Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Re-Reads (Now Reading: Swamp Thing: 1971 through 1985)

It's hard for me to compare anyone or anything to Moore's best. He's probably the best writer ever to script a comic. There's just a sheer artistry to his work that transcends the medium.

PAD, at his best, is an outstanding writer with a knack particularly for reinventing tired characters and concepts, giving his cast real humanity for the audience to care what happens to them and injecting humor in a way that feels natural. I'd say he's a rung or two behind Moore, but then again, most writers are. (PAD's a terrific novelist as well, btw. I've read a number of his books, and they are great reads!)

But I honestly don't think anyone would dispute his Hulk run as being the best on the character and among the best on any ongoing comic. I think it's clearly PAD's personal best, as well. This is despite the fact that I feel it tailed off considerably toward the end, to the point where i actually dropped the book for a while just before the end.

Englehart wrote the Hulk, too?!?! The man could clearly do NO wrong!!! Everything I've read of his so far from the '70s proves your point. Just a week ago I completed reading the first half of his run on Doc Strange...

Agreed 100%.



I've been catching up with PAD's prose these last couple years. I particularly love the Star Trek: New Frontier series.



Yeah. Blasted mid-90s Marvel editorial restructuring.

I'm gonna see it through to the bitter end, though, because I think it did start to get back on its feet when Adam Kubert came on board.



Unfortunately, Englehart only wrote the Hulk for a little less than a year; Marvel's then-EiC, Roy Thomas, fired him off the Hulk for reasons which remain unclear.

LOVE Englehart's Dr. Strange, BTW, and I wish he'd been able to complete the time-travel arc.

Incredible Hulk #333 (July 1987)

SYNOPSIS: On the run, the Hulk unwittingly helps a small-town battered wife get revenge on her husband, who is also the sheriff. Meanwhile, Rick returns to Gamma Base, and Betty reunites with Ramon.

REVIEW: This one's main story is somewhat reminiscent of the old Hulk TV show, with the added twist of PAD's dark, cynical view of humanity which often breaks through his trademark humor. At the end, the wife accidentally shoots her abusive husband dead, and the townspeople have already given into the mob mentality. The thuggish Grey Hulk takes this as proof that he's right to regard humanity with contempt. Nobody wins. In the hands of a lesser writer than PAD, this would just be a downer of a story. In PAD's hands, it works.

Incredible Hulk #334 (August 1987)

SYNOPSIS: Bruce tries to reconcile with Betty, only to transform into the Hulk at the worst possible time. The Hulk also confronts a Gamma-irradiated zombie named Half-Life, who turns out, like the Hulk, to have been affected by a Gamma-bomb test.

REVIEW: Yep, after 25 years, it's finally confirmed that the United States government kept on manufacturing, testing, and, eventually stock-piling, Gamma-bombs. Clever PAD, no loose end gets by him. Also lots of great character bits, and the horror-movie-flavored tragicomedy of Half-Life.

Incredible Hulk #335 (September 1987)

SYNOPSIS: A supernatural serial killer manifests itself in our reality through the corrupted soul of a socially inept, horror-movie obsessed young man with a dead-end job at a gas station. The Hulk reluctantly dispenses his own brand of rough justice.

REVIEW: A disappointing fill-in where, unusually for PAD, the story is too confusing to engage, while guest artist John Ridgway, who has also done estimable work on titles like Hellblazer, seems to have been editorially micro-managed to no one's satisfaction.

Incredible Hulk #336 (October 1987)

SYNOPSIS: Quartermain is under pressure from the SHIELD council, who have decided that Banner is expendable. Meanwhile, the Hulk's wandering have taken him to Sparta, Illionis, where a citizen mistakes him for a mutant and reports him to X-Factor. Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Iceman fly to the Midwest to confront the Hulk, and though they are surprised by his unreconstructed viciousness, they manage to subdue him. X-Factor then reluctantly agrees to bring him to Gamma Base.

REVIEW: A return to form, at least on the writing front, because McFarlane's art still has some awkward moments. PAD has been a fan of the original X-Men from the very beginning, back in the days when it was Marvel's worst-selling title, so it's easy to tell that he's having a great time writing Scott, Jean, and Bobby. There's also a cameo by their protege, Skids, whom I've always liked. Some great dialogue, especially this bon mot from the Hulk: "You still think I'm that cuddly monster who loved baked beans and puppy dogs. He's DEAD, Cyclops! I'M here now!"

