Incredible Hulk #112. More of the Galaxy Master

(Cover from February 1969.)

"The Brute Battles On!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Dan Adkins.

Lettered by Artie Simek.

The Pointingometer goes into overdrive as, on an alien world, the Hulk takes on the nefarious Galaxy Master, as absurd and as inspired a foe as has ever stalked the world of comicdom. As I said last time out, he's basically a giant mouth in space, created by a race of evil in order to do evil. Now he's out to destroy every planet that might pose a threat to him.

Well, the Hulk's not a planet but he poses more threat to the mouth almighty than any who've ever lived. And that means it's punch-up time. Happily for the Hulk, he has allies in the locals, who take the jade behemoth's arrival as their cue to rebel against their all-powerful master. Unhappily for the Hulk, they're about as much use as a chocolate parasol. Still, not to worry. As everyone knows, there's not a foe yet that can't be beaten with a big enough smack in the kisser.

Something that strikes me is that no one in this comic, apart from the Hulk and the Galaxy Master, is ever named. There's a princess and her uncle and a messenger and various other minor characters, not to mention an entire air force but, at the end of it all, I don't have a clue what any of them are called. I also don't know what their planet's called. I don't know what the original home world of the Galaxy Master is or what the name of the race that created him is.

The fact that it doesn't matter is a reminder that comics really do work differently from other forms of story telling. If someone tried it in a novel, you'd fling it at the wall in frustration at the pretension of its author. In a movie you'd feel you were watching an exercise of style over substance.

But comics are different.

Unlike novels, comics work in the visual rather than the verbal realm. Unlike movies, we can get directly into the characters' heads, and so their names become superfluous, as far truer identities are revealed by their thoughts. It's also a reminder that the story simply has no time for such niceties as details, as what's basically a tale of epic proportions is crammed into just twenty pages.

When we get to see it, the core of the Galaxy Master is both pathetic and bathetic. It looks like like some old stair rods around a car engine. It could be Herb Trimpe's imagination ran out just at the most vital moment or it could be that he liked the irony that a creature that, from the outside, could pass for an evil version of God is in reality so feeble and flimsy. Given that the Galaxy Master's so totally helpless to defend himself once the Hulk gets past what's at heart a Wizard of Oz style facade, I prefer to believe the latter.

Incredible Hulk #111. The Galaxy Master

(Cover from January 1969.)

"Shanghaied In Space!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Dan Adkins.

Lettered by Sam Rosen.

If there's one person in this world you don't want to go to for a medical opinion, it's Ka-Zar. At the end of Amazing Spider-Man #57, he declared Spider-Man to be dead, only, at the start of the following issue, for Spider-Man to turn out to be alive. At the end of Incredible Hulk #110, he declared Bruce Banner to be dead.

And, guess what?

Admittedly, he's only just alive and he only makes a full recovery because he's abducted by the aliens who created last issue's Umbu. Happily, they have a gadget for every occasion and one of those is for reviving people who're nearly dead.

Unhappily, having done that, they decide to kill him.

Cue page after page of insane, logic-defying action as the Hulk stands on the outside of a starship, in space, and pre-empts Star Wars by nearly a decade by taking on a whole squadron of fighter craft. He does it with aplomb, the highlight being when he enters the mother ship's rocket tube - while it's firing - and promptly smashes its engine to smithereens, causing the vessel to crash on the nearest planet, as he hops off with a certain insouciance. The Hulk's strength and endurance have reached insane levels by this stage and it seems nothing's allowed to be regarded as beyond him any more. Gone are the days when he used to get exhausted after knocking in a few thousand fence posts for Tyrannus.

Unfortunately, at the tale's climax, that's when the Hulk's problems really begin because now he has to face the brains behind the operation, a character who really is all mouth and no trousers, a giant mouth in the sky who goes by the name, "Galaxy Master".

I now know why I never grew up to draw American comics. It's because I was always taught it was rude to point. Clearly no one's told the characters in this tale, as there's barely a page goes by without someone pointing melodramatically at something.

I blame Stan Lee.

Apparently, the reason Frank Giacoia did layouts for issue #109 was Lee was unhappy with Herb Trimpe's own layouts, which he didn't feel were suitably dynamic enough. Clearly, Trimpe took it on board because this issue's so melodramatic it's mind boggling. I swear not one person in this tale has ever stood with his feet less than a yard apart at any point in his entire life. It should be ludicrous, the sheer over-the-top dynamism of every panel, of every pose, of every facial expression but this is the Hulk and the more OTT it gets, the better.

My only complaint is Thunderbolt Ross is still going on about how Bruce Banner, or the Hulk, or both, must've been behind the recent bad weather. Give it a rest, man. You clearly know as much about character assessment as Ka-Zar does about medicine.