The Incredible Hulk/Mission: Stop the Hulk!/Who is the Wrecker?/The Hulk at Last!
Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: December 10, 1962
Cover: March 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
23 pages
I read this comic in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1.
Let’s review the key dates so far.
August 8, 1961 — The Fantastic Four debut
March 1, 1962 — The Incredible Hulk
June 5, 1962 — The most important day in Marvel’s history thus far: introducing Spider-Man, Thor, and Ant-Man!
It’s now December 10, 1962.
Another hugely important date in Marvel’s history. Four milestones, which we’ll be covering over the next few posts: we’ll see the debut of another iconic superhero; a superhero we haven’t seen in 6 months makes his return in the debut of his solo title; and, most excitingly, the Marvel comics start to coalesce into a universe. On this day, we get not only our first crossover of the Marvel Age, but our first two crossovers! The Fantastic Four will encounter two iconic Marvel characters on this very date.
- Milestone #1 of December 10, 1962:
Fantastic Four meet the Hulk!
While it’s a very exciting milestone–particularly for this blog, which is concerned with how the disparate titles interweave to form a universe–the issue itself could be better. The Fantastic Four title is the only one to regularly feature issue-length stories, this one at 23 pages. The stories being told don’t usually demand such a page count, so they fill the pages with idle time, other little stories, character interaction, and such. It’s why the Fantastic Four seem like better realized characters than Thor or Ant-Man. However, a battle with the Hulk in my mind deserved a decent page count. But the Fantastic Four don’t actually meet the Hulk until page 17. So it’s 16 pages of setup.
The beginning of Chapter 4 is even titled: “The Hulk at Last!” So they knew the problem with their own story. Even after seeing that chapter title, it’s still a couple more pages before Hulk finally appears.
The Fantastic Four have been called in to help capture Hulk, who is being framed for crimes he didn’t commit. Such a pretense was hardly needed, as Hulk is generally considered a menace. It just bloats the story.
One exciting moment before the superhero battle is when Reed Richards meets Bruce Banner. Reed notes he’s a fan of Dr. Banner’s atomic research. Banner describes Reed the “most brilliant scientific brain of our time”. I enjoyed seeing the mutual respect between two great scientists.
This leads to an observation: it’s a common theme amongst the heroes we’ve met that they tend to be brilliant scientists: Dr. Henry Pym, Dr. Bruce Banner, Dr. Don Blake. Peter Parker is only a teenager, but a young science whiz; his web fluid is a remarkable invention. We meet a new superhero this very day; wonder if he’ll be another science brain type.
I’m a big fan of this trope. It’s part of the reason I like Harrison Ford films. He often plays action heroes with doctorates. Indiana Jones, The Fugitive, Jack Ryan…
I tend to assume Reed has a doctorate, but I’m not sure it’s even been specifically mentioned. In this issue, they go out of their way to use the “Dr.” title when introducing Banner and Kort, but not when introducing Reed.
They want some action while filling time and while inexplicably delaying the battle we all came to see. So we get two scenes of Thing fighting soldiers for no particular reason. The first is because they mistook him for Hulk. The second is because he threw a temper tantrum randomly.
We also see Ben and Alicia on a date.
And everybody being weirdly sexist.
We do get to see the new Fantasti-car Johnny designed. The first real emphasis on just how skilled a mechanical engineer he is.
We get a bit of a preview of the big Hulk vs. FF fight when all the male members of the team fantasize aloud about defeating Hulk.
When we finally get the main event, it is an impressive couple pages of action.
For any fans looking for a definitive answer to the timeless question of “Who would win?” between Hulk and Thing, we’re going to be disappointed. Hulk is felled not by Thing, but by the Wrecker’s ray.
The comic ends with Ross throwing a military parade to honor the Fantastic Four. Contrast that with how he treats the Hulk. And let’s see how the public treats the X-Men when we meet them…
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 58/100
Significance: ★★★★★
Characters:
- Alicia
- Thing
- Human Torch
- Mr. Fantastic
- Invisible Girl
- General “Thunderbolt” Ross
- Dr. Karl Kort/Wrecker
- Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk
- Rick Jones
Minor characters:
- Captain Nelson
Story notes:
- Ben and Alicia on date; Beethoven’s Fifth symphony; Ben prefers New Orleans Jazz
- Soldiers mistake Thing for Hulk
- Why are the soldiers marching through New York in search of the Hulk??
- Hulk has allegedly been sabotaging missile installations in the desert
- FF charged to find and destroy Hulk
- Sue turned invisible unintentionally; she lost control after being frightened.
- Johnny a skilled mechanic
- New Fantastic-Car (doesn’t look like bathtub)
- reference to real-life letters
- New Fantasti-car cruising range > 3000 miles
- Special cannon destroyed by Hulk
- Project 34, anti-grav missile destroyed by Hulk; Banner describes it as a device that emits electromagnetic waves protecting a city from missiles or rockets.
- Dr. Kort has a membership card in a subversive communist-front organization — freedom includes the freedom to be in organizations — why carry the card?
- Rocket sled X2A-17 — up to 50 gs–tracks sabotaged
#47 story in reading order
Next: Tales of Suspense #39
Previous: Tales to Astonish #41
