Incredible Hulk #175. The Inhumans.

(Cover from May 1974.)

"Man-Brute In The Hidden Land!"

Written by Roy Thomas.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Jack Abel.

Lettering by Artie Simek.

Colours by P Goldberg.

A well-known 1950s sci-fi movie exhorted us to keep watching the skies, and it's advice the Inhumans would do well to heed. Following the Cobalt Man's explosion in space, the Hulk crashes to Earth in the Great Refuge where, as Bruce Banner, he learns the Inhumans are planning to flee the planet, in a rocket bound for Counter-Earth. Unfortunately, while later taking a walk, Banner bumps into a gang of human-hating Inhumans and, under attack from them, changes into the Hulk.

After managing to knock the Hulk out, Black Bolt orders he be put into the rocket and fired into space, as the only means of stopping him from destroying the Great Refuge when he recovers.

Despite the potential of the Hulk versus an entire city of super-humans, it's a straightforward and relatively low-key tale that exists more as a way of getting the Hulk into space, so he can have an adventure on Counter-Earth, than it does in its own right. Sadly, we only get to see him against the Inhuman royal family and even then not at any great length. It actually feels like a very short story.

If it's not a major tale as such, it does its job and feels like something of a throwback to the offerings from Trimpe's earlier days on the strip. The main complaint'd probably be Black Bolt defeats the Hulk by using the sonic power of his voice. Obviously it makes sense for that to happen but the tendency for Black Bolt to save the day on behalf of the rest of the Inhumans, does always tend to undermine them and it would've been more dramatically pleasing for the Inhumans to work as a team to bring the Hulk down. It also has to be said that Black Bolt solving a problem by unleashing the power of his voice has by this stage long since become a cliché.

It's odd though that the Inhumans want to go to Counter-Earth thanks to it having no super-powered beings. Their argument being they might be more welcome on such a world. You'd have thought a planet with no previous experience of super-powered beings would be less likely to accept them than our own, not more.

But then again, there's a thought. If Counter- Earth has no super-powered beings, does that mean we're not living on the real Earth at all but on Counter-Earth? And does that mean that, on the other side of the sun is a version of our world filled almost to bursting with super-heroes?

If so, it seems like the Inhumans aren't the only ones who need to keep watching the skies.

Incredible Hulk #120. More from the Inhumans

(Cover from October 1969.)

"On The Side Of... ...The Evil Inhumans!"

Plotted by Stan Lee.

Scripted by Roy Thomas.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Herb Trimpe.

Lettered by Sam Rosen.

If those cartoons were right and love means never having to say you're sorry then being the Hulk clearly means never having to decide whose side you're on.

At the close of last issue, we were left with the jade juggernaut having to choose whether to throw his lot in with the Evil Inhumans or the US military. Here, he quickly decides to trash the military. Having done that he then decides to trash the Evil Inhumans. Maximus sets his giant robot on him, he trashes that, and the Evil Inhumans flee and then so does the Hulk.

It's a tale full of action as the Hulk flings tanks around and knocks planes from the sky. It also gives Herb Trimpe the chance to showcase his remarkable ability to draw military hardware and to portray aircraft simply hanging in the air but again the Evil Inhumans seem an inadequate set of foes for him, especially as their plan, to gradually conquer the world by placing mind-controlling statues in various lands, is such a long-term strategy that it offers no natural time limit to events here. There's no race against the clock, no sense that the Hulk must deal with the threat before it's too late, and therefore it has far less tension than the somewhat similar Umbu story. It's just a case of the Hulk smashing things - first the American soldiers and then Maximus' robot - till there's nothing left to smash.

That's not to say it's a bad tale. I don't think there were any bad Hulk tales in this era but, by the standards of its time, it feels like a holding operation till something better comes along. Happily something better does come along next issue.

Still, at least in this issue, unlike the last one, Maximus suddenly remembers he has a giant robot, which he promptly sets on the Hulk, and the Hulk flattens by throwing the Inhumans' entire fortress at it. "Hulk will not give up!" he declares while struggling to lift the impossible weight as the robot bombards him with its strength-sapping rays. "He can never give up! ...He does not know how!!" It's moments like this that make you realise why you love the strip so much.

Most bizarre moment is when Maximus the Mad tells Thunderbolt Ross and his gang that it's he and not the Hulk who's just defeated his men, which totally contradicts everything we've seen in the last few pages where he did nothing whatsoever as the Hulk was flinging tanks and planes around. If love means never having to say you're sorry, self-love clearly means never having to say you're irrelevant.

Incredible Hulk #119. Maximus and the Evil Inhumans

(Cover from September 1969.)

"At The Mercy Of -- Maximus The Mad!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Herb Trimpe.

Lettered by Artie Simek.

Bruce Banner has to be the unluckiest man alive. Admittedly the fact that he once opened his wardrobe and found it filled with nothing but purple trousers is a king-sized hint but, beyond that, it seems like he can't go anywhere without blundering into trouble. No sooner has he arrived in the little known country of Costa Salvador than he finds its people in a trance, controlled by a giant statue in the nearest town square.

It's all the work of Maximus the Mad and his band of Evil Inhumans. Being the modest soul he is, Maximus has a plan to take control of the world and has started with this town. Just to up the Hulk's bad-luck quotient for the day, as his fight with the Inhumans approaches its climax, the American military turn up and he has to decide what to do. Who does he side with? The Evil Inhumans or the soldiers who seek to destroy him?

Of course, there's the third option; that he just leaps away and leaves the Inhumans and the military to slug it out without him.

Sadly, such thinking's beyond our "hero" and we finish the issue with him getting distinctly confused about it all.

There's actually not that much I can say about this tale. It's nicely drawn and it does what you'd expect the first part of a Hulk story to do. But then again, the Evil Inhumans are clearly not within a million miles of being a match for the Hulk and the fight'd clearly have been over very quickly had it not been for the arrival of the US forces. Most of that problem's down to the fact that, amazingly, Maximus doesn't seem to have any tricks up his sleeve, no ray guns, no machines, no hostages. He just keeps ordering his Inhumans to attack the brute. We're so used to Marvel arch-villains like Dr Doom and Kang the Conqueror having more tricks than a bag full of weasels that, bearing in mind his Inhumans have no way to best the Hulk, it's an oddly futile version of Maximus we're getting and makes him and his gang feel like they're on a par with such second-raters as the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime.

Highlight of the tale has to be Falcona setting her birds of prey on Maximus' lackey for daring to point out his mind-control robot isn't infallible. It's genuinely nasty and highlights the would-be dictator's megalomania that he'll have his most faithful servant killed for trying to warn him that his plan's in danger.