“Follow the Leader!”
THE INCREDIBLE HULK — Issue no. 224, March 1978
Book: The Incredible Hulk
Issue No.: 224
Published: March 21, 1978
Title: “Follow the Leader!”
Cover Price: 35¢
I love the graphic design of the Marvel comics of the late ’70s, especially the iconic “Marvel Comics Group” banner that appears at the top of the cover of most of the Marvel books from this era. As many times as I’ve looked at this graphic element, I somehow never noticed that part of the Incredible Hulk logo is behind the banner. I always loved this particular Incredible Hulk logo, and I love it even more now that I see how it interacts with the Marvel banner. It’s like, the logo is so big (like the book’s main character), it can’t be contained.
While we’re talking about the cover of this book, the artwork is by Ernie Chan. I wasn’t familiar with him by name, but I’ve been noticing him in the credits of a few things since I started Marvel Time Warp, and this guy is a damn fine Bronze Age comic book artist. (The interior art, by Sal Buscema and Joe Rubinstein, is also solid.)
Oh, one more thing about the cover. The previous issue went to a lot of trouble setting up that Bruce Banner is no longer Hulking out, yet here the big green guy is on the front of this book. So is the Hulk back already? Let’s dig in and find out.
Early into the story we get a flashback where the green-skinned, big-brained Leader explains to his captives Bruce Banner, Doc Samson, and General Ross how he escaped his apparent death (in Marvel Feature no. 11 according to an editor’s note, which would have been about five years earlier). Then he explains he’s letting the trio live so they can be his audience and witness him taking over the world — I bet this proves to be a bad plan in the long run. And then he leaves the three captives to go off and do super-villain stuff.
Samson and Ross try to talk Bruce into turning into the Hulk again (assuming that’s an option). The theory being the Hulk is the only hero who can defeat the Leader because the Hulk’s simple brain is immune from the Leader’s mental manipulations. Bruce of course doesn’t want to be Hulk because that’s Bruce’s whole shtick.
Banner does eventually unleash the Hulk and go after the Leader. But the Leader has a contingency plan — his Murder Module (it looks kind of like a Martian tripod walker from War of the Worlds) which is revealed via a glorious late-in-the-issue splash page. But the Leader, being super smart and all, figures out this isn’t really the Hulk, it’s a Hulk robot being operated by Banner via a remote control device. So we get some Hulk action without losing the current Hulk-no-more status quo — fun twist! And then we get a fun cliffhanger — the Leader destroys the Hulk-bot which somehow sends an energy surge back to the remote control device, critically injuring Bruce Banner.
Two issues in, and this Incredible Hulk run is one of my favorite discoveries from this period. Super good stuff.
A couple of random notes — there is some continuity fun when the Leader mentions the “scattered members of the Fantastic Four,” a reference to the fact the group is currently (as of March 1978) disbanded. And at one point a defeated Doc Samson says “Damn you, Leader.” I’m a little surprised “damn” was approved by the Comics Code Authority guys.
Next time — the origin of the World War II super-team the Invaders!