to unleash a deadly plague on the world.

Happily, even then the Hulk’s too much for the ever-hapless Hydra to handle but, transformed back to Bruce Banner at the tale’s end, what can save him from death at the heel of the Chameleon?

Frankly I’d despair of anyone who didn’t love this, as the Hulk teams up with the world’s least impressive super-hero, to fight the world’s least impressive super-villain, and Hydra demonstrate that, no matter how much the odds might favour them, they still can’t get it right.

At heart it’s just fun to see the mini-Hulk still ripping things to pieces, albeit on a smaller scale, and you have to love his epic fight with a bunch of rodents which ends on a conveyor belt of doom. “No!” He declares, “Hulk will not be cheese for giant rats--!” It’s plain irresistible -- even if it does throw up a question that’s obvious but was never addressed at the time.

Just how, in issue #148, did they get Jarella back to her own world? Looking back at it, she’s there, on the planet Earth, in the penultimate panel of that tale but then, in the last panel, they tell us she’s been returned. This issue reveals that Bruce Banner asked Ant-Man if his know-how could do the job but it’s clear the answer was no. So, this revelation in mind, just how was it done?

Incredible Hulk #153. The trial of the Hulk

(Cover from July 1972.)

“The World My Jury!”

Written by Gary Friedrich.
Pencils by Dick Ayers and Herb Trimpe.
Inks by John Severin.
Lettering by Jean Izzo.

Here’s a tale so memorable it inspired a TV movie.

Happily, this is a whole lot better than that was. And we don’t even have to endure the sight of Daredevil in a costume that genuinely looked like it’d been made by a blind man.

Instead we get to see more heroes than we thought could be crammed into one comic, and the trial of the century, as the strip that refuses to settle on a genre becomes a courtroom drama.

Captured, at the airport, by the Fantastic Four, the Hulk’s on trial and, unless his attorney Matt Murdock can come up with the goods, he's facing the death penalty.

But it’s an odd sort of trial, as the prosecution offers neither evidence nor witnesses against the accused, while it never occurs to Murdock to ask psychiatrists to judge whether the Hulk’s even mentally fit to stand trial. Happily, in the end, none of that matters as, whipping up another of his impossible devices, Mr Fantastic engineers the monster’s escape.

You can’t get round it, Reed Richards’ behaviour in freeing the Hulk can’t be seen as anything but what it is, irresponsible. We may all be glad to see the star of the comic we’re reading dodge the death penalty but you can’t ignore the fact he’s caused innocent deaths in the past and will no doubt do so again.

It’s also a shame to see so little of Spider-Man at the airport. A couple of panels and he’s gone. Somehow it’s hard to imagine the infamously egotistical web head so easily agreeing to butt out of a fight - especially as, at that point, the Fantastic Four aren’t exactly setting the world alight. There is though an odd pleasure in seeing Daredevil get bashed against the tailpiece of a plane by the Hulk. Although you do wonder how he’s still alive after that. And of course we get to see yet another Hulk/Thing scrap.

But, despite the early action, the tale’s focus is on the trial and, with its grumpy judge, endless objections from the prosecution, and overall feel of a kangaroo court, it does what a legal drama should do which is make you sympathise with the accused and hate everyone else.

So, all in all, we get all we could ask of a Hulk tale. It’s good to see the strip still happy to veer away from our expectations of what a Hulk story’s like by having a tale dominated by people stood in a room talking - even though the whole way the court functions makes no sense in terms of how a real court'd do things.

That judge really does need to learn to relax a bit though.

Incredible Hulk #152. The Fantastic Four and Matt Murdock

(Cover from June 1972.)

“But Who Will Judge The Hulk?”

Written by Gary Friedrich.
Art by Dick Ayers/Herb Trimpe.
Inks by Frank Giacoia.
Lettering by Artie Simek.

Had an accident that wasn’t your fault? You need a lawyer. Caused a whole bucketful of accidents that were your fault? You need a great lawyer.