Incredible Hulk #337 (November 1987)

SYNOPSIS: When X-Factor delivers Hulk to Gamma Base, the result is a free-for-all, climaxing with a rogue Quartermain's deliberate destruction of the base. Bruce, Rick, X-Factor, Hideko, and Martel escape the carnage with Quartermain, while Doc Samson barely survives to declare, "What a waste." Meanwhile, Betty, who was accidentally injured when Bruce transformed into the Hulk in her presence, leaves the hospital with Ramon.

REVIEW: A transitional issue, with the destruction of Gamma Base and Hideko and Martel's dignified exit from the book; Doc Samson won't be seen again for quite a while, which is a bit of a shame because PAD writes him so well. This is also the first issue to credit Tom DeFalco as Editor-in-Chief, something I thought I'd note because I think DeFalco gets a bad rap. Sure, he made some mistakes, but that's impossible for an EiC not to do, and his 1987-1994 tenure is my personal Golden Age of Marvel, with PAD's Hulk as the crown jewel.

Incredible Hulk #338 (December 1987)

SYNOPSIS: Bruce, Rick, and Quartermain's search for the bombs and for Betty hits a snag when a deadly alien empath named Mercy senses that Bruce wants to die, and won't let anything get in her way. The Hulk appears to destroy her, but she reappears elsewhere at the end. Meanwhile, the Leader telepathically influences a politician.

REVIEW: Another largely psychological, character-driven piece adding layers of depth and complexity to both Banner and the Hulk. Also a darkly funny cameo by Batman's butler, Alfred (of course, to prevent copyright infringement, it's not outright stated.)

Incredible Hulk #339 (January 1988)

SYNOPSIS: PAD ties up a loose end from his Spidey run about a pyrokinetic grade-school-age boy who accidentally killed his abusive father and was taken into SHIELD custody. When Bruce, Rick, and Quartermain alight at a SHIELD safehouse, it happens to be the one where the kid is. Much madness ensues. Meanwhile, Betty sneaks out of hers and Ramon's hotel room, and the Leader influences a U.S. Army General.

REVIEW: This is a couple of firsts for PAD: The first time he intertwines a book he's writing with a plot thread from another book he's written, and the first time he overtly references Incredible Hulk #312, Bill Mantlo's next-to-last issue, in which we discover that Bruce's father was abusive to both him and his mother (rumors abound that Mantlo and the Hulk's then-editor, Carl Potts, ripped off a never-published Hulk story that Barry Windsor-Smith had in the planning stages at that time. Mantlo, sadly, has been in a coma going on a quarter-century, and cannot confirm or deny.) This will pay considerable creative dividends down the road.

Incredible Hulk #340 (February 1988)

SYNOPSIS: While a solitary Betty ponders her situation, the Hulk confronts Wolverine, who has just landed in Dallas with the rest of the X-Men. Quartermain and Rick break up the fight with help from a Great Big SHIELD Gun, and Hulk and Wolverine return to their separate pursuits. And the Leader finds out the location of the Gamma bombs.

REVIEW: This issue was the turning point, sales-wise, for the book. How could it fail, what with a Hulk/Wolverine battle and a cameo by the X-Men? Plus McFarlane finally learning how to properly combine dynamics with coherent storytelling, and doing his own inking to boot? Although, according to PAD, retailers ordered lots more copies of this issue, but then cut back to previous numbers; even so, enough readers who had been previously ignoring the Hulk stayed aboard so that sales gradually climbed to acceptable levels.

I love the way PAD writes Wolverine, with all the pseudo-philosophical, pseudo-Zen B.S. falling away in the presence of the Hulk, proving that Wolverine remains, at his core, a kill-happy nutcase. Whether you love or hate Wolverine, it works! He also writes the other X-Men well -- Dazzler's quip, "If we die in Dallas, maybe it'll be a dream and we'll come back to life in somebody's shower," almost makes me actually like her. Almost.

The X-Men in Dallas. Wasn't that where ...quickly nips to a Wiki page and...oh, I was reading the X-Men then.

It (The X-Men one) was a poor, cobbled together story. At the time I hadn't known what Claremont's run was supposed to be.

I remember the cover to this Hulk issue. Not so much because of the Wolverine appearance (actually, it's a decent cover even as it grabs in X-readers), but because I think it was getting some positive press. Or maybe it was that the price of Mcfarlane back issues went through the roof later on...

I love the Outback X-Men era. That's when I got into the team!

Sorry, Indy, but I agree with Thoth on this one. I think Claremont was already bad by the time of the Dallas story, and that it only got worse from there.

