Journey Into Mystery (1952) #85

Trapped By Loki, the God of Mischief!

“Beyond our segment of time and space, there exists Asgard, the citadel of the Norse gods, which is connected to earth by a rainbow bridge called Bifrost!” Oh my! It looks like the character of Thor is going to be joined by other Norse gods. This is exciting, but now I wonder… are they also regular earth people that use silly props to toggle themselves in and out of god form? And, if not, then are they going to explain why only Thor is hindered by this? I sure hope so! (Editor’s note: No. It’s going to take a long time to find out why.)

We see a tree that has imprisoned Loki, the god of mischief. He says he’s been there for ages, and he wants out. The gods condemned him to stay in there until his “plight causes someone to shed a tear!” Heimdall is passing by. If you’re unfamiliar with Heimdall, he’s charged with protecting the Bifrost, and he does this with his extremely acute senses. As he passes by, Loki uses his power of tree to drop a leaf into Heimdall’s eye. His super senses didn’t notice it coming his way. It pokes him in the eye, and a single tear emerges, and since Loki’s plight was to take control of the tree and poke Heimdall in the eye, he is released from his prison. Pretty fortuitous circumstances. Always remember that if you’re going to imprison someone, you give them a way to escape. Otherwise, what’s the point?

This makes him cry? Heimdall’s a bitch.

Now that he’s free, his first order of business is to seek revenge against the man who imprisoned him: Thor! Understandable, really. Loki then thinks about how Thor hasn’t been around for ages and no one knows where he is. People used to gather around his tree and discuss current events. He then thinks about how Thor’s mallet is made from uru, the magic mineral, and how he “established a mental link with it.” What that means is that Loki can now locate the hammer and see where Thor is. Loki sees Thor is on earth and instantly recognizes the planet and is ready to go fuck him up. What a series of fortuitous events!

Loki appears on earth with no people around whatsoever and remarks that he should alter his attire to suit the modern-day clothes. He’s already completely aware of modern-day attire… maybe by watching Thor like a creepy voyeur. He wanders into the middle of the city and decides to create a disturbance the likes of which will call his foe to him! Suddenly, Don Blake hears a ruckus outside, only to find that people have been transformed into negatives! That means that they are turned black and white and posed into super dope dance positions.

I see the robot and YMCA, but I don’t know what dance the first guy is doing.

We see Jane Foster spin around to talk to Don, but he’s already gone! If you’re unaware, he’s the fastest moving cripple in the world. Suddenly Thor shows up. Jane doesn’t really notice that these two things happen in succession. Thor then sees the dancing negatives and says, “If I rotate my hammer fast enough, it will emit anti-matter particles!” Yes. He says that. Don, in just a couple of issues, has mastered his hammer skills to the point where he now understands physics to the point of knowing that anti-matter particles will fix the situation. After saving the dancers, Loki shows himself and challenges Thor to a battle! Of course, he wants to do battle in the air, and Thor, instead of just smacking Loki in the fucking face, decides “I must accept his challenge! I have no other choice!” Okay… that’s not true at all.

Thor spins his hammer so fast that he can now use it like a helicopter blade and begins flying. So yeah… it has that power now. But that’s not even the most amazing part. As he’s flying into the air, Loki has positioned Thor so that while using his hammer in a whirlwind, the reflection of the sun allows Loki to hypnotize him. How fortuitous! Thor is quickly under Loki’s spell, and after ages of spending time imprisoned inside of a tree, Loki decides to enact his final revenge! Does that mean he kills him? Of course not! That’s ridiculous. Instead, he tells Thor to give him his hammer. But even under hypnosis, Thor’s like, “Nah.” Now does Loki kill him? HA! You only wish, fool. Instead, he tricks him into thinking there’s a sea beast! Thor throws his hammer at the imaginary beast, so he’s separated from his hammer! But then, the hammer just comes back. Loki realizes he forgot about that part. So now he creates an image of Thor for Thor and tells Thor to give Thor Thor’s hammer. Thor does! Wow, that Loki is clever!

You know what would get the hammer out of Thor’s hand? Killing him. That’s what.

Loki then tells Thor to go free some animals that are in cages that are nearby for some reason. There’re lions and monkeys in cages like… in the park or something? I have no idea. But while that is happening, some people race to steal Thor’s hammer, which seems like a great idea. But, of course, they can’t lift it. Weak ass bitches. After 60 seconds, if you recall, Thor returns back to wimpy Don Blake if he’s not holding the hammer, which he isn’t currently! And when he transforms, he’s no longer hypnotized! He goes back and touches the hammer again with all kinds of people around, but uses plot armor to force a blinding flash to occur and POOF! he’s back as Thor. Luckily he’s done with being hypnotized altogether, and Loki figures he’s screwed, so he jumps on some pigeons and flies away. Maybe he completely forgot Thor can also fly? I don’t know.

Anyway . . . Thor flies after him and follows him into a crowd of people and then proclaims, “Too many people around! There’s no room to swing my hammer!” Maybe… I don’t know, man… fly into the fucking air?! He only needs to go like 10 feet high. But he chases Loki on foot, but Loki’s just too damned sly. He throws a giant blanket on Thor, which is just too much for the god of thunder. Loki escapes before Thor just blows real hard to get the blanket off. He follows him into the subway and sees him throwing people off the platform with a train coming, so Thor has to save those people. He could just grab them and throw them back onto the platform but chooses instead to lift the rails completely, so the train goes over him. I wonder if it still stopped for the passengers.

