After a combination of stories of varying quality struggling to maintain a cohesive identity, by issue #4 The Incredible Hulk was in a dire need of a hit. This was the time to deliver a definitive story, not only to establish what Hulk was going to be going forward, but also to make it clear to the reader what it is that makes this magazine worth buying in the future. The weird shifts in tone and premise culminating in Rick being able to mind-control the Hulk in issue #3 were making the character hard to latch onto, and there's only so many do-overs one can take before a series starts to feel like just a heap of underdeveloped story ideas rather than a coherent narrative.
Unfortunately, issue #4 doesn't do what it needed to. To its credit, it doesn't ping-pong between styles quite like the first two did, but it's also losing its grasp on the gothic tragedy vibe that was the closest thing to a proper identity so far. This issue, consisting of two separate stories, takes a step towards a more generic landscape of a misunderstood super-hero. There's still potential there, but it's a disappointing departure from what originally felt like a strong atmosphere.
The Incredible Hulk #4:
"The Monster and the Machine! / The Gladiator from Outer Space!"
- Writers: Stan Lee
- Artists: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: September 4, 1962
- Cover Date: November 1962
The story begins in medias res with the Hulk strapped to a massive futuristic machine being operated by Rick Jones. We immediately roll back time to see how we got to this point -- it's a decent enough opening, if a little ineffective due to the series having already taught the reader to not get too accustomed to any specific set of circumstances, so it's hard to sell any upcoming plot turn being that big a deal.
The story proper starts with Betty Ross, who has a picture of Bruce Banner on her nightstand, which is a little creepy considering they haven't been established to be dating at this point. Betty ponders the recent events involving the now missing Banner, the Hulk, and Rick Jones, and concludes that in some way, Rick must be the key to both Banner's disappearance and the Hulk showing up in the first place. The reasoning makes enough sense to be a compelling thread, and I appreciate that it's Betty who figures it out, making her seem competent and smart.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. © Marvel Comics. |
She explains her theory to her father, General "Thunderbolt" Ross, who agrees to order a search for Rick. This is all well and good, except General Ross already used Rick for this same exact purpose in the previous issue; Betty's deduction is ultimately meaningless, because it only leads to a conclusion that was already reached before.
I wasn't against Betty figuring out Rick's importance to begin with -- she wasn't there when her father plotted to use Rick to trap the Hulk and launch him into space, so it's entirely fine that she reached that same conclusion independently. What I wish had resulted from that is a thread of her looking into the matter on her own, and maybe finding out something that her father hadn't. This would have given her agency in the story and made her an engaging character to follow, but here she immediately surrenders her importance as a character to her father for no narrative gain at all.
The military surrounds Rick Jones's home, where Rick is currently hiding the Hulk. He orders the mind-controlled monster to escape, prompting him to burst through the wall and jump high into the air. Why he couldn't at least go through a window rather than destroying half the house is a little unclear -- I'd imagine the demolished wall would raise almost as many questions as finding the Hulk in Rick's home. It also takes a little bit of a suspension of disbelief that the soldiers, already surrounding Rick's home, wouldn't have noticed; there's a throwaway line from one of the military men indicating that he saw "something", but wasn't quite sure. How hard is it to see a massive green man flying into the air after crashing through the wall of a house right in front of you?
At this point, the captions clarify that the Hulk isn't actually flying, he's just jumping so hard it looks like he's flying. That's fine, the flying was ridiculous anyway, but clearly Jack Kirby didn't get the memo, because the art depicts the Hulk obviously in flight -- changing directions mid-air, decreasing altitude and then increasing it again, and so forth. Perhaps Stan Lee only got the feedback (or the spontanious realization) that the flight ability wasn't a good idea after Kirby was already done with the art, who knows.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. © Marvel Comics. |
The Hulk, outside the range of Rick's direct mental commands, regains a measure of self-governance and saves a school bus stuck on a train track. He then crashes a movie production site in a goofy scene that doesn't have much purpose besides some guffaws. All of that is alright for an anthology or a story about a different kind of super-hero, but here it only dismantles the mystique and frightening potential of the character. It feels out of place, and it doesn't even matter in the larger scheme -- none of this makes a difference in the plot, or comes back later in any way.
The Hulk returns to and rescues Rick, who is now arrested by the military. The two fly... uhh, jump back to Banner's secret cave hideout, where we close the loop on the story and arrive at the opening scene of the Hulk strapped to the giant machine. After studying Banner's notes to the best of his ability, Rick activates the machine, and reverts his friend back to his human form, though significantly weakened. Banner laments his uselessness in his current form, and wishes to have the Hulk's strength without losing his intelligence. He informs us there's a miniscule chance of succeeding in achieving that, and after flipping a few switches, he easily does.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. © Marvel Comics. |
This is the part of the book where the narrative actually visibly crumbles. We set up two potentially interesting points of tension: first, Banner is now weaker than ever, bound to a wheelchair, and curses his impotent state; second, there is a way to possibly regain the Hulk's physical strength without losing Banner's intelligence, but it's suggested to be extremely risky.
The fact that both of these conflicts are resolved within a single page of when they were introduced is not only a massive deflation of the dramatic weight of the situation, but honestly kind of a serious narrative mistake, because it tells the reader that you don't really need to care about whatever might threaten these characters. The solution comes so easy with no setup and not even a logic we can follow, which overloads the reader's suspension of disbelief and diminishes any stakes there might have been.
The second story, a direct continuation of this one, opens with a spaceship, suggesting we're getting one of those stories again where an interchangeable alien race causes some trouble and then is sent packing by a heroic Hulk. The alien, who declares itself as something of a gladiator, challenges the Earth's strongest fighter to a duel for the fate of the Earth.
The story throws a delightful curveball, however, as once the Hulk (now in control of his transformations via a handy upgrade to the gamma machine) responds to the challenge, the alien is revealed to actually be a Soviet infiltrator supported by a military squad. Their mission is to capture the Hulk, and even though their plan is absurd and convoluted, it's also sort of hilarious; if it wasn't once again a compromise on the thematic identity of the Hulk and the dramatic tone of the book, I might actually sort of like it.
The Hulk fights off the soldiers and destroys their spaceship, which is revealed to be just a jet fighter in disguise. The US armed forces and the media conclude, for whatever reason, that the Hulk was behind the alien hoax, and are now against him with even more fervor than before.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. © Marvel Comics. |
This could have been a decent downer ending, but it doesn't really mean anything -- the army and the general population already disapproved of the Hulk, and them hating him a bit more now doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference. This kind of conclusion would hit hard if it concluded a story where the Hulk was just barely starting to gain some acceptance, and then a misunderstanding based on prejudice would bring it all crashing down. But here, the Hulk doesn't really lose anything, so it's kind of pointless.
That's really the biggest problem with the Incredible Hulk #4 overall: it doesn't seem to have a purpose, and the story isn't about anything. There's no thematic direction, no character development, and no advancement of the premise, aside from arbitrarily changing the internal logic of the Hulk yet again. The book has the narrative consistency of a story improvised by a pre-teen, and it invites the reader to question why they should invest in any of this.
There are many comic books throughout the decades and probably especially in the Silver Age that make those same mistakes. But the key detail here is that Hulk #4 landed at a time when the series really needed to prove it could be good, and instead it's the biggest mess yet. Rather than being put together into a structure that works, the promising components that were there from the start are just scattering further apart and getting buried in irrelevant nonsense.
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| Art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. © Marvel Comics. |
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