Conversely, I think that the Dallas story's coda, the Excalibur: The Sword Is Drawn special was a masterpiece, and that it should have been Claremont's final word on mutants.

I felt like Claremont was really experimenting and trying something new with the team during this era and wasn't play it safe, making for some interesting stories. My fanboy love of Havok might make me biased towards this era though.

I have to say, I did continue reading it into the 250s. Silvestri's art probably added a lot to it. However, the Brood story and particularly the Genoshan one stand out.

Of course, none of those issues had the Hulk in them that I recall

Many issues from now (390-392 to be exact), the Hulk will cross over with X-Factor. PAD was writing both books at the time.

Incredible Hulk #341 (March 1988)

SYNOPSIS: The Hulk, Rick, and Quartermain stop at the farm owned by Quartermain's brother, a computer whiz whom they want to help them break into government files and learn the location of the Gamma bombs. Quartermain's brother only agrees on the condition that the Hulk protect him and his family from the Man-Bull, who is on the loose in the vicinity. Meanwhile, the Leader telepathically enthralls LaRoquette and Saunders.

REVIEW: The Hulk sees his old, dull-witted, savage, grammar-deficient self in the Man-Bull, and he doesn't like it one bit. By the end, he almost pities the Man-Bull, declaring that the mob of farmers would be more merciful in killing the weeping, self-pitying Man-Bull than in letting him live. Though the issue moves the subplots along, it feels a bit redundant of things we've seen done better in previous PAD Hulk issues. It is, however, the first use of the Hulk's one-fingered knockout punch, an amusing device PAD will use again in the future.

Incredible Hulk #342 (April 1988)

SYNOPSIS: Half-Life returns, now working for the Leader. While Quartermain's brother breaks into government files, the Hulk cleverly defeats Half-Life by making him see that he can never be normal again, causing him to suicidally self-combust. Meanwhile, the Leader's androids retrieve Betty, LaRoquette, and Saunders, and the Leader discovers that Betty is pregnant with Banner/Hulk's child.

REVIEW: The Leader amusingly shows us how he's a cut above the other super-villains by RECORDING his lengthy explanation of his master plan to the Hulk, instead of waiting until they're face-to-face. Otherwise, this issue, much like the previous one, feels like it's spinning its wheels, delaying the big finish a little too long. But the big finish (coming up in 345) is well worth the wait.

Incredible Hulk #343 (May 1988)

SYNOPSIS: The Leader allows Betty to escape, but sends his androids in pursuit, the better to delay the Hulk and company, while he sends LaRoquette and Saunders -- whom he has transformed into his new goons, Rock & Redeemer -- to steal one of the gamma bombs.

REVIEW: An improvement over the last couple issues. The backstories given to LaRoquette and Saunders are interesting, while McFarlane does a good job with the Hulk-versus-androids action sequence.

Incredible Hulk #344 (June 1988)

SYNOPSIS: While the Hulk and Betty (as opposed to Bruce and Betty) have their very first heart-to-heart conversation, Rock & Redeemer steal a gamma bomb, leaving much death and destruction in their wake.

REVIEW: PAD is the rare comic book writer who is equally great at both action and characterization, but while the villains' attack on a military base is thrilling, it's the brilliantly written conversation between the Hulk and Betty that is the true heart and soul of the issue. For the first time in her existence, Betty starts to become a fully-rounded character, while the Hulk continues to show more and more shades of grey (no pun intended) as the line between Hulk and Bruce blurs more and more. Also worth mentioning is the one-panel cameo by the Troyjans, an alien race who won't debut for many, many issues, proof that, unlike some writers, PAD almost always gives a payoff to what appear to be random loose ends.

Incredible Hulk #345 (July 1988)

SYNOPSIS: In a dreary small town in Arizona, various people -- a troubled priest, an embittered lawyer, a spunky teenage couple, and a morose encyclopedia salesman -- go about their drab lives, never suspecting that the Leader has planted the Gamma Bomb in an abandoned factory. The Hulk deliberately strands his companions in the desert and goes into the factory alone, where he has a confrontation with Rock & Redeemer in which Rock accidentally kills Redeemer and nearly kills the Hulk as well. The Leader comes and retrieves his stooges via teleportation tech, leaving the Hulk to try to dismantle the bomb. Then the Leader surrounds the town with a force field...and detonates the bomb way ahead of the countdown.

REVIEW: Simply awesome. And what a cliffhanger. I'll bet that in those pre-death-as-cheap-stunt days, readers might have thought that the Hulk really did die in the explosion. Of course he didn't...although he doesn't appear at all in the next issue. And things only get weirder from there...but I'm getting ahead of myself. See you all next weekend with the review of the issue-length epilogue, followed by a startling new status quo.