Gym bro showing off his bench press skills.

Thor then reaches the surface yet again to see Loki has brought to life “the winged horse of a gasoline sign” and is flying away. Thor still can’t swing his hammer, because there are too many people around, and I guess that whole thing where he raises it high above his head to fly like a helicopter isn’t going to work either, so he has to watch as Loki uses his horse to kick over a sign “like a spoiled child in a fit of anger!” Seriously, what a prick. Thor chases him on foot and then finally reaches a point where he’s not surrounded by people, so he throws…. well, he actually throws some section of pipe. Yeah. Not his hammer. A section of pipe. It’s a big section though. It lands on Loki’s head, and he crashes into some water, and Thor says, “According to legend, Loki’s magic powers are useless in water!” What?! That’s just not true at all. Loki turned himself into fish all the time and swam around in the water. Maybe their Norse legends are different than ours.

Anyway . . . Thor dives into the water and saves the scoundrel. He then says he’s taking him to the Empire State building and he’s keeping him wet, so he can’t use his powers! Once they reach the top of the Empire State building, he ties Loki to his hammer and swings him around and launches his hammer with Loki attached. His hammer then takes Loki to Asgard, drops him off, and then returns. So… uh… okay… I’m gonna go ahead and say that’s a new power. The other Asgardians are shocked at what they see.

Mother fuckers don’t know ROY G BIV in Asgard, I take it

The hammer returns to Thor “just in time!” He says that had it taken another few seconds, and he would have transformed. So his hammer flew to another fucking dimension, politely dropped off Loki, and came back all in about 56 seconds. I don’t know if “travel at the speed of thought” is a new power or not, but we’ll be sure to keep track of the fact that it can move that fast. That’s followed by “Then Don Blake would have been standing here, trying to catch it… a feat he could never perform!” Apparently Thor hasn’t been reading his own comic book, because then he would know that he turns right back into Thor when he touches the hammer, so I don’t know what the fuck he’s on about.

We finally get to see Jane Foster swooning over Thor and Loki doing battle and comparing it to her own dull life, and Don says, “Well, eh — it’s all in your point of view!” Don really comes off like an asshole. I hope Jane finds someone else soon. Then again, she really needs to stick around, because I can never grow tired of seeing a character who’s only purpose is for us to hate her for being shallow, although there’s really nothing wrong with someone who finds attractive people attractive.

Lastly, I leave you with the god of mischief doing some really weird fuckery with pigeons:

Tales to Astonish #35

The Return of the Ant Man!

I bet you’re shocked to see Ant Man returning, considering the last thing he did was pour his serum down the drain. Well what can be made once can be made again, so this issue starts with a recap of the last story and then also has him creating more of the potion. He just decides to hide it really well this time just in case he would ever need them. I bet he never needs them ever. Since his adventures in pure stupidity, he has taken quite an interest in ants and has been studying them nonstop. Female ants are queens, and worker ants are smaller and wingless. Ants also have sense organs and a nervous system! He’s just learning this. He also decides to figure out how they communicate and then creates an entire outfit for when he shrinks to their size, although he has no intention of every using the serum again. But… just in case.

He then somehow gets a government grant and four assistants to help him, but lo and behold, the God damned commies come and interrupt his work. They want his anti-radiation formula! It’s a gas that makes people immune to radioactivity! They threaten to get the information from his assistants, but he tells them they don’t know anything! He’s the only one that knows! But then he tells them to go fuck themselves, and they agree to do just that, telling him they’ll just look around his laboratory for it. Of course, they’re going to blow it up later, so there’s no need to end Henry Pym’s life. Or even tie him up. They just let him wander back to his office, unmolested. Except they don’t realize that he’s mother fucking Ant Man!

What a surprise he would need to use the formula he hid away to never use.

He then says “they’ll be stopped… by a mere rubber band,” which would be impressive, but he continues, “and some thread,” which would still be impressive, but he continues further with, “among other things!” Oh. Okay. So his plan is to defeat them with whatever he needs to use to defeat them. That’s… well, that’s not really all that impressive at all. That’s pretty standard fare, really. Anyway . . . he wraps a rubber band around an ashtray (that’s one of the other things) and puts it on the floor. He shrinks himself then uses the contraption to launch himself up onto the window ledge with perfect aim! He really thought this plan through this time. Oh, except…

“genius” scientist

He didn’t think to open his window beforehand. Luckily, ants are basically microscopic, I guess. He then climbs down a thread to the ground. You would think he had set the thread there, but, no. As he’s climbing down it, he says, “I guessed right… the thread reaches right down to the ground!” There was randomly a thread dangling from his window sill to the ground below. How fortuitous! Then he sees his beloved ant hill. He goes and jumps right in and just kind of hangs out while he tries to figure out how to communicate with them. Not once did he try to perfect this when he had all the opportunity in the world. Probably because he figured he would never need to use it. That’s why he had it.

Big surprise, he figures out how to communicate with the ants perfectly, right away. Except… there’s one worker ant who attacks! Luckily for Henry, he picks the ant right up and tosses him aside like he’s a life-saving lasso. Looks like his new formula shrinks his size but not his strength! The ant returns to bite him, but his costume, made from unstable molecules, keeps the bite from penetrating him! Then one judo blow is all it takes to win the fight. Somehow the ant doesn’t explode upon impact of the full force of a grown man. He’s a bad ass ant, really. The rest of the ants just bend to his will after that.

