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.

Incredible Hulk #110. Umbu.

(Cover from December 1968.)

"Umbu, The Unliving!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by John Severin.

Lettered by Sam Rosen.

Gilbert O'Sullivan once said, "What's in a kiss?" and William Shakespeare once said, "What's in a name?" While I can't comment on the wisdom or otherwise of Gilbert, I can tell you the bard should've known better because one mention of the name Umbu and you know straight away you're not up against a nine stone weakling. That's right, it's Hold Onto Your Hats time as we enter the senses-shattering conclusion to the Hulk's first ever foray into the Hidden Jungle.

And what a foray it is as he has to fight first Ka-Zar and his sabre-tooth tiger before taking on the might of Umbu, the Unliving. Umbu's a classic creation, a giant stone robot with a deadly tuning fork, created by aliens to guard the machine, from last issue, that's threatening to destroy the Earth. Happily, before it's too late - and mostly thanks to Umbu - the Hulk turns back into Bruce Banner who manages to destroy the machine before the lumbering robot can blast his way into the cave to protect it.

Maybe, given how slow-moving he is, it might've made more sense for them to place Umbu next to the cave that houses the machine he's supposed to be guarding, rather than miles away from it. Still, that's aliens for you. When it comes down to it, they're only human.

The aliens are a mildly annoying point. In themselves they're fine, what little we see of them but we're not told when they set up their machinations. Was it last week? Was it last year? Was it centuries or even millennia ago? It's a minor point but one that's always annoyed me. Otherwise, it's another top-notch story, in which Stan Lee's background in creating giant monsters whose names end with a "U" meets the strip's future direction. The Hulk'll be facing an awful lot of gigantic foes in the years to come but, frankly, none will ever manage to top Umbu and his tuning fork of death.

My one gripe would be that Ka-Zar simply seems too strong in this tale. Don't get me wrong, he's shown as clearly being out of his depth trying to take on the Hulk but, when the Hulk tries to crush him in a bear hug, instead of Ka-Zar coming out of it as the world's first super-hero purée - as he should - he survives completely unscathed and even manages to stun the Hulk with a karate-style chop to the neck. Frankly, there's no way Ka-Zar, who's really no more than a very fit human being, is ever going to be able to hit the Hulk hard enough for our anti-hero to even feel it.

Incredible Hulk #109. The one with Ka-Zar and Zabu

(Cover from November 1968.)

"The Monster And The Man-Beast!"

Written by Stan Lee.

Layouts by Frank Giacoia.

Pencils by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by John Severin.

Lettered by Artie Simek.

Rain, gales, sleet. It might sound like a typical Wimbledon fortnight but it's even worse than that. It's the worst threat the world has ever faced, as the Hulk finds himself in the Hidden Land.

In order to escape China, which is being less than friendly to him, our hero's hitched a ride on a rocket which, thanks to his weight, has crashed in Ka-Zar's homeland. No sooner has the Hulk arrived than he's back in his Bruce Banner guise and being shown a machine in a cave. Because he's the sort of genius who could only exist in a comic book, it takes Banner mere moments to realise the machine's affecting the Earth's rotation and'll destroy us all by messing up our weather. Unfortunately, before Brucie can do anything about it, he turns into the Hulk and now, with no one around to do anything about the machine, we're all in trouble.

This is one of my favourite Hulk stories from this era. Not only is virtually every panel a masterclass in how to do the Hulk but it starts a multi-part tale that encapsulates the strip's brand new era perfectly, with strange lands, strange machines, strange beings, alien planets, cosmic menaces, alien races, giant robots, an oppressed people in need of liberation, and more spaceships than you can shake a stick at. It also doesn't hurt that every panel's packed with drama either.

It has to be said this particular issue relies an awful lot on coincidence. The Hulk just happens to blunder across a rocket launch. The rocket just happens to deliver the Hulk to the Savage Land. Bruce Banner just happens to bump into Ka-Zar. At the time Bruce Banner, one of the world's greatest scientists, arrives in the Savage Land, there just happens to be a machine in a cave that's about to destroy the world - a machine Ka-Zar just happens to have stumbled across.

Somehow it doesn't matter.

As I've said before, if you're looking for a likely series of events, then comic books probably aren't the place to look, and the sheer vigour of it all carries you along regardless of all stretches of credulity.

An over-reliance on coincidence aside, for me the one failing of this issue is General Thunderbolt Ross whose characterisation is plain monomaniacal. Confronted by dangerously changing weather patterns, he promptly starts going on about how Bruce Banner must be behind it.

Why?

Why would Bruce Banner want to change the world's weather? Even if he had the ability, since when has he been the madman Ross describes him as here? Ross might have it in for the Hulk but since when has he viewed Banner as a major threat to the humanity?