Incredible Hulk #346 (August 1988)

SYNOPSIS: After dealing with the repercussions of the Gamma bomb explosion and the resultant media coverage, Rick and Betty mourn the Hulk and prepare to move on with their lives.

REVIEW: An whole issue that's an extended epilogue to a long storyline is a dubious proposal, unless the writer is as good with characterization and dialogue as PAD is. This issue also marks the end of both McFarlane's artistic stint on the Hulk (he only did layouts here, with Erik Larsen doing pencils) as well as Harras's editing stint on the Hulk. The new editor would be Bobbie Chase, who would edit all of the remaining 121 issues (!) of PAD's run, and who PAD has credited with allowing him to stretch his wings and experiment fruitfully with the Hulk. Unfortunately, the next phase of PAD's run would be mostly drawn by Jeff Purves, a sword & sorcery fan ill-suited to the more down-to-earth direction the book took over the next couple years. So I'm going to try to get through the following twenty or so issues as quickly as possible, because I think the real meat of the run is when Dale Keown replaced Purves and took PAD's already excellent scripts from the atmosphere to the stratosphere.

Incredible Hulk 347-350 (September-December 1988)

Three months after the Gamma Bomb explosion, we learn that the Hulk is alive and well, no longer reverting to Bruce Banner, and working as "Mr. Fixit", the chief enforcer for Las Vegas crimelord Michael Berengetti. He also has a new girlfriend, Marlo Chandler, an aerobics instructor who is overjoyed to finally have met a man who is not intimidated by her Amazonian six-foot-plus frame. In these issues, we're treated to punch-ups with the Absorbing Man, Warzone (a group of cyborgs who take the Weekend Warrior ethos to extremes), and the Thing.

Points to PAD for willing to go offbeat, but in re-reading these issues years later, after superhero comics' Dark Night of the Soul, and after reading PAD's magnum opus "Fallen Angel", I get the impression that he had originally wanted to go in a direction that was less Damon Runyon and more film noir (PAD kind of confirmed this when he revealed that Marlo was originally supposed to be a prostitute and that his first choice of city for the Hulk to relocate to was Chicago.) The whole thing just feels a little too sanitized, a little too Comics Code friendly.

It doesn't help that 349 and 350 are crossovers with Web of Spider-Man #44 and Fantastic Four #320, so they're hard to read without having those issues handy, or that McFarlane's replacement, Jeff Purves, has a sketchy line and a sense of layout that ranges from confusing to flat.

In the end, though, these are comics written by PAD in his late-80s/early-to-mid-90s prime, so they're still a cut above the rest, and starting with the next issue, things get much more interesting as we finally learn how the Hulk survived the explosion and how come he's not reverting to Bruce Banner.

Incredible Hulk #351-359 (January-September 1989)

Turns out the Hulk was teleported by a sorcerer named Gorsham to the microscopic world where his late lover, Jarella, came from, and that in the years since he was last there, a religious movement has been fashioned around the legends of the Hulk. Unfortunately, the leader of that movement, the Inquisitor, is a sadistic, torture-loving bastard, and Gorsham wants to use the Hulk to unseat the Inquisitor. They succeed, only for the Hulk to find out that Gorsham coveted the Inquisitor's power, and used the Hulk as a means to an end. As soon as the Hulk served his purpose, he was teleported against his will back to the normal world. This two-part flashback is possibly the high point of the Las Vegas era (PAD says it was the only time that Purves enjoyed working on the book, though the art isn't that much better to my eyes). PAD manages to get in some pointed, if veiled, jabs at organized religion which were quite daring for late 80s Marvel. At the end of #352, Gorsham's spell fades away completely, and the Hulk starts turning back into Bruce Banner during the daytime, which, of course, complicates the Hulk's current mob enforcer gig, as well as his relationship with Marlo. This is all amusing and engaging, but it's not quite top-tier PAD, not even when he brings back Glorian and the Shaper of Worlds, characters introduced in the Bronze Age during the Len Wein era, to tell a story in which Glorian (who has the power to make people's dreams come true) unknowingly forfeits his soul to the devil in exchange for trying to redeem the Hulk. The Hulk reluctantly saves Glorian's soul, more out of spite for the devil than anything, but earns the enmity of the devil (this was originally supposed to be the seed of a future storyarc called the Hell on Earth War, which PAD didn't get to write until the final year of his second run on X-Factor.)

