Incredible Hulk #190. Glorian, Toad Men & the Shaper

(Cover from August 1975.)

"The Man Who Came Down On A Rainbow!"

Written by Len Wein.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe and Marie Severin.

Lettering by John Costanza.

Colours by Glynis Wein.

Still blundering around behind the Iron Curtain, the Hulk meets a man called Glorian who travels by rainbow and takes him to a world that can only be called the Hulk's idea of paradise. It comes complete with the late Crackajack Jackson, Jarella and a whole host of lovely flowers.

It's not real of course. Unknown to the Hulk it's the handiwork of the Shaper who's been convinced by Glorian to use his powers to fulfil the dreams of others in order to bring them happiness.

Well, because it's paradise, everything's fine and dandy for a spell, as the Hulk gets to spend time with his newly-rediscovered friends. But every Eden must have its serpent - or in this case an amphibian - and so it's not long before it all goes wrong, as old foes the Toad Men show up and, looking for slaves, abduct the Hulk and his companions.

Writer Len Wein seems to have set himself a challenge to see how many old characters he can get into one issue of a comic book without it getting over-crowded, and so we get the return not only of the Toad Men (whoever thought they'd be showing their faces ever again?) but also Crackajack Jackson, Jarella and the Shaper. The one new face is that of Glorian who I believe made his debut in an issue of The Fantastic Four. I have to admit I've never read that particular tale and so my knowledge of the character beyond what we see here's somewhat limited. He seems a nice enough bloke, though possibly a little too perfect to be someone you'd actually want to meet.

Another returning fave is Marie Severin who, several years after she departed the strip, returns just as the Herb Trimpe era's drawing to an end. I have to say I can see more of Severin's hand in the artwork than I can Trimpe's, although there's plenty of pointing going on by the various characters so, in that at least, Trimpe's style shows through.

Leaving aside the hints of a gay subtext running through the tale, it's hard to avoid the feeling the strip's moving into a new era. Neither last issue nor this feel like Hulk tales had previously. There seems to be more concentration on the Hulk as a character and more of a stylised feel, as though Wein's looking for a new direction for the title. While, on the art front, Trimpe seems to be gradually becoming more marginalised. In the last few issues, Joe Staton's influence on the look of the strip had become increasingly heavy and now we have Marie Severin's involvement.

In a way, it's a reversal of how Trimpe started on the strip, where he seemed to be being eased into it over a number of issues. He now seems to be being eased out of it the same way. It's a shame. It would've been nice to see Trimpe going out with a full-blooded bang rather than sliding his way sideways out of it but those of us who're Trimpe fans can at least take heart that there's still a few more issues to go before he's receded from the strip completely.

Incredible Hulk #189. The blind girl and the Mole Man

(Cover from July 1975.)

"None Are So Blind...!"

Written by Len Wein.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe and Joe Staton.

Lettering by Artie Simek.

Colours by Glynis Wein.

Yet again the Hulk demonstrates his uncanny ability to speak any language known to man, as he finds himself in a Siberian village and understands everything everyone says to him. Just where did such a stupid character get such an incredible gift for speaking so badly in so many tongues?

Having easily survived the destruction of the Gremlin's stronghold last time out, the Hulk meets a blind girl - Katrina - and befriends her, only to learn her village is raided every night by a horde of strange small creatures who turn out to be the Mole Man's subterraneans. It seems Katrina's scientist grandfather's developed a cure for her blindness and, being all but blind himself, the Mole Man wants it.

The Hulk's not having any of that and, venturing into the Mole Man's underground kingdom, he takes on the villain's diminutive hordes to retrieve the now-stolen medicine. That done, he returns it to the village where, being a comic book cure, it removes Katrina's blindness within seconds.

But here's the rub. When Katrina sees him for the first time, she sees our protagonist not as the Hulk, an ugly and frightening brute, but as the man he really is inside - Bruce Banner. This prompts the Hulk to leave the village behind, tears streaming down his face because, while Katrina may look into his eyes and see a man, the Hulk can see only a monster.

It's a lovely little story that, not for the first time in the strip's history, draws on its Frankenstein roots to engage our sympathies. While that trick might not be new, what is new is the story's told entirely in the First Person by the Hulk. It's a bit of a surprise, given his notoriously foggy memory, to discover the Hulk can actually recall an entire adventure, let alone retell it coherently, but it's a conceit that works and, along with its oddly fairy-tale like mood, lifts the tale well above recent offerings.

Incredible Hulk #188. Droog & the Gremlin

(Cover from June 1975.)

"Mind Over Mayhem!"

Written by Len Wein.

Drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Joe Staton.

Lettering by Artie Simek.

Colours by Glynis Wein.

Incredible Hulk #188 might be memorable for many things but the one that leaps out at you like a sore sauropod is the introduction of Droog, the murderous poetic triceratops of terror.

With his love of flinging rhyming couplets at you as he tries to kill you, Droog has to be the strangest creation the strip had yet come up with and, bearing in mind this is the comic that once brought us a giant killer mouth in space, that's quite a boast to make. What the thinking was behind Droog's conception is anyone's guess but you can only suspect Len Wein may not have been totally serious when he first proposed it.

Still, however bizarre the thing may be, it does guarantee that, once read, the story'll never be forgotten, as the attempt to rescue Glenn Talbot from the Gremlin's fortress continues.

Thanks to Clay Quartermain happening to have a bomb concealed beneath his fingernail, the rescue party bust free from their cell and confront the Gremlin who summons Droog to deal with them. As the Hulk fights Droog, the good guys make their escape, just before SHIELD blast the fortress to smithereens.

You can't ignore the fact that SHIELD's actions in annihilating the fortress seem somewhat irresponsible, as they have no way of knowing whether Ross and his gang have actually got out of the place first. In all honesty, I'm not sure SHIELD overall come across as the most reliable organisation in the world. Every one of their agents that we see this issue seems perhaps a little too "flamboyant" and gung ho for the sake of professionalism.

Still, this is a comic book and we know the good guys win through in the end.

And so, minus the Hulk, our gang return to the US with Glenn Talbot's body.

His mind however is another matter, as the Gremlin had swapped it for that of one of his own agents before sending it back to the US in the exploding impostor we saw in issue #185. Because I don't have the intellect of a master-criminal, I don't have the slightest clue why the Gremlin did the mind-swap in the first place. Why didn't he just send Talbot back in his own body? And why was the loyal Soviet agent who now occupies Talbot's body being kept in one of the Gremlin's cells?

So, overall, it's a tale that no sense makes,

But in its insanity, entertainment it never fakes,

And proves there was some creative steam still,

With Wein and Trimpe's hands upon the till.

Blimey, it's infectious.