Sadly, in the world of Marvel Comics, there aren’t any great lawyers. There’s just Matt Murdock, a man who thinks it’s a good idea to give Bruce Banner a stimulant to liven him up a bit.

Yes, the Hulk’s been captured again and this time President Nixon - making yet another appearance in the strip - has ordered he be put on trial for his crimes. Thus Bruce Banner finds himself on a plane, headed for court, and Matt Murdock finds himself on board as his appointed legal representative.

It’s hard to know who’s stupider in this tale, Matt Murdock for ordering his client be given a gee-up, on a plane, thus inevitably turning him into the Hulk, or Thunderbolt Ross for instantly wrecking the truce Murdock sets up with the monster, thus sending the Hulk back on the rampage again.

Then again, there're other odd things afoot throughout the tale. Leaving aside the fact the issue has a different, writer, inker and penciller from normal, we get a guest appearance from both Captain America and Nick Fury, neither of whom do anything at all in the story before declaring their work is done and clearing off.

Fortunately, the Fantastic Four, who also guest in the tale, at least know what they’re there for, to fall out with each other and then arrive just in time for the story’s climax when the Hulk smashes out of the plane, delivers a line of dialogue he’d never deliver and sets himself up for a scrap with them.

Dick Ayers' and Frank Giacoia’s take on the strip stands out like a sore thumb, after Trimpe & Severin; less moody, more conventional and less sophisticated. But, although somewhat uninspired in its layouts, it does its job efficiently - and Herb Trimpe clearly had a fairly strong hand in page twelve at least. So, if we're not happy about the absence of our usual team, unlike the president we won't be calling in the lawyers just yet.

Incredible Hulk #151. It's all gone Quatermass

(Cover from May 1972.)

"When Monsters Meet!"

Written by Archie Goodwin.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe and John Severin.

Lettering by Artie Simek.

One of the things that strikes you when you read issue after issue of The Incredible Hulk is just how amorphous the strip is. One issue it's science fiction, the next it's fantasy, the next it's super-heroics. One month the Hulk's a hero, then he's a villain, next he's a catalyst and then he's just plain irrelevant.

To some degree this is true of all super-hero strips as - faced with deadlines - writers and artists filch from any source they can find but, perhaps because the Hulk as a character concept originally drew on strands from the worlds of Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Fable, Fairy Tale and Super-Heroics, this approach seems to fit him better than any other. And, given this amorphous nature, it's perhaps appropriate that one of his strongest and most memorable tales features a truly amorphous foe, because it's time for The Incredible Hulk, the Horror Movie.

Exactly which horror movie's pretty obvious. It's The Quatermass Xperiment, the one based on the BBC Nigel Kneale TV shows of the 1950s. In that, an astronaut, upon returning to Earth, finds himself transforming into a shapeless mass, along the way losing all vestige of humanity. In The Incredible Hulk #151, it's the turn of congressman Morton Clegstead to do the same after trying to cure his illness by injecting himself with some of the Hulk's blood.

This really is a special tale, mostly for the mood Trimpe and Severin create as the events unfold in a Washington that can never have been so rain-swept. In panel after panel, rain pounds at characters and buildings alike, as though trying to wash them and the nightmare events of the night away, and the Hulk finds himself facing a foe that even he's completely out of his depth against.

Something that leaps out at you for a story of this era is the nature of Clegstead's illness. For once in a comic book, he doesn't have some vague unspecified malady that's never existed outside the pages of four-color land. You're told straight up he has cancer. I don't think I've seen a Marvel comic from this era or before that even acknowledges the existence of cancer let alone makes it a central feature, as the Congressman literally becomes a malevolent mass of Gamma powered cancer cells with the ability to eat away at the flesh of even the normally indestructible Hulk. The taboos and fears that still surround the disease all these years later make the bluntness of all this genuinely unsettling, as we're forced to face up to something that doesn't sit at all comfortably in the normally escapist realms of a comic book. The Hulk's vulnerability too is unsettling. I'm also fairly certain this is the first time we've ever seen him bleed.

