Featuring: Hulk
Release: October 1, 1964
Cover: January 1965
12 cents
Only Stan Lee could have written this monumental masterpiece!
Only Steve Ditko could have drawn these powerful panels!
Only Geo. Bell could have inked this sensational saga!
Only S. Rosen would have lettered his name S. Rosen!
10 pages
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|---|---|---|
| Journey Into Mystery #119, Story B | Reading order | Tales to Astonish #64, Story B |
| Tales to Astonish #63 | Tales to Astonish | Tales to Astonish #64 |
We’re nominally on the March books, but we just got up to June with Thor comics and July with X-Men, and now we need to go back to October of 1964 for Hulk stories.
We read the first story of this issue a while back. We’ve been skipping the Hulk stories because they are so intertwined with each other. Hulk is in the middle of a saga that really began in issue 60. We’re going to try to do the whole saga in something like three chunks.
Let’s review the story so far.
Dr. Bruce Banner is a weapons builder on a military base who is frequently absent. General Thunderbolt Ross has little patience for Banner and is uspet his daughter Betty seems so fond of the “weakling”. Of course, Bruce is also the Hulk. He recently decided that strain was the trigger of his uncontrollable changes into a monster with its own personality.
Dr. Banner has built a robotic suit, but a spy has stolen it. Hulk fights the spy in the robot suit. After a couple encounters, the robot is tossed into a bottomless pit.
Major Glen Talbot has been hired as the chief of security, with a particular remit to look into Dr. Banner’s strange behavior and any connection between Banner and the Hulk. He also seems fond of Betty, and the General would much prefer his daughter choose someone like the Major.
Hulk finds himself captured by the military. Rick has been spending time with Captain America and the Avengers, but still feels a debt to the Hulk. He returns to the New Mexico military base and helps Dr. Banner escape the military. This was likely before the Avengers’ battle with Immortus.
We learn the spy was working for someone named the Leader, whose face we do not see. Since the spy failed, the Leader dispatches the Chameleon to investigate what happened. When the Hulk foils Chameleon’s plans, Leader decides to get personally involved. He has just perfected a creation called the Humanoid.
And that’s where we left off.
This is the issue we finally meet the Leader. We’ve seen him before but always somehow obscured. Now we see his face. He has green skin and a large forehead. Could this green skin indicate a connection with the Hulk?
Indeed. We learn his origin.
An unskilled laborer was working at a chemical research plant when a gamma ray cylinder exploded. Instead of killing him, it transformed him. A one-in-a-million freak accident, he claims. Seems like it must be at least 2-in-a-million. At first, only his intelligence seemed affected. He was now a genius. But soon the physical transformation happened as well.
Since Hulk also as green skin, he deduces there is a connection between them. See, he is a genius.
Ditko understands the power of a contrasting villain. The ultimate intelligence to compete against the ultimate strength.
Leader sends his Humanoid to steal Banner’s device from a train. The strain of the situation causes Banner to change into the Hulk.
The Hulk is triumphant but changes back into Banner at the end.
Convinced these hijinks prove Banner is a traitor, Talbot has him arrested.
This issue was kind of standalone. Hulk fought the Humanoid and won. Story complete. Except that it ends with Banner in jail. And the threat of the Leader still looms. So we’ll read the next issue.
In my head, Leader is one of Hulk’s two most significant villains. We’ll meet the other one of these days.
Leader was set up as a future villain in the 2008 Incredible Hulk film, portrayed by the great Tim Blake Nelson, but the cameo was never followed up on.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 57/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
I read this story in The Incredible Hulk Epic Collection vol. 2: The Hulk Must Die. You can also find the story in Marvel Masterworks: The Incredible Hulk vol. 2. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- The Leader
- Humanoid
- Chameleon
- General “Thunderbolt” Ross
- Major Talbot
- Dr. Banner/Hulk
Story notes:
- Origin of the Leader: An unskilled laborer who never finished high school was working in the sub-cellar of a chemical research plant when a gamma ray cylinder exploded. Instead of killing him, it transformed him. A one-in-a-million freak accident. For a while he was just smarter, a voracious reader with perfect recall. Then he physically transformed into a green man with a large forehead.
- Leader has spy ring to take over government.
- Chameleon survived and is still on the base.
- Pentagon has ordered Banner’s latest nuclear inventions shipped to another base by train and accompanied by Banner. Talbot disapproves as he thinks Banner is a security risk.
- Leader sends Humanoid to steal nuclear device from train; strain of situation causes Banner to turn into the Hulk.
- Leader controls Humanoid and can see what it sees.
- Leader deduces Hulk is like him, a gamma-based accident, which gave Hulk strength just as it gave him intelligence.
| Previous | #348 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Journey Into Mystery #119, Story B | Reading order | Tales to Astonish #64, Story B |
| Tales to Astonish #63 | Tales to Astonish | Tales to Astonish #64 |