Henry Pym and his ant army exit the ant hill only to meet… A BEETLE! Henry decides to use his full-size strength! Not to crush the beetle, or anything. That would be preposterous. No! Instead, he digs a hole and uses himself as bait for the beetle, and positions himself so the sunlight glares into the beetle’s eyes and then lures the beetle closer to himself then ducks at the exact right second for the beetle to fall into the hole, and then covers him up! WOW! What a fortuitous turn of events! That’s way better than just flicking him away with your fingers!

That’s some fast thinking! Too bad that ground beetle can dig himself out in like 2 seconds.

Ant Man hops on an ant, and they go riding up the side of the wall where he sees his assistants are tied up. Henry already told the commies they don’t know enough to help them, so he gave them zero reason to leave them alive. But they’re gonna blow the place up anyway, so might as well leave them alive for that fun. What a lucky break! Ant Man and his ant army climb through the unopened window and begin untying the men. Henry tries to speak to them, but nobody can hear him, because he’s so tiny!

Once his assistants are untied, he commands his ants to go right up the pant legs of the villains! This is honestly his best plan yet, because an army of ants running up anyone’s leg is going to freak them right the fuck out. And that’s just what happens. Why he drops his gun, I’m not sure, but I could honestly believe that would happen. Ants are fucking icky. Speaking of icky, he has honey ants clog up the gun. If you’re unfamiliar with honey ants, they gorge themselves with honey and then let other ants eat that honey out of their anus. Yes, I’m serious.

Just shoot all the ants!

The assistants then get up and beat the shit out of the red bastards, and then they call the police. Hank scurries back to his laboratory and returns to normal size. He changes his clothes, and nobody wonders where he was the entire time.

Lastly, I leave you with Henry Pym taking a nice, hot growth-serum bath:

Fantastic Four #6

Captives of the Deadly Duo! 

We begin this issue with the Human Torch flying around, and people are excited about it, which is the opposite of the first time he did it. Someone’s like, “We can’t be certain… not from this distance! It may just be some natural phenomenon!” I’d like to shit on him for saying that about a giant streak of flame weaving around buildings, but I mean…. this city has seen its fair share of weird shit. Then Sue Storm decides that if we’re gonna do some throw-backs to the first issue that she’ll remind everyone that while Johnny may no longer be a menace, she absolutely is. Some guys are just standing there, talking, and she decides, in her invisible form, to just shove those guys straight to the ground. Again, it’s for absolutely no reason, other than she’s a huge bitch. She then turns back to visible to make sure people know that it was her that is a complete asshole.

Sue Storm, the bitch of Central City

Sue then asserts dominance on the mailman, of all people, by showing off her fancy belt buckle that opens the door to a private elevator. She gets upstairs for Johnny to tell her he still doesn’t know where Doom is. Then Mr. Fantastic peeps on a boy in the hospital to tell him that his uniform stretches due to unstable molecules. We then see that the Yancy Street Gang sent a challenging letter to Thing, telling him they’ll “knock that chip off his shoulder and make him like it!” Ben says he’s “heard from those mealy-mouthed braggarts before!” Well, I doubt they’ll become any kind of recurring theme. What a silly name for a gang. Thing says he’s going to mail them a present and then swoons over the days of fighting Doctor Doom and Namor. Sue then takes up the swooning for Namor. Johnny says they’re both little bitches. Good for you, Johnny.

Lo and behold, speaking of Namor makes him appear. We see him swimming with dolphins. It would appear as though he’s preparing them for some sort of circus show. But little does he know, high above him is Doctor Doom! He’s in a plane, watching Namor from his television scanner! Namor shows off, doing some really neat circus tricks (without his dolphins for some reason) and landing on Doom’s plane! He tells Namor that he wants to kill the Fantastic Four and – much like Sue Storm – wants him to join him. The whole thing is pretty strange.

This would have been a 10/10 trick with dolphins.

Doom pulls his plane’s wings in and turns it into a submarine to follow Namor down to his pad, which is nearby. You’d think he’d be out looking for his family, since he was so distraught about them being gone, but, alas, he chose to stick around and train dolphins. Never let the pain of your missing family stand in the way of you and your dreams. Back in Namor’s pad, the two discuss how Namor has been spending his off time. Doom goads him into joining his plot by calling him a pussy-whipped bitch and mocking him about his family having to leave because of atomic weapons. After all is said and done, Namor refuses to “harm the girl!” but agrees to help him defeat the other Fantastic Three.

Remember how Doom is supposed to be a genius scientist? As we’ve seen so far, “genius scientist” is kind of the thing everyone is doing in the early 60’s, so we can’t really be sure just how genius he is. Right up until he introduces his ground-breaking new invention to Namor, that is! You see, this is brilliant. He has a remote-controlled magnet! That’s it. That’s his amazing invention. A magnet that flies around and then sticks to things, but then it also just like… doesn’t let go until he tells it to. So it’s a really strong magnet. That sticks to things that are not made of metal, I think? Here’s how it works:

Why use few words when many will do the trick?

So yeah… there’s the most verbose way of possibly saying “remote-controlled magnets.” Anyway . . . Namor puts the grabber in his pants, and the Deadly Duo begin their nefarious plot. It begins with Namor fucking around with some pilots before flying into the city where he decides he should walk down the street in his underwear.