The resolution's something of a cop-out, as the wounded Hulk rams a flagpole into the thing in a last ditch attempt to save himself and, at that moment, lightning just happens to strike the pole and destroy the creature Clegstead's become. That aside it's a great tale. I'd say that, thanks to its literally creeping horror, blunt intrusion of real-life illness into a comic strip, and the genuine helplessness of the Hulk, one of the best that Trimpe ever worked on.

It's also good to see Thunderbolt Ross getting more or less centre stage in this story as he goes to Washington to defend his activities at Project Greenskin and we get to see his willingness to sacrifice his career to save the project and also his motives for doing so. I hate to admit it but I'm starting to grow quite fond of the old warhorse. Whoever would've thought we'd be saying that one day?

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.

Incredible Hulk #149. The Inheritor

(Cover from March 1972.)

“…And Who Shall Claim This Earth His Own? The Inheritor!”

Written by Archie Goodwin.
Drawn by Herb Trimpe.
Inked by John Severin.
Lettering by Sam Rosen.

I complained that the events of last issue didn’t advance the overall story of the Hulk in any way, shape or form and could be excised from the strip’s history without anyone noticing.

Well, the same’s true of this one.

The big difference is, while last issue was a fairly low key tale that by rights should therefore have explored and developed the characters, this outing's just an excuse for a slug fest between two monsters and therefore, as such, doesn’t actually need to advance anything.

Somewhere in the woods, a space ship crashes. A strange and huge creature emerges. It calls itself the Inheritor.

And it’s out to conquer the world.

It turns out the Inheritor’s one of the High Evolutionary’s beast men, exiled years ago by its creator but now returned to Earth. To avoid regressing to whatever its original form was, it needs radiation - and Thunderbolt Ross’s Project Greenskin base just happens to be the nearest source of that. It’s also where Bruce Banner’s working on a cure for himself. I doubt it’d take a psychic octopus to tell you that, confronted by such a menace, Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk and we get a punch-up in which tanks are crushed and concrete and steel are treated like tissue paper.

I love this tale. After a couple of issues that’ve been somewhat flawed, it’s great to see the strip get back on track with a return to its very basics. At heart it’s just the set-up to a fight, followed by a fight. In terms of plotting, you’re going to struggle to get less sophisticated than that but, after the somewhat unfocused offering last month and the overly rushed one the month before, the return to roots is welcome. Plus, it’s The Incredible Hulk and the sight of two monsters hitting each other rarely goes down badly in such a setting.

I also have to say that, being a bit on the dim side, I didn’t guess just what kind of creature the Inheritor was until the big reveal in the final panel. It’s a neat ending and nicely handled by Trimpe and Goodwin, using just one little symbol to do a job that would've been corny if done through dialogue.

Incredible Hulk #148. Jarella’s back

(Cover from February 1972.)

“But Tomorrow-- The Sun Shall Die!”

Written by Archie Goodwin.
Plot assist by Chris Claremont.
Drawn by Herb Trimpe.
Inked by John Severin.
Lettering by Artie Simek.

Far be it from me to suggest someone do the obvious and send Bruce Banner to anger management classes but it’d be a whole lot cheaper and, you suspect, more successful than all the high-tech attempts to cure him put together. Just about everyone else in the Marvelverse has had a go and this time it’s down to space boffin Peter Corbeau who wants to harness the rays of the sun for the task.

Like all the other attempts, it works.

And, like all the other attempts, it fails.

Why? Because, in search of Bruce Banner, Jarella’s come to our world to try and take him back to hers. Unfortunately, the two events combined have destabilised the sun and if she doesn’t go back sharpish, minus the Hulk, it’ll go supernova. Meanwhile, an assassin of Lord Visis has followed her here and, in order to save Jarella from him, Banner finds himself having to transform back into the Hulk.

