Incredible Hulk in the 1990s
For nearly the entire decade there was only one guy who was writing Incredible Hulk, and that man was Peter David. David’s prolific run on the Incredible Hulk started in the last decade and finished up in 1998. There were a lot of high and low points in this run. Some of them are the product of their era, have aged poorly, or were the result of editorial interference. His run on the book ended abruptly due to editorial mandates. They wanted the Hulk to go one way, and David didn’t want to write those kinds of stories, more on that later…
In 1990, Peter David wrapped up his Countdown story-arc which had the grey Hulk tackle everyone from the Abomination to the Leader, the female Thing, and an all-new foe called Madman. The plot brought the Hulk back under the radar of the rest of the Marvel Universe as the character was believed to have died in Incredible Hulk #345 and spent the last 20 odd issues moonlighting as a mob heavy in Las Vegas. Also returning was Bruce Banner taking back the driver’s seat after the Hulk had hijacked his life. This also saw the return of old supporting cast members like his wife Betty Ross, Doc Samson and Rick Jones. Issue #368 began the long courtship between the Hulk and a clandestine group called the Pantheon, a group whose goals have varied depending on what kind of story David was trying to tell, but — generally speaking — they were trying to make the world a better place.
I guess the one thing you need to take away from Peter David’s run was that he didn’t have any long term plans for the character (by his own admission) and kind of flew by the seat of his pants. Like many writers of the era, he frequently created long-running subplots. Some of them led to a satisfactory conclusion, while others kind of fizzled and died. Joining David through the first time of this journey was the artist Dale Keown who drew almost every issue between issue #369 to 398. Issue #372 started shaking things up a little with the return of the green Hulk, who was last seen in Incredible Hulk #323. This led to a personality crisis for the character as Bruce Banner’s mind became a battleground for dominance between the green and grey Hulks. In the middle of all of this, Betty and Bruce were reunited in issue #373. Eventually, the conflict between the Hulks resulted in Doc Samson doing some heavy-duty psychology, the end result was merging all of Banner’s personalities together changing him into a new “smart” Hulk that wouldn’t revert back to human form.. At least for a while, more on that later.
Issues #378 and 381 had the Hulk finally meet the Pantheon and their mysterious leader Agamemnon and is convinced into joining the group. However, this alliance was not one without turbulence, particularly since the clairvoyant of the team kept on foretelling how the Hulk was going to murder everyone. The problem with the Pantheon was that there were at least 10 main team members. Developing these characters was very low since David was also juggling the Hulk’s other interpersonal relationships. The Pantheon was basically a vehicle that allowed Peter David writer stories that were a commentary on social and political issues that were topical at the time.
But before we get into anything involving the Pantheon, the Hulk title took three issues to do a crossover with the Infinity War event. This was another issue with David’s run, often his stories were sidelined due to the editorial mandate to have crossover issues with major events. Does it add to the actual event? Not really. Most of the story involves a miniature Hulk being the “voice of god” to the Abomination, who had kidnapped his ex-wife, and the rest of the cast dealing with half of life on Earth being snuffed out of existence for a little bit (picture the long wait between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: End Game, only instead of waiting a whole year, the whole thing gets resolved the following month.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh right, the social and political commentary that was being made in the Hulk comic. Prior to this, the Hulk usually just smashed shit and the only kind of commentary that was being made was the equivalent to a wet fart, or Jim Shooter having a fever dream about how much of a shithole New York was in the 1970s. So admittedly, this was an untapped direction for the Hulk. On the other hand, David had to create a team of characters that you don’t care about to enlist the Hulk to stick his big swinging gamma-spawned dick all over the socio-political landscape. For example, issues #386-387 was a two-part story where the Hulk teams up with Sabra, an Israeli superhero. It involved stopping a child with mind control powers that was at risk of becoming the next Hitler. So it was saying something about the state of Israel at the time I guess? Another example is issues #390-392, which featured a three-part story arc titled “War & Pieces” which also guest-starred and crossed over with X-Factor, another book that David was writing. This story had the Hulk and the Pantheon trying to oust a Middle Eastern dictator named Faroq Dahn, who despite being a tyrant, was an ally of the United States. Remember, this was during the pre-9/11 days when the US government finger fucked the Middle East without thinking of the repercussions until some pissed off terrorists flew some planes into some buildings (you might have heard of it). This story arc wasn’t quite so deep as that, but it certainly had a lot to say about US relations with the Middle East and the folly of providing arms to a despot.
