The Gentleman’s Name Is Hulk
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL — Issue no. 12, May 1978
Book: The Amazing Spider-Man Annual
Issue No.: 12
Published: May 2, 1978
Title: “The Gentleman’s Name is Hulk” (reprint of Amazing Spider-Man nos. 119 and 120 from 1973)
Cover Price: 60¢
Well look at that — it’s my first Marvel Time Warp annual! As the name implies, a comic book annual is a once-per-year event. I’m not sure what the standard for a Marvel annual was in 1978, but this one is a double-length book reprinting a two-issue Spidey story from 1973. Were all annuals of this era reprints? My suspicion (based in part on some vague recollections of the few annuals I read back in the day) is they were not, but I will hopefully find out as I continue reading Marvel’s 1978 output.
I did a quick check of this book against Amazing Spider-Man nos. 119 and 120, and it’s not quite a page-for-page reprint. The main difference I noticed is it opens with a new page (and it’s not a splash page) that replaces the first six pages of Amazing no. 119. And it drops the splash page from Amazing no. 120 since that part of the story happens mid-issue in this book.
The cover of this annual hypes the book as “the classic confrontation between Marvel’s two tv sensations... !” And Hulk’s TV show, The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, arguably was a sensation — it ran for five years and 82 episodes starting in 1977, and it gave us the iconic line, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” Spidey’s TV show was, unfortunately, less of sensation. Only fourteen episodes of The Amazing Spider-Man were made, and they aired sporadically in 1977, 1978, and 1979.
I was a huge Spider-Man fan at the time, and, living in rural Alabama, I only had four channels of TV to choose from (no cable — oh the humanity!). The fact that I didn’t watch every episode of the Spider-Man television show is a testament to what a poor job the network did promoting it. It also didn’t help that Spider-Man aired locally on CBS channel 42, a UHF station that often didn’t come through as clearly as our ABC, NBC, and PBS VHF channels. As I type this in 2022, when most Americans have access to hundreds of television channels (via cable and satellite) and thousands of on-demand shows and movies (via Netflix and other streaming services), I am reminded yet again of how much the world has changed in the last 40 years. Heck, my parents, who still live in rural Alabama, recently got broadband, and they’ve had satellite TV for years now.
Given the current popularity of superhero movies and shows, it’s crazy to me that the 1977 Spidey television series is still not available via any official outlet (though you can easily find bootleg episodes on YouTube). It is admittedly not the greatest TV show, but it’s an interesting pop culture relic of the 1970s, and some of the show’s stunts and special effects are pretty great.
So what’s going on in this actual comic book, Amazing Spider-Man Annual no. 12? Spider-Man’s alter ego Peter Parker is broke, as usual, and he’s trying to figure out a way to get to Canada to visit Jean Pierre Rimbaud (who apparently has some info about Peter’s Aunt May that couldn’t be disclosed over the phone). Peter sees that Hulk is rampaging in Canada and uses that as an excuse to get the newspaper he works for (The Daily Bugle) to send him to Canada to cover the Hulk story.
Spider-Man gets to Canada and quickly gets caught up in a small-scale war between the Hulk and the Canadian military (led by Hulk nemesis General “Thunderbolt” Ross who is visiting from the U.S.). There’s a lot of action, but it ends anti-climatically with the Hulk doing his usual “I hate you guys, I’m outta here” and leaping out of sight in a single bound.
And Peter never gets the Aunt May info from Rimbaud — Rimbaud is about to spill the beans to Pete when a goon working for Doctor Octopus shoots Rimbaud in the back and kills him! Dang, but that is cold. Hopefully Pete at least got some good photos of the Spider-Man/Hulk fight to sell to The Daily Bugle.
Next time — I’ll be back Tuesday with the Star-Lord of 1978!