Then we’re taken to Johnny who finds Namor’s headshot hidden behind some books. Sue is aghast that Johnny found the photo in such a super-secret spot. I’m assuming someone with the power of invisibility has forgotten how to fucking hide anything appropriately. Johnny says he’s going to rip the picture into a thousand pieces, but he forgets his sister’s amazing super power! She turns invisible, and for some reason that means Johnny is now so startled by her disappearance that he can’t follow through with ripping up the picture. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have some kind of super power that would allow him to destroy the picture instantaneously! Just then, Sue tries to take the picture, but Johnny remembers he has a super power that allows him to destroy the picture instantaneously! While he’s doing that, Reed and Ben come in, and Johnny straight up snitches on his sister, and she’s super pissed that her glossy Namor photo is toast.

Ben, of course, has to make the situation about himself, lamenting the fact that women are interested in attractive men. Reed says Sue owes them an explanation, but I mean… the situation kind of speaks for itself: Sue sucks at hiding things and probably finger bangs in the library. Right then, Namor fucking arrives, because people were talking about him, and that’s his real super power. Ben wants to beat him up, but Reed decides to hug the shit out of him instead. He thinks they should let Namor speak his piece. Namor. The guy that just leveled a bunch of buildings and most likely killed a bunch of people. The guy that punched Johnny in the face with his dick. Yeah, him. Reed says don’t try to kick his ass and to let him talk. Johnny’s not hearing it though and flames on! Namor will rue the day he messed with the Human Torch! Because he flies over to Namor and sets the ground on fire! Which does nothing, of course, because Namor can fly. He literally just told them he could fly like 2 seconds before this happened though, so Johnny isn’t the best planner of things. But then his flame runs out, because… I don’t know… he spent up all of his energy just making a little flame circle. He really must have put his all into burning up Namor’s picture. Like… he used the heat of a thousand suns to burn that thing up.

Seriously, Johnny….

Namor then tells everyone that he just wants to be friends. Nobody believes him except for Sue. I wonder why? Reed and Johnny race to check the cameras to see if Namor set any traps. Reed says, “We’ve scanned every corner of our base without finding one booby trap!” So it’s pretty set in stone that he hasn’t laid any traps. Because Reed scanned every corner. EVERY. CORNER. There can be no possible way there are any traps anywhere. Reed tells Namor he doesn’t believe him, and Namor says, “Like I give a fuck?! By the way, I’m gonna take Sue out on a date.” But suddenly there’s a loud CRACK sound! The entire Baxter Building is lifted from the ground! Reed says, “This is your doing, Submariner! You can stop this!” and Namor says, “I can’t, you fools! I planted the trap… but it’s been triggered by Doctor Doom!”

Wait… wait a God damned minute. What does he mean he planted a trap!? Reed scanned every fucking corner! I don’t even know what to believe any more.

The building is floating up into the sky, and things are getting seriously dire. If only there was someone that has shown his prowess of super strength and flying that could maybe grab everyone in the building and just fly back down to earth. But since that doesn’t seem to be an option, instead, Namor and Reed use their very-limited amount of time to have a conversation about how it’s possible that the building is flying. Once Namor explains, Reed, the smartest man in the world, realizes that the only hope of survival is to seize control of the plane. Of course, if that’s the only option, then having someone who could fly would really come in handy. But since that doesn’t seem to be an option, they run to the hangar to find their only means of escape – their orbit plane – to be wrecked! Their luck is the literal worst.

So… none of those jets wants to help either, huh?

Due to their running around the building and not doing things that involve flying, Doom has pulled them into outer space. They all put on space suits where Johnny suddenly remembers he has the power to fly! Except, you know… they’re in outer space now, so when he pops open the window and jumps out, his fire just fizzles, because there’s no oxygen. Reed stretches his arm out to catch ole Johnny to make sure he doesn’t float through space for all eternity. He then tries to stretch his body up the space ship, but he can’t stretch that far, which is weird, because he could previously. Then again, he does mention that space weakens his powers, which is pretty weird, considering that’s where he got his powers. But it doesn’t matter, because Doctor Doom hits the afterburners and lights his ass up. Luckily, the heat from a space ship’s exhaust doesn’t seem to really harm Mr. Fantastic that much. They put casts on his arms, which means he can’t hug Ben, which means Ben can finally try and kick Namor’s ass again. They begin their tussle, but Doom interrupts.

He tells them that he’s going to send them into the sun, but Namor goes and dives into the toilet or something and then jumps out of the building, only to land on the spaceship/airplane/submarine that Doom is flying. But Doom’s no fool! He turns on the grabber in Namor’s pants! Not the one that he used before, I guess. The other one that he didn’t know about. Yeah. He had one in there he didn’t know about. Yeah. Doom put a grabber in Namor’s pants. So Namor just punches a hole in the roof, which doesn’t effect the ship whatsoever, and jumps inside and tries to open a door, but he gets hit with a bunch of electricity instead.

That’s right. Namor jumped from meteor to meteor to catch Doom in a space ship. That’s the story they’re going with.

Doom assumes he’s killed Namor, so he continues on with his day, but when he touches the control panel, HE gets shocked! What a twist! You see, Namor has the power of all underwater creatures and was able to utilize the electric eel’s power of absorbing electricity! Granted, he must have learned this trick from a currently-unknown species of eel, because all the species we currently know about do not have this power, and can actually kill themselves with their own electricity. Anyway… Doom could simply not touch things in order to stop getting electrocuted, but he instead chooses to just fucking leave the spaceship. He grabs a passing meteor, throws up deuces, and heads out into the expanses of space. Probably to never be seen again. Because how could anyone survive that?