Another big issue that David tackled in the Hulk was the AIDS epidemic. During his writing tenure, the epidemic was finally being addressed by the government after years of ignoring it because it was a “gay disease”. Issue #388 kicked it all off with a story that reveals that Jim Wilson, a former Hulk sidekick, was dying of AIDS. The intent of the story was to point out how ridiculously ignorant people were of the illness and the larger ramifications that anyone could get infected, even someone you love. Jim later died of the illness in Incredible Hulk #420. In that issue, Jim begs the Hulk to give him a blood transfusion to save his life, but the Hulk can’t bring himself to do it for fear of what a gamma spawned mutation could create out of Jim. I wrote an article about his plotline in an old Fandom article if you feel like Googling it. Long story short, these stories have not aged very well. It’s a combination of the Comic Book Authority Code limiting what they could write, and attitudes at the time. It all leads to some cringe-worthy interactions between Rick Jones and some people suffering from AIDS. Jones gets really weirded out about gay people in these stories. Which is something that was a thing when these stories were written. Issue #411 has a scene where Betty Ross gets annoyed with Red Ribbon campaigns and wishes scientists could invent a cure already (she didn’t end the sentence with GAWD, but it might as well have) It’s a funny statement for a writer to be making since the aforementioned Hulk #420 featured a Red Ribbon on the cover. I’d really like to think that Peter David was merely demonstrating how ignorant people were by having Betty say some utterly stupid things a few issues privately. What really sours the whole plot and makes the Hulk and all his allies look like real assholes are the fact that a few issues prior. In Incredible Hulk #381, Agamemnon reveals that his scientist was close to developing a cure for AIDS. Even if they hadn’t developed a cure, they probably found some way to mitigate the symptoms because that’s how science works. All I’m saying is one line a misplaced dialogue a few issues before a heavy subject like this really proves that David didn’t think ahead too much when writing this book, but I digress.
Issue #393 was the big 30th-anniversary special, which features a story where the Hulk confronts Ivan Drenkov, the man who was responsible for Bruce Banner being caught in the gamma bomb blast that turned him into the Hulk. He takes it pretty well actually.
An example of Peter David not seeing an idea to fruition was the introduction of the villain Frost in Incredible Hulk #396-397, it was later revealed in Hulk #437 that he was the member of a group called the Headshop a group of superhumans who all had head themed superpowers. They get involved in the Hulk’s life because they are all victims of the Leader and want revenge, but they never actually get around to getting it and the characters disappear.
Another example of a Peter David plotline fizzling out was the introduction of a group calling themselves the New World Order in Incredible Hulk #403-404. It starts off as being an organization fronted by the Red Skull and other superpowered members of organized crime. It seems like a massive threat. However, they kind of fizzle out when they appear again in Hulk #456 when they hire the Absorbing Man and Juggernaut to take down the Hulk. After they are defeated by the Hulk, the NWO (now diminished to being a number of shadowy figures) skip out on paying their minions for going up against the Hulk.
Getting back on track… Incredible Hulk #397-400 featured a four-part arc titled “Ghosts of the Past” which featured the unnecessary murder of Marlo Chandler. By this point, Marlo had gone from being the grey Hulk’s girlfriend to dating Rick Jones. During this arc, David introduced a woman named Jackie Shorr who claimed to be the long lost mother of Rick Jones. Rick totally falls for this and the woman turns out to be an obsessed psycho who murders Marlo. In issue #400, after failing to find a hero who could bring her back to life, Rick goes to the Leader who succeeds. Rick Jones was making proverbial deals with the devil before Spider-Man made it the most maligned storyline in comics. At least, in this case, Rick went with the hot girlfriend instead of the withered aunt with one foot in the grave. It was also a confusing arc in that it was used for the Leader to bring back Thaddeus Ross, only to have him killed again in a battle with the Hulk. Don’t worry though, like many other characters in a Hulk comic, the death of General Ross doesn’t stick, and makes less sense than killing off the character.
Another interesting addition to Peter David’s run was Incredible Hulk #412. Not just because it guest stars She-Hulk, but also because Peter David tried to explain that She-Hulk’s “breaking the fourth wall” shtick (which was commonplace in her title Sensational She-Hulk) was maybe because she was actually kind of crazy. However, after the suggestion, it’s never brought up again. The next few issues were part of a six-part story called the Troyjan War, which featured the Hulk and the Pantheon fighting off alien invaders called the — you guessed it — Troyjans. It also features a team-up with the Starjammers, because why not? More on the Troyjens later.
