Is There Hulk After Death?
THE INCREDIBLE HULK — Issue no. 225, April 1978
Book: The Incredible Hulk
Issue No.: 225
Published: April 18, 1978
Title: “Is There Hulk After Death?”
Cover Price: 35¢
Bruce Banner is Hulk no more. He tried to use a mind-controlled Hulk robot to defeat his big-brained arch-nemesis the Leader, but that went sideways and now Banner is dying. Bruce’s pals Doc Samson and General “Thunderbolt” Ross devise a plan to save Banner’s life — they’ll turn him into the Hulk again.
This combination of previous-issue recap plus this-issue setup all happens in the first two pages of this Hulk book. Credit to writer Roger Stern for hitting the ground running.
The Leader has taken over Gamma Base, a military compound. Samson, Ross, and Banner are trapped there while the Leader goes about his plan to take over all the world’s computer systems, which seems like a forward-thinking goal for the pre-internet world of 1978. Oh, and he also has an army of pink polka dot (really) androids he’s planning to deploy. Between control of all the computers and the pink polka dot android army, the Leader figures he’ll be able to take over the world with ease.
Doc Samson blasts Banner with gamma rays in hopes of turning him into the Hulk again. But it doesn’t work, and the gamma rays kill Banner instead. Bummer.
But... he’s only dead for a minute! After which he turns into Hulk and wakes up grumpy, because that is the Hulk’s perpetual mood.
From there, Hulk and Doc Samson (who isn’t as strong as the Hulk, but is still super strong) fight off a bunch of the Leader’s androids. Then Hulk goes after the Leader. The Leader has a gadget that keeps Hulk at bay for a few minutes, but that just makes Hulk madder, which makes him stronger and... well, things don’t end well for the Leader.
This book continues to be a near-perfect Bronze Age Marvel superhero book. So much fun. And bonus — I recently picked up a cheap copy of this issue from a local comic shop back-issue bin, so I got to read it analog!
Five Against the Flying Death!
I remember it being more of a DC thing than a Marvel thing, but Bronze Age comic books would occasionally have a “backup” story. Like say if the book’s main story was twelve pages long, it might be followed by a five-page backup story starring a different character. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about adding some backup material to some of my Marvel Time Warp posts. Starting with this one!
Issue no. 30 of The Invaders (published on April 18, 1978, but set during World War II) continues the story set up in the previous issue, with the Teutonic Knight attacking London with Der Fliegentod, which is basically a large, heavily-armed flying saucer. The cover of this issue (showing a battle involving Captain America, the 1940s Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, a lot of airplanes, and Der Fliegentod) looks really familiar. So I’m now playing yet another round of “Did I have this comic book as a kid?” and wishing I hadn’t gotten rid of my comic book collection years ago.
This is a fun comic book, but there isn’t much to say about the plot — it’s pretty much one big action scene. We do find out that the Teutonic Knight is just using his flying saucer as a distraction while he sends a team of assassins to kill Winston Churchill and an important Allied military commander. But the Invaders save the day, managing to stop the Knight, Der Fliegentod, and the assassins.
Next time — The Man from Atlantis in a land that time forgot!