Hulk 282 (April 1983) "Again, Arsenal!"

The story opens with The Leader sitting at his computer aboard Omnivac, his orbiting space station plotting ways to conquer the world now that he believes the newly intelligent Hulk, finally under the control of Bruce Banner, is no longer a threat. Back at the Empire Hotel, Tony Stark is informed by the management that Bruce Banner and his friends can no longer stay at the hotel after it was trashed in last issue's battle with the Leader. They relocate to Avengers' Mansion to avoid more civil destruction. There, Bruce Banner helps Iron Man search for Ommivac, the Leader's orbiting space station using Stark's Omnifunctional Detection Device. Banner's Krylorian lover Bereet requests permission to film scenes for a documentary she is making on the Hulk. Iron Man refuses because there is no security clearance for cameras in Avengers Mansion. Bereet storms out in a huff and meets Jennifer Walters aka the She-Hulk in the hallway. Jen tries to be friendly but Bereet gives her the brush off. Meanwhile in the Bahamas, Betty Ross is sunbaking on the beach in a bikini trying to forget Bruce Banner. Her father General Thunderbolt Ross, on the beach in full military uniform, tells her that Banner remains a monster and should be forgotten once and for all. He embraces his daughter and they both shed a tear. Meanwhile back at Avengers Mansion Bruce and his cousin the She-Hulk are in deep conversation. Bruce aske Jen for forgiveness for turning her into a monster, but she tells him that she does not consider herself a monster and likes being the She-Hulk, as she is no longer the victim she once was. Her origin is retold. A former lawyer, Jennifer Walters was gunned down and lay close to death until a gamma-radiated blood transfusion from Bruce saved her but also transformed her into the savage She-Hulk. She considers herself now "an aggressive, positive force for good"; she likes being green and fighting supervillains and only has gratitude for what Bruce did. She tells Bruce that she does not consider herself or Bruce to be monsters and reassures him of her support. Suddenly, Jarvis is heard crying out in pain. Bruce, now with the power to transform into the Hulk at will, morphs into the Hulk and heads off to see what is happening,just as Stark's Omnifunctional Detection Device locates Omnivac. Arsenal the Living Weapon has emerged from the deepest sublevels of Avengers Mansion (Arsenal was created by Howard Stark, Tony Stark's father, in the closing days of WWII, and was controlled by a computer code-named "Mistress" with the voice of Maria Stark, Howard Stark's wife. It made its first appearance in Avengers Annual #4). The She-Hulk is attacked by the Living Arsenal and she wonders whether Bruce still has the rage that the Hulk had formerly now that he has control over his transformation. That question is answered in the affirmative as Banner gets angry and fights the living Arsenal with full Hulk power, until he destroys him. Banner discovers that the fight has been set up by the She-Hulk and her fellow Avengers, who suddenly appear, to prove to him that if he fights with Hulk's heart instead of Banner's head he can still be unstoppable. Iron Man informs the Hulk that the Leader has been located and the Hulk calls the Avengers to join him and go after the mad genius. "Next Month: Follow the Leader!"

The best thing about this comic is the art. Sal Buscema and Joe Sinnott are two of Marvel's greats. After reading a comic I like to just flip through the pages revisiting some of the interestig panels. Usually there are one or two worth considering again. This issue has whole pages full of great panels. The Leader never looked quite so egg-headed and malevolent as he does here. Tony Stark's eyes behind Iron Man's helmet speak volumes and the She-Hulk just leaps off the page. Bill Mantlo writes some pretty good dialogue too. Here's a sample of Sal Buscema's Hulk art, this one from three issues later - Hulk #285. Of course, it looks better in colour but this will give you an idea of his dynamism! "Get out of my way, insect!"


My rating 3 and and half stars. You can see the page I built at the Marvel database here.

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Latest eBay purchase

Hulk 112 January 1969 "The Brute Battles On", with HULK fighting for his life on an alien planet (shades of Planet Hulk) with Stan Lee script and Herb Trimpe art. The cover is relatively flat, good gloss, indents, a couple of creases and some wear on the right hand edge. The staples are tight and the inside pages are all fine. The overall grade a solid Very Good- (VG-) I'll write up a review later.