Issues #417-418 were devoted to the wedding of Rick Jones and Marlo Chandler, and the affair that is turned into a free for all of heroes and villains thanks to the Impossible Man — for some reason — interfering with the invitations. My only problem with this story is that there is no logical reason for the Impossible Man to interact with Rick Jones at all as the two characters are so far removed, but then again, nothing the Impossible Man does make much sense. Even then, the story is particularly odd because a lot of the guests that attend the actual wedding are not characters that have no connection to Jones whatsoever. While Rick is well known for the community, I don’t think there would be much reason why characters like Drax the Destroy, X-Factor’s Strongman, or Alpha Flight’s Northstar would care enough to show up. I guess it gave artist Gary Frank a chance to draw a bunch of different characters. It’s worth a read if you ever wanted to see Captain America bashfully look away from a porno movie. What hasn’t aged very well is the reaction of the various heroes who realize that the adult film that is procured for RIck’s bachelor party just happens to star his future bride. Everyone acts mortified that this was something horrible happening to Rick.
By this point, the Pantheon was being led by the Hulk when Agamenon abruptly quit the group. In the Myth Conceptions arc (Hulk #421-423) and Fall of the Pantheon (Hulk #424-425) it was revealed the Agamenon was something of a dick who has been messing with everyone for, reasons? Yeah, it’s not quite clear and the character was “killed off”, but that didn’t stick either. The Pantheon still stuck around like a lingering smell, adding nothing much to stories except for filling space. An interesting twist in all of this was Incredible Hulk #425 which had the Hulk get so angry that he transformed into a savage version of Bruce Banner. It was an interesting take on the whole Banner/Hulk dynamic, having an intelligent Hulk who has to keep his temper in check or face turning into a 98 pound lunatic. That was until issue #437 when the savage Bruce Banner stops a grenade with his face. The shrapnel in his skull would kill the Hulk if he ever turned into Banner, but it was also driving the Hulk crazy. The Hulk’s solution? Taking his wife and moving to Florida. Which was kind of an odd choice, but whatever? This period of Hulk history was rendered mostly by Liam Sharpe and is very dark and moody.
David’s storytelling was interfered with again when the Incredible Hulk was folded into Marvel’s “Edge” imprint. Marvel Edge was a precursor to it’s more popular Marvel Knight’s imprint. It featured mostly street-level characters or “edgy” characters, like the Punisher. However, Marvel Edge was created in the 90s so it contained the most obnoxious 90s tropes you can imagine. The inclusion of Hulk to this imprint is an odd choice because it forced Peter David to write a story about why the Hulk would care about, let alone, get involved in the hunt for the Punisher during the Over the Edge event, which ends with the alleged death of Nick Fury (Fury doesn’t die for real, obviously) Odder still, Incredible Hulk #434 the comic they chose to publish Nick Fury’s funeral. Another odd choice since the Hulk never really had much connection with Nick Fury. Sure he clashed with SHIELD a lot in the last 30+ years of stories, but he had no real connection to Fury himself. Since there wasn’t an actual SHIELD story being published at the time, I suppose a Nick Fury funeral had to be printed somewhere, however, it would have made more sense publishing in the pages of Captain America, or Wolverine, at least a character who had regular interactions with Fury.
Issue #436 through 440 featured a major story titled “Ghosts of Future”, which was playing off the idea that the Hulk would eventually become the Maestro, the future version of the Hulk that was featured in the Future Imperfect limited series. It also featured the return of the Leader, who up to this point was believed to have died in issue #400, but of course, he cheated death. The one thing that really hurts this story was a change in artist. The next handful of issues were drawn by Angel Medina, whose stylistic choices for this Hulk was very off-putting to me. Overly muscular characters and just a lot of bizarre body proportions. His later work on Spawn and Spider-Man was much better by comparison.
Things were derailed again due to the Onslaught event and Heroes Reborn. In the former storyline, the Hulk punches Onslaught so hard the blast causes Bruce Banner and the Hulk to separate. When all the heroes sacrifice themselves, Banner joins them leaving the Hulk behind on a world without heroes. Kind of an irresponsible thing, particularly since Banner ends up turning himself into the Hulk on the Heroes Reborn world (We won’t get into that there). However, instead of doing another the usual trope where a Hulk without Banner is a brainless monster, David presented a reasonably intelligent Hulk that was bereft of Banner’s morality. Thankfully, Angel Medina was replaced with artist Mike Deodado, Jr. someone who could render the Hulk without making him look stupid. Issue #449 is notable during this period since it introduced the Thunderbolts, a supposedly new team of super-heroes that are actually super-villains in disguise. You wouldn’t know it from reading this issue of the Hulk though since this set up wasn’t revealed until the first issue of the Thunderbolt’s own title, but still… Issue #450 was a sign that the Heroes Reborn event was a failure as it has Doctor Strange and the Hulk traveling to Franklin Richards’ pocket dimension and discovering everyone who sacrificed themselves during the battle with Onslaught were still alive.