Namor then puts the Baxter Building back on the ground on earth, and Ben finds himself in an existential crisis, because he can’t fathom the idea of thanking a villain. Luckily, Sue is there to talk about all the great qualities of the mass murdering dick puncher. At that moment, Johnny shows up with the grabber, and Reed has the brilliant idea of removing it. Wow, Reed. You really are the smartest man in the world.

Lastly, I leave you with Doctor Doom caressing sad Namor:

The Incredible Hulk (1962) #3

Banished to Outer Space

We begin our adventure by watching the Hulk beating on the cement wall of his self-made prison that he made last issue. Well, Bruce Banner made it, so I guess it’s not really self-made. Other-self-made. There we go. He’s in his other-self-made prison, beating off… I mean beating on the wall. Rick is outside, leaning on the equipment that holds the door in place. There are no windows in this other-self-made dungeon, so I’m not really sure how Hulk turns back into Bruce, since it’s been shown time and time again that his transformation correlates with direct sunlight. Except in this magical cave, I guess. Anyway… instead of sleeping, Rick is just leaning on some equipment, and it’s not like he’s needed. He says there are still a few hours until day break. Maybe he’s just a real bro like that. Then the book has to recap the past couple of hours where Bruce asks Rick to let him out when day breaks, and Rick asks, “What if something happens to me?!” and Bruce says, “It’s a chance I have to take!” Or you could just build a fucking timer and let Rick get some God damned sleep, you monster.

This guy’s got some weird fetishes.

Of course, after I type all of that out, Rick decides to head to Bruce’s cottage for some sleep. I guess I jumped the gun there, but whey did he wait until the middle of the night? Whatever his reason, I’m sure it’s a bad one. He heads towards Bruce’s cottage, and there are some soldiers that ask, “Are you Rick Jones?” Here’s a tip: if any kind of law enforcement or military ever asks, “Are you” and then uses your name, always answer, “Nope!” Because they’re absolutely never asking in order to hand you candy. Rick, however, says, “Yeah! What’s it to you, Napoleon?” That Rick. What a fucking savage. The soldier, whose name is obviously not Napoleon, tells him they’ve been surveilling the area all day, and then grabs Rick, because he says General “Thunderbolt” Ross gave them orders to do just that.

Why is Rick wearing a tie?

We then see General “Thunderbolt” Ross in a “staff meeting.” It’s like midnight, so I don’t know if it’s just a super long meeting or if he randomly decided he should get everyone together in the middle of the night. He tells his colleagues, “And remember, when the boy is brought in, we begin plan ‘H’! We’ll force him to bring the Hulk to us!” Plan H. You clever son of a bitch. Just then, Rick shows up. How fortuitous! General “Thunderbolt” Ross decides to use his superior intelligence to trick Rick into giving up the Hulk. At first, Rick tells General “Thunderbolt” Ross that there’s no fucking way he’s giving up his pal. Unfortunately, General “Thunderbolt” Ross is just too smart, because he tells him this:

Out there, on the launching pad, is America’s newest, most important missile! It must be tested! But there isn’t a man living who could stand the force of its g-pull — except the Hulk!

We want the Hulk to ride that rocket, in the interests of national security! No one else can do it! Now what do you say?

So that’s it. That’s his fucking story. He’s telling Rick that the Hulk needs to ride a fucking missile. That’s the clever story he came up with. Of course, Rick doesn’t fall for the stupidest fucking story ever. I’m just kidding. Pretty much everyone in this book is a moron. Rick thinks, “If it’s something that our country needs, how can I refuse? I-I’ve gotta bring the Hulk here — if I can!” What a fucking idiot.

That sullen teenager looks like he’s 35. What is this? Grease?

Rick decides to head to the cave to get the Hulk. General “Thunderbolt” Ross doesn’t send a single person to follow him. Rick gets there and starts releasing the door, and the Hulk finishes the job by breaking the “mighty shaft which holds the concrete door in place.” Hulk is pretty pissed off. Like, really mad. He sees Rick and says, “You! Boy! You locked me in cell! You pay for that now!” Rick then runs away, and the Hulk fails to catch him. Rick says, “Lucky for me that the Hulk can’t move too fast!” So it seems he’s really, really slow. It’s a good thing the Hulk can’t move across large areas really quickly. Like jumping far. That would be crazy, because if he could do that, there’s no way Rick would get away.

Seriously, look at how much distance Rick puts between him and the Hulk.

As the Hulk slowly chases him, he makes his way to the Army base and just starts punching trucks for some reason. Rick takes the missile elevator, and the Hulk grabs onto the bottom of it. He doesn’t climb up it or anything, just hangs on for the ride. When the elevator reaches the top, the Hulk continues to just hang on while Rick lays his coat in the doorway of the missile. Yeah, the missile has a doorway. For people to get inside and ride on it. That’s what missiles are for. Rick then hides, and finally the Hulk decides he’s done counting and proclaims “Ready or not, here I come!” and then starts wandering around, looking for Rick. He falls for the bait and climbs right into the missile. The door closes behind him, and instead of punching it, he just kind of looks back like Rick betrayed him. Like, “I’m not mad; I’m just disappointed.” The missile launches and heads directly to outer space! I’m starting to think this missile is actually a rocket, but I’m not a general or a scientist, so what do I know? Nothing! That’s what! Anyway… General “Thunderbolt” Ross exclaims “We’ve done it! It worked! It’s the end of the Hulk! He’ll never return alive to menace earth again!”