I'm not going to review issue #360, because PAD didn't write it. As it happens, it was written by one of my sometime favorite writers, Bob Harras, but it was produced under the worst kind of circumstances: Marvel's PTB nixed a storyarc PAD planned involving Betty's pregnancy (he wanted her to have the baby), and PAD got so angry he almost quit the book. Although he stayed, he refused to write Betty's miscarriage on principal, so it fell to Harras to play guest writer. Ironically enough, the Hulk was eventually revealed to have fathered children many years (and many editorial reshufflings) later. Don't you love the comics industry? Makes me glad I was never able to break into it.

Incredible Hulk #361-368 (October 1989-April 1990)

PAD spends the first three issues of this block wrapping up loose ends from the Las Vegas era, while setting up the 4-part arc "Countdown", in which a lot of good stuff happens: Doc Samson and the Abomination return, as does the Leader with his Riot Squad, and PAD makes a new addition to the Hulk's rogues gallery: the Leader's brother, Madman, who deliberately exposed himself to Gamma radiation (shades of the Hulk TV show), giving himself super-powers while also worsening his fragile sense of self. There's also a fight between the gray Hulk and She-Thing, with hilariously un-PC quips from the Hulk that only PAD could pull off, and a barroom conversation between the Hulk and a temporarily de-powered Ben Grimm. The only bad thing about Countdown is that Jeff Purves draws the first three installments, and difference between Purves and the young and hungry Dale Keown on the final installment is night and day. Keown's style evokes Alan Davis, as well as his biggest conscious influences, John Byrne and Berni Wrightson, but it is uniquely Keown -- unlike other Gen-X superhero artists, his over-muscled musclemen have a real verisimilitude and suppleness to them. And, unlike previous artists PAD had worked with, Keown was a longtime, hardcore Hulk fan, and it showed from the start. Issue 368 has an interesting story -- the Hulk stows away on a freight train and encounters the erudite Mr. Hyde, who points out some uncomfortable truths before attacking the Hulk -- but is let down by the art; Sam Kieth & Kelley Jones do a murky, confusing job that only hints and what impressive stylists both would become a few years later. Next issue marks the official beginning of the PAD/Keown era of the Hulk, possibly the best the book has ever been. Stay tuned.

I'll cover the beginning of the PAD/Keown era next weekend, but today, having found a large window of free time, I'll be conducting a spur-of-the-moment experiment: trying to re-read all 80 issues of PAD's Supergirl run in seven hours or less. Wish me luck!

Super Luck Fickles

Well, the seven hours ticked by, and I only made it to issue 30.

Guess I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the night!

So far, it's been even better than I remembered. It says a lot of profound and spiritual things without being pretentious or heavy-handed. Like Ostrander's Spectre run, it's neither a "pure" DCU book, nor is it in a Vertigo-esque vein. It's truly sui generis.

Looking for the Kryptonite that sapped your Super-Reading powers!

Incredible Hulk #369 (May 1990)

PLOT: Having found out where Betty is, Bruce has been travelling there. What appears to be an abandoned home in South Carolina turns out to have been badly damaged by a recent hurricane. After initial suspicions, the residents welcome him. Unfortunately, the remaining members of Freedom Force, the government-controlled mutant goon squad, have been sent to capture the Hulk. Much destruction ensues, and the couple who showed Bruce hospitality nearly lose their son in the chaos.

REVIEW: An understated gem of an issue. Kudos to PAD for portraying white Christian American Southerners as sympathetic human beings rather than caricatures. And while there's plenty of patented PAD jokery (Hulk to Pyro: "What does the FF stand for, French Fry?"), the general mood is melancholic. Such is PAD's command of characterization that even a cipher like Crimson Commando comes alive, agonizing over why he's doing what he's doing at his age. And the Hulk's rescue of the boy shows that even an anti-hero can be a genuine hero.

Chronologically, the next issue is Incredible Hulk Annual 16, but I'm going to skip most of the PAD Hulk Annuals, as the ones from 1990 through 1992 were all part of "mini-events" across four annuals each, and don't work at all as stand-alone issues.

Incredible Hulk #370-371 (June-July 1990)

And speaking of intrusive "mini-events", this 2-parter has some witty banter among the Hulk, Namor, and Dr. Strange, but it suffers from being mostly setup for a "mini-event" that won't happen until the 1992 Annuals! So to call it anti-climactic would be an understatement. Ah, but it's ALSO setup for the return of the savage Green Hulk next issue! Stay tuned.