Subsequent issues had the Hulk take over an island on the Florida Keys only to have to face a Hulk from an alternate future who warns the Hulk that he is shifting into Maestro territory and that there are other options for him to pursue. Issue #454 had artist duties switch over to Adam Kurburt, who did some stellar work in this book. He would do most of the art duties on Hulk until the end of Peter David’s run on the book. Issues #454-457 was an arc that saw the Hulk battle Wolverine, then the rest of the X-Men then gets kidnapped by Apocalypse and turned into his horseman Death. This takes the Hulk closer to becoming the Mastro. He even cripples Rick Jones. Shit is starting to get real in other words. However, I think David was trying to wrap up whatever remaining plots he had left. This was the same arc that revealed the New World Order was a flash-in-the-pan organization. However, some of the status quo was being restored. In this arc, the shrapnel in the Hulk’s brain was removed so that when Bruce Banner has merged with him again things went back to the status quo of angry Banner = sort of savage Hulk. Issue #461 saw the return of General Ross, alive and well in the middle of an alien invasion. Issue #464 reveals that these same aliens were responsible for bringing General Ross back to life, because of reasons?
The final arc that David would write for the book was Hulk #466-467, which saw the Abomination kill Betty Ross. It was a hear wrenching two-parter that was utterly diminished by the fact that they had Joe Casey go in and write a one-page epilogue that shows General Ross putting Betty’s body in cryostorage so they can revive her when they can find a cure for death by radiation poisoning. It took them nearly a decade to bounce Betty back into the Hulk books, which completely diminishes the impact of the story here, especially since they had Joe Casey pull a hatchet job on David’s final issue, it was the equivalent of giving the Mona Lisa a Dirty Sanchez .
Speaking of Joe Casey, he took over as writer for the series and the title fucking tanked hard. It’s not a surprise considering the bullshit he was writing. Which was a “back to basics” Hulk smash this and that stuff that was trite and boring 20 years prior? Like issues #470-471, which decided that a Hulk story could only be interesting if it was centered around the Clown from the Circus of Crime. A normal crook in greasepaint, trying to outsmart the Hulk is just downright boring. The title was canceled by issue #474.
The editorial team then decided that they could save the Hulk by doing a reboot. At the time, John Byrne was being given all the plum assignments. He arguably did a successful relaunch of all the Spider-Man books so it was only natural that they picked Byrne to do it. The series was rebooted and simply titled “Hulk”, which is accurate because there is nothing incredible about the steaming pile of horseshit that they put out on a monthly basis. I usually have a lot of praise for John Byrne as both a writer and an artist, but mostly an artist. The first 4 issues were some needlessly complicated piece of drek about Tyrannus taking possession of the Hulk, or transferring the Hulk’s gamma powers into one of his Tyrannoids, or whatever. It was disjointed nonsense for the most part. At the time, Byrne was experimenting with telling a story that shifted backward and forward in time, or stories that were told from two different perspectives across different issues. If he did this for a single issue (like he did on a few occasions during his Fantastic Four run) it worked well, but doing massive arcs just made the whole damn thing a fucking gong show. There are some right ways to tell stories that shift between two points of history, or tells the same story from different perspectives, but not everyone is a Brian Michael Bendis, and John Byrne is no Brian Michael Bendis. Ask people today and a lot of them would say even BMB is not BMB anymore, but I digress. After a wretched two-part arc about plant people worshiping a massive flower, Byrne was pulled from the book. What followed was a Erik Larson yarn about the Hulk fighting Wolverine (but it wasn’t the real Wolverine, but a Skrull —- yeah I’m not explaining that here) and a Jerry Ordway/Ron Garney story where the Thing fights the Hulk. So not exactly your most revolutionary Hulk stories is what I’m saying. Just a lot of the boring same-old-same-old.
In the following decade, the title takes back the word Incredible but it will still be a rough ride before it lives up to that colorful adjective again.