“Why, Rick? WHY?!?”

Once again, the Hulk gets launched into space, and no matter what time it is, he will see the sun, which changes him back into Bruce Banner. Bruce is super confused, because he expected to be in his self-made dungeon, but he’s inside of a rocket-called-missile instead. Of course, because this was earth in the 60’s, he’s going to hit some powerful cosmic rays. I’m glad all those rays have since disappeared, because I’m already tired of everyone flying through them. Let’s hope this is the last time. (Editor’s note: it’s not.)

We then see Rick beating himself up over how easily he was tricked by the stupidest cover story of all time. We then see a great moment in comics: the first time General “Thunderbolt” Ross is just called General Ross, so I can finally stop calling him General “Thunderbolt” Ross every time. Whew! Rick finally realizes the level in which he was tricked and decides to fix his fuck up. Since he wants to bring the Hulk back home, he’s going to have to somehow get access to the missile control panel. Now, this is the missile control panel on an Army base, holding the Hulk — currently considered the world’s largest threat. So how in the hell is Rick going to get access to something so important?! Well, he just walks right up to it, and nobody is around.

I mean… there was guy sitting at the control panel like 2 seconds ago. Also notice that Rick is still 35 years old and wearing a tie.

Now, if you thought that was unbelievable, boy have I got great news for you. At the exact moment that Rick touches the controls, “the unbelievable amount of radiation which the ship has absorbed causes a shock to travel the many, many miles back to earth — an electric shock which will link the Hulk and Rick Jones more closely together than ever before!” I don’t even know how to explain the level of ridiculousness in that statement. Anyway… that happens, I guess. I can’t wait to see how the Hulk and Rick are linked through this event. Rick, of course, knows exactly how to use the missile control panel and pulls a lever, which means “the rocket package drops away from the missile and the capsule plummets back to earth!” I guess “drops” is a strange word to use here, because the rocket-called-missile is outside of the gravitational pull of the earth, so I don’t know how it would just decide to “fall” down to earth. Maybe the ejection of the capsule was enough force to get it back to earth’s pull.

Bruce’s capsule lands right outside of the Army base. How fortuitous! Nobody on the Army base notices or cares though. It’s free to just land on its own without anyone other than Rick being there. Alas, it crashes into earth, but it’s day time, because that whole ordeal with the launching of the rocket-called-missile took 6 hours. Or it’s one of those times when night time only lasts like an hour. Either way, it’s day time, and the capsule crashed, and Rick is worried Bruce is dead, but the Hulk emerges instead! And man oh man is the Hulk PISSED. Rick wonders how the Hulk can be around in the daylight and also wonders why the Hulk is glowing. The Hulk responds by throwing space wreckage at him. As we all know, Rick is a ridiculously fast runner, so he easily sprints away from the danger. Unfortunately, Rick also gets tired, so he starts climbing a giant rock formation. Because climbing rock formations isn’t tiring.

Rick’s first friend is a monster that keeps trying to kill him. I see a lot of therapy in Rick’s future.

The Hulk has zero problems following him and is about to rip his limbs off, but Rick screams, “Stop!” He looks up, and the Hulk has, indeed, stopped. Rick quickly figures out that the Hulk follows his commands! He has him raise his arm and sit down and then bow to him. Then Rick climbs on his shoulders and lets Hulk carry him down the rock formation. Rick starts getting giddy at the idea of being “master of the mightiest creature on earth.” He does exactly what you’d expect: he goes home and goes to sleep. He does tell Hulk not to move though. No commands like, “Sit down and watch some tv” or “Lie down and rest for a while.” Nope. He tells a mother fucker to just stand in the corner all night.

Unfortunately, Rick awakens to hear the Hulk destroying a nearby town. Rick figures out he can’t control the Hulk while he’s sleeping. Like 10 minutes prior the Hulk was gonna end Rick’s existence, but when Rick went to sleep, Hulk must have forgotten that he wanted to kill the shit out of the one person in the entire world that can control him, and instead went to destroy some unimportant town. Rick runs to said town and tells Hulk, “Get out of here! Fast!” The Hulk gathers the “awe-stricken lad” and leaps into the air. But it’s not a normal leap. No, no. It is “a leap the like of which has never before been seen by mortal man! A leap which carries him over the top of the tallest building! A leap propelled by the most powerful muscles of any living thing on earth!” Wow. That’s one hell of a leap. That would have come in handy when he was trying to murder Quick Rick.

I wish I had a large, scary man watching over me while I slept.

Rick decides to take the Hulk to his dungeon. Yeah, Hulk had broken the thing that holds the door, but Rick says, “Lucky I was able to replace this shattered steel ramrod!” I don’t know when he would have had time to achieve that, but I guess he had the Hulk do it. He has the Hulk go into the dungeon, and finally Rick can get some sleep. So he sits outside of the door and stays awake. Once we know that Rick will never sleep again, it’s time to spend the next 4 pages going over the Hulk’s origin story again. It’s really fun to read that for a third time.

