Featuring: Hulk
Release: March 4, 1965
Cover: June 1965
12 cents
Story and art by Marvel’s modern masters: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Inking: Mickey Demeo
Lettering: Artie Simek
10 pages
| Previous | #355 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales to Astonish #68 | Reading order | Tales to Astonish #69 |
| Tales to Astonish #68 | Tales to Astonish | Tales to Astonish #69 |
With Ditko off the title, Kirby is back to take another shot at his co-creation. Stan shares the top billing with Jack for this triumphant return. The original Lee/Kirby run on Hulk lasted 5 issues. This one will make it around 15 or so. I’m expecting it to be largely immemorable.
We open with a trick out of the Ditko run. The last issue ended with Banner facing impending death and transforms to the Hulk just in time to be saved. Banner and Talbot are falling to their death when Banner transforms.
Hulk crosses the Pacific with leaps. Isle to isle, plane to plane.
That’s… a very long distance, even if you can jump very far. Maybe there are enough islands between Japan and Hawaii to hopscotch it, but it’s 2500 miles from Hawaii to California with nothing in between.
We check in with the Leader, still scheming.
We get what I think is a new insight into the Hulk. We already knew he hated Banner, but we now see him confused about his relationship with Banner. He is surprised to find Banner not at home. In the past, we’ve seen him explicitly object to turning into Banner.
I think the sequence of Hulk falling asleep is interesting, as its structure reminds me very much of an earlier Kirby sequence from the very first issue of Incredible Hulk.
This is the second time the transformation has been explicitly tied to blood pressure, the first being in issue 59.
We again are reminded that the president knows Hulk’s secret identity, and thus Banner is released from prison. Why not just order the military to stop hunting Hulk then?
Again, the president is strongly hinted to be Lyndon Johnson, suggesting this takes place after November 1963. This president even uses Johnson’s favorite Bible quote, from Isaiah 1:18– “Let us reason together.”
We get a scene that doesn’t make any sense to me. Does Rick think Bruce might be a spy? That seems pretty absurd. Rick says nobody knows where he disappears to… but Rick does. And so does the US president.
After 9 issues of build-up, Hulk is finally about to meet the leader. When the issue cuts off. Maybe next issue.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 54/100
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:
- Hulk/Bruce Banner
- Major Talbot
- Leader
- General Ross
- Betty Ross
- POTUS
- Rick Jones
Story notes:
- Leader plans to steal absorbatron.
- Leader has shrunk Humanoids to the size of cells.
- Hulk surprised to find Banner not at home.
- Change happens when blood pressure slows down.
- President knows Hulk’s secret, so Banner is released.
- Banner and Talbot return to Astra Isle.
- Humanoids knock out Hulk with gas vapors, bring him to the Leader
| Previous | #355 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales to Astonish #68 | Reading order | Tales to Astonish #69 |
| Tales to Astonish #68 | Tales to Astonish | Tales to Astonish #69 |
Rick does sound a little warped here, but Stan may be trying to make Rick sound out the readers’ (intended) questions. Even in 65, we readers knew that Bruce’s co-workers had to be brain damaged to not at least imagine Banner and Hulk were one and the same. Such things were obviously normal in Marvel’s world, and readers sighed a collective “FINALLY” when Romita’s BRUCE BANNER IS THE HULK cover appeared.
FOUR MONTHS LATER –
Today I risked my life to read just one more installment of “Coke & Comics.” By the way, I can’t read that without mentally humming Campbell’s version of “Love & Marriage.” Back on topic, I’d fallen behind in reading your installments, so upon waking, I decided to start with the second Hulk chapter in Astonish and your accompanying column – and couldn’t stop! At some point my thoughts became as dull as the Hulk’s. Shaking, I grabbed my glucometer and discovered my blood glucose had dropped 22 points! 11 hours with no carbs!
TO BE HULK-TINUED!
Comics will be the death of us all.
And Tony Stark