The Theology of the Superheroes I: The Incredible Hulk

Before Ang Lee made gay cowboy movies he made such chop-socky delights as Wo Hu Cang Long (that's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon to most of you), and the much misunderstood and maligned Hulk. A lot of reviewers canned this movie as being either too long, not true enough to the original Marvel character, or too filled with pop psychology for its own good. Empire even had an article in a recent issue entitled "Hulk: What Went Wrong?" Well, I loved the movie, primarily because it captured for me most of the key themes of the Silver Age Hulk comics I enjoyed as a kid and still enjoy reading. (Like Hulk #120 shown further down in this entry which I recently bought on eBay). There was the setting in the American South-West, a gruff General Thunderbolt Ross, overly protective but at the same time distant from his beautiful daughter Betty, who alone could pacify the Hulk, attempts to contain the Hulk (from which of course he spectacularly escapes), and lots of tossing around of tanks and generally destructive mayhem. Even the updates were true to the spirit, if not the period, of the 60s comic. There were still gamma rays involved but the experiments were updated from nuclear testing to nanomed technology (and they still managed a mushroom cloud in a flashback sequence).

A lot of people complained about the CGI Hulk. But, hey how exactly do you depict ol' green skin accurately? A guy in a rubber suit? It certainly looked better to me than Lou Ferrigno (at left) jumping around in purple shorts in the TV series. Then there was all the pop psychology and the cosmic sequence at the end when Bruce's father David morphed into this weird creature in a final slugout with his son Bruce/Hulk. If you read a Silver Age Marvel comic however you find both these elements are quite common - after all it was Marvel who reinvented comics by focusing on the inner demons of their characters who, like us, were real people with real problems. As for far-fetched cosmic battle sequences, in which impossible to believe pseudo-science thinly explained the most way out happenings, these were in every issue of The Incredible Hulk. Listen naysayers, Ang Lee got it right! By the way, the Hulk himself agrees with me, according to his piece in The Onion, "Why No One Want Make Hulk2?"

Stan Lee says that when he and Jack Kirby invented the Hulk in 1962 he had two literary characters in mind - the monster from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, and Robert Louis Stevenson's story, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He is created by science (Frankenstein) but he can't control his transformation from mild mannered research scientist Bruce Banner into he who "smash puny humans" (Mr. Hyde). Hulk also serves as an interesting metaphor for the sinful nature. There is something inside of us which we can't control, something that has infected our nature, not something we were created with but the result of something having gone wrong in our creator's design. As hard as Bruce Banner tries to control his hideous transformation it lies beyond his ability to eliminate. "Don't make me angry," he warns, "you won't like me when I'm angry!" For a while there was an articulate Hulk who retained all of the intellectual powers of Bruce Banner. Fans argued back and forth over whether they preferred this Hulk or the one who said things like "Hulk smash!" and "Why puny humans hate Hulk?" or simply "Aaaarrrrggghhh!" The following letter is a good example of how intellectualized comic books became in the 1960's. It comes from a 357-member strong "Hulk Cult" at the University of Syracuse, New York, and was published on the letters page of Tales to Astonish #74 (Dec. 1965). "You have just ended the most prolific era in American literature by giving the Hulk a human brain...By inculcating a rational mind into Hulk's primordial psyche, you caused the downfall of Hulk's entire reason d etre. Your recent issue can be termed a resounding victory of Schopenhauer's will to live over the forces of human nature...What you have done is merely desecrate one of the most forceful genres in modern art - the mindless Hulk. Shame, shame, that's as bad as calling Spinoza a pragmatist...We are even considering switching our loyalties to John Paul Sartre..."

In terms of the metaphor I'm proposing both dumb Hulk and articulate Hulk are appropriate incarnations. Our sinful impulses can be blind, irrational, instinctive and overtly violent. On the other hand they can be wily, crafty, clever, and sophisticated. There is only one way to reach Hulk and to tame his wild and destructive impulses. The love of Betty Ross is all that can reach him. What US government tanks cannot do; what no supervillain has been able to defeat; what no superhero who has tried to take the Hulk down has been able to achieve (most often attempted by the Fantastic Four's Thing), is achieved by the influence of love. So it is with us - the love of God alone can heal our "Hulkiness," can tame the savage breast and restore us to the state our creator intended for us. Only the grace of God can conquer the beast within us all.

Here is a close up of the Eric Bana CGI Hulk, which is actually a composite of the faces of Bana, Ang Lee, and Jennifer Connelly who played Betty Ross in the film. One of the best Hulk sites is The Hulk Library. By the way the Hulk has his own blog. Check it out!

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