We’re then taken to another story. The book is fucking done with Rick and his problems. Instead, we go to the town of Plainville, so we’re either in Connecticut or Maine. Two guys are wandering through the streets where nobody is moving. This is the third town they’ve encountered like this. Finally they find a poster for a circus and figure out that must be the source of the problem, because circuses are fucking weird.

My favorite part of any circus is the guy that holds up a weird, green fan.

We’re then introduced to the Ringmaster, because everyone has to have a “the” in their name. He hypnotizes everyone and then puts them to sleep where they cannot move or speak, but their eyes are still open, and I guess the sleeping lasts for, like, ever. And it’s definitely sleep, because he says, “They are all asleep.” He’s pretty exact in his words. His peeps then go run around and rob them of all their valuables. I feel like it would make more sense to tell the hypnotized people to get their valuables and bring them back, but maybe he doesn’t have that power.

We then go back to Rick who is excited that he was able to stay awake all night, even though he fixed the Hulk dungeon. He tells Hulk, again, to just stand in the fucking corner while he goes and visits his Aunt Polly. As is the way with aunts on this earth, she’s about 100 years old. She wonders where Rick has been all this time, and he just tells her he’s been busy. Then they go to see a circus. This should be fun!

Land sakes! A body can’t ever make you talk!

It ends up not being fun at all, actually. Rick and a bunch of other people end up hypnotized. It’s funny, because the Ringmaster said he put them to sleep before, but when Rick goes to sleep he can’t control the Hulk. Luckily for Rick, he’s not asleep! In fact, he can now talk to the Hulk via telepathy, so the Hulk jumps to where he is. Some circus folk see the Hulk and decide to attack him via getting shot from a cannon. So the human cannonball fires towards the Hulk, but the Hulk break dances real hard, and that sends the guy flying upward! The Ringmaster then has the best idea! He tells a man to hit him with a hose. Because bombs and shit don’t stop the Hulk, but a stream of water is definitely going to. And… it fucking works. It knocks the Hulk down, and then they put a net on him and some chains. Then we find out it’s actually because Rick is just not giving him any commands. Which makes total sense. Why give him commands when you can just stand with your eyes open for all eternity?

It then says, “As Rick Jones remains in a hypnotized state, neither conscious nor yet asleep, the Ringmaster’s men carry the motionless Hulk to one of their circus wagons.” Maybe the Ringmaster just uses the word “sleep” to mean the state that he’s in now, because otherwise that would be long-winded. Anyway… the caravan of freaks continues their journey but are quickly met by the F.B.I. And Rick Jones. The F.B.I. snapped Rick out of his spell and brought him with them. We all know the F.B.I. loves to bring teenagers with them on arrests. Rick then says, “Where’s the Hulk?!” completely forgetting they have a telepathic bond. The Hulk hears Rick’s voice and jumps into more break dancing. Literally. Because his chains shatter, and then he just starts flipping the fuck out and punches a fucking elephant right in the stomach!

The Hulk punches an elephant so hard that people appear out of nowhere.

In all the confusion, the Ringmaster jumps into a chariot and rides away at full speed. Hulk grabs a tall pole, which he then uses to catch the Ringmaster! So… I don’t know if those horses were just running in circles? I mean… the pole Hulk uses is like 100 feet tall. So I guess two horses pulling a chariot at top speed can travel around 100 feet in the time it takes for the Hulk to yank down a giant pole. Those are some slow horses.

The Army then shows up, because the Army is just everywhere, except when the Hulk wants to get to Bruce’s lab, of course. Rick climbs onto Hulk’s back, and Hulk jumps away. General Ross screams “You won’t escape me forever — do you hear me, Hulk!” And Rick and Hulk leap off into the sunset.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with Hulk breakdancing:

Journey Into Mystery (1952) #84

The Mighty Thor vs. The Executioner

You know how the entire last issue was nothing but mind-numbing exposition? This issue starts with recapping that entire issue. Someone fucking kill me. Finally we get to see Dr. Don Blake doing some doctoring! He checks a heartbeat. Then he starts fawning all over his nurse, Jane. He thinks about how much he loves her, and then he thinks about how much of a shallow, spiteful bitch he thinks she is, thinking, “…for a girl so lovely would never marry a — a lame man! And if she knew I loved her, she’d probably quit her job!” She sounds like a horrible person, Don. Maybe you should focus your affections elsewhere.

This is how incels are created.

But then we see Jane thinking about how she could fall in love with Donnie, if only he wasn’t so cold toward her. What a predicament! Then some guy screams exposition at us, the reader, and Don needs Jane to explain current events, because everyone in this comic has to explain everything. The setup is simple: there are two factions in San Diablo fighting for power. One is democratic, but the other is… dare I say… communist! Actual communism was a big fear in the 60’s, unlike today where people call everything they don’t like communism. Twitter banned someone? Communism. Kneeling at the flag? Communism. That’s not communism, you stupid twats. Anyway…

There’s a shortage of medical supplies, so a bunch of doctors are volunteering to go down and help those poor people. Don can’t refuse such an opportunity, and Jane wants to tag along. They’re aboard a ship, and Jane curses the whole thing by saying, “But surely there’ll be no trouble for us! We’re just going to help those who are sick!” Just then, some fucking fighter jets appear, ready to destroy the ship! The Executioner has ordered its destruction, but the jets appear to fly very slowly, because they’re spotted by some really ugly guy, and lame Dr. Don has time to limp around the corner and stamp his cane to become Thor! He then whirls his hammer to victory. And we get more exposition.