We can hardly claim it’s unfamiliar territory. Yet again Bruce Banner gets cured only, the first chance he gets, to turn himself back into the Hulk. If you were suspicious you’d start to think that, for all his complaining about being the Hulk, he actually likes it.

It’s pleasing to see Jarella back, although I can’t say I find her world and its political turmoils overly interesting and we barely get to see Lord Visis, the true villain of the piece. Dramatically it would’ve been much stronger if it’d been he, rather than a lackey who’d followed Jarella here.

In the final analysis it’s an issue that doesn’t change anything. At its conclusion, Bruce Banner’s still the Hulk, and Jarella’s back in her own world. It also probably suffers from being a single-parter, meaning we don’t get to see enough of Bruce Banner with Jarella and we don’t get to see what Betty Ross makes of this sudden appearance of a love rival she never knew existed. That should, after all, be the main source of human conflict in the story but instead it's nowhere in sight.

It’s not a bad tale but, in its unwillingness to change anything, it feels like a solid piece of filler rather than a vital tale. In the end, for all its readability, it’s a story you could remove entirely from the strip’s history and no one would ever notice.

Incredible Hulk #147. The Leader and Richard Nixon

(Cover from January 1972.)

“The End Of Doc Samson!”

Written by Gerry Conway.
Drawn by Herb Trimpe.
Inked by John Severin.
Lettering by Sam Rosen.

Some people have plans more convoluted than a bag full of eels. The Leader has enough for a whole aquarium.

I’ve complained before about the fact he seems to do things purely for the sake of doing them, and this issue he climbs the Mount Rushmore of such futility. Frankly, assuming he actually has one, I don’t have a clue what his plan even is.

It seems he wants to replace then-president Richard Nixon with an android who, presumably, will do his bidding and give him control of the United States. To do this, he lures the president to General Ross’s new base. Then he brings the Hulk to the base. And then he has an army of androids descend on the place to turn themselves into a giant android which blunders around telling everyone how great the Leader is.

Why?

Why does he need the Hulk there? Why does he need an army of androids there? Why does he need a giant android? Why does he announce to all present that he’s behind it all? All he’s doing is drawing everyone’s attention to the fact he’s there and up to no good. Wouldn’t a plot to replace the president depend on not getting noticed?

One of the problems with the story is that, at just twelve pages, it’s simply too short to do all the things it needs to in order to tie-off the events of last issue, meaning too much has to be crammed into too few pages, thus sacrificing all sense.

You would’ve thought it’d be perfectly easy to get a full length issue out of the Hulk vs the Leader, the Leader trying to take over the United States, and the “death” of Doc Samson. In fact, you could probably get two issues out of it if you really wanted to. So why the decision to cram it into just a dozen pages? It’s no surprise that ultimately the thing feels as though everyone concerned is making it up as they go along. It’s exciting and vigorous and the android multitude combining to become one huge android is a classic image but ultimately the tale feels like a rushed attempt to get things over and done with as quickly as possible. And a great set-up like we had last issue deserves better.

“Heaven Is A Very Small Place!”

Written by Roy Thomas.
Drawn by Herb Trimpe.
Inked by John Severin.
Lettering by Sam Rosen.

The truth is this issue’s back-up tale’s more interesting and better thought out than its main one, as, roaming the desert, the Hulk encounters a mirage in the form of a small town. Being none too bright, the Hulk thinks he’s in a real town and, delighted that no one’s trying to kill him, decides this is where he’s going to live from now on.

Sadly, this being the Hulk, his happiness is short-lived as the mirage soon fades, leaving him alone and abandoned.

It has to be said it’s a very odd town where everyone seems to be smiling and waving all the time but, that aside, it’s one of those tales that, once read, lodges in the mind, and a welcome reminder that not all Hulk stories have to follow the well-tried formula or be about smashing things up. I’d also personally say that, aesthetically, it marks the high watermark of the collaboration between Herb Trimpe and John Severin.

So, a Hulk story in which nothing much happens triumphs over one in which pretty much everything happens. Who would've thought we'd ever be able to say that about a Hulk comic?