AUTHOR: PETER DAVID | ARTIST: DALE KEOWN | PUBLISHER: MARVEL | FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
The early ‘90s was a golden age for Marvel Comics. Amazing Spider-Man was red hot with Todd McFarlane at the helm, spinning off into his own title before McFarlane, Liefeld, Lee, Valentino and co departed to launch Image Comics. With that huge talent pool departing, you could be forgiven for thinking Marvel would struggle, but amazingly it prospered, replacing key artists and writers on vital titles and putting great writers together with hotshot artists, and there was no partnership more successful than the team of Peter David and Dale Keown on The Incredible Hulk.
Readers of the time were treated to a jade jaunt through some memorable stories, the pairing of artist and writer bringing iconic stories every month, expanding the cast of supporting characters and marking an era of the comic that fans still remember fondly to this day. Indeed, the Professor Hulk we saw in Avengers: Endgame was influenced by the Keown / David era Hulk and stepping forward a quarter of a century to 2019 we’re presented with a very different Hulk, one facing a crossroads in his life after the tragic death of his beloved Betty. Suicide attempts have failed, the green behemoth always rising just as Bruce pulls the trigger, and we join the issue as Bruce confesses his crimes on a phone call to Betty’s friend Veronica. It’s sombre and takes it’s time, rolling back to the past with recollections of Bruce and Betty’s relationship and her turn into the twisted Harpy.
There are a couple of ‘celebrity’ cameos, one in particular that raises a rare smile as this is certainly a melancholy issue with little of the pop and snap that made their original run so fun and enjoyable. Don’t take that as a criticism, this hits the intended tone plumb in the middle, once again reinforcing the impossible position Bruce Banner finds himself in while still carving a heroic path through the world. How heavy a burden, to carry a nuclear (or should that be a gamma) bomb inside like the Hulk, a character who has always raged but been contained within various versions of the Hulk. The savage Hulk, Mr Fixit, Professor Hulk – all imbued with tremendous power, all vying with Bruce Banner.
Credit to Marvel for including the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, highlighting the very real issues at had in this issue. As part of Marvel’s 80th anniversary (odd, this writer distinctly remembers celebrating the 25th anniversary in 1986, only 33 years ago!) the company are reuniting fan favourite creators to craft new stories and this is one that will sit well alongside that classic run from issue 369 – 398.