Great Caesar’s ghost! Shut the fuck up with all the exposition!

So yeah, he whirls his hammer and lands on a jet. He destroys it with his hammer. That might be a bad idea, considering that’s what he’s standing on, but no, he just whirls his hammer again to jump to another plane, and then he makes a fucking tornado with his hammer by twirling it so fast. So that’s a power it has now. He also doesn’t fall as he launches a tornado at people. Then he inexplicably lands on another jet and bashes it in half. He finally decides to dive into the ocean where he swims all the way to the bottom of it to stamp his hammer and turn back into Don. He surfaces, and not one single person wonders why Thor jumped into the water, and Don came up. Not one mother fucker. Instead, they just help him out of the water where Jane talks about how hot Thor was.

Stop. Hammer time. (I had to make the joke eventually.)

Back in San Diablo, the Executioner is fucking pissed, so he tells his guards to kill the commander of the operation. That’s a great way to get people to want to work for you. So he sends a group of guys to go kill the doctors once they arrive. When the doctors show up, these dudes start unloading a hail of gunfire. And they miss every single person. Don again finds a way to slink away where nobody can see him. This guy is the most athletic lame person in the history of the world. He stamps the cane twice, and the comic has to fucking explain that rule again.

MOTHER OF GOD STOP TELLING ME THINGS

Anyway… it rains really hard, and so the doctors are safe, because the bad guys slide down a muddy hill. Once the commie bastards are gone, Don stamps the cane thrice to stop the storm. The Executioner is tired of fucking around and sends some tanks, but unfortunately for him, Don is well-hidden by a tree. Yeah, he’s just standing by a tree. Jane has only shown up once to talk about Thor’s sexiness. I’m not sure where she went after that, but she’s certainly all about letting lame Dr. Don wander off on his own. So yeah, since nobody keeps track of the guy that walks with a fucking cane, he’s easily able to change into Thor again, wherein he’s ready to take on tanks.

The man with the indestructible, irresistible hammer does exactly what we would expect: he flips a tank over with a tree. The drawing makes it look very much like the tank is supposed to be a M41 Walker Bulldog, which weighs a little over 23 tons. I don’t know what kind of trees San Diablo has, but I feel like they’re the greatest, strongest trees to ever exist. Because Thor doesn’t just flip a tank over, he launches it onto the top of another tank.

How fast can those guys get out of a tank? Or how slowly does it fly through the air, I guess.

After that, Thor destroys the third – and last – tank by hitting hit with his hammer. But the force of the hammer doesn’t destroy it directly, no. Instead, the vibration causes the very molecules of the steel itself to disassemble and fall apart. I guess, that’s another power Thor has: making steel structures just come apart. He turns to see that the communist scum are holding Jane hostage!

BONG!

Thor’s hammer doesn’t have the power to fix this situation, so the bad guys let him just walk away. Capturing Thor pales in comparison to capturing Jane, the nurse. Luckily, Thor’s allowed to just slink away and change back into Don where he is promptly captured. The Executioner wants to murder his fucking face off, but Jane protests, so the guy who is overthrowing the government asks if Jane wants to marry him, and he’ll spare Don’s life. She, of course, accepts such a romantic proposal, but Don says, “I cannot allow Jane to sacrifice herself for me!” It’s just marriage. Versus you being shot by firing squad. I dunno… maybe let her take this one? But Don, instead, calls the Executioner a lily-livered coward and challenges him to a fight! The Executioner accepts by tossing Don his cane. Now Don, who is standing in front of Jane, the Executioner, and an entire firing squad, not to mention the other people of the military that returned from earlier, decides to stamp his cane against the wall one time which, as pages upon pages upon pages of expository dialogue have shown me, produces a blinding lightning bolt. Wait what. That’s not…. oh, fuck it. Don’s also Thor now.

Yeah, Executioner, in “that blazing instant” Don Blake, the lame, limped away, and Thor flew into his exact location.

Thor, the man with the power of all the elements, then throws his hammer into a tent which promptly drops on an entire Army of foes. I don’t know how big that tent was or why the men are all too incompetent to escape from a tent, but that tactic totally works. Then the democratic Army shows up, and Thor stamps his hammer four times to… wait… what the fuck, seriously?! So here’s another power of his hammer. He stamps it four times before pointing it at the volcanic mountain, which creates lightning bolts. Those bolts shoot the mountain, and it erupts! That’s actually possible, depending on the amount of pressure change caused by the strike, so we’ll assume the good doctor knows a thing or two about the precise balance of gas and pressure inside a volcano. Due to this, the Executioner’s army starts surrendering, but then they see the Executioner escaping with bags that have dollar signs on them, so the dudes seriously just light his ass up, and he perishes in front of his own firing wall. Oh, sweet irony. All of this makes a man cry out with the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve read yet:

He betrayed us! He betrayed our nation! It is the Americans who are truly our friends… not those who would plunge us into war!

You’re fucking kidding me, right? Anyway… all the doctors are saved, and everyone fawns over the mighty Thor, including Jane, who says, “He was so strong — so masculine — so wonderful!” Don’t hate her for speaking the truth. Dude destroyed two tanks with a tree. Don and Jane are chatting later, and she asks where he was during the fighting, and he says he was hiding. That’s when Jane thinks about how much of a little bitch Don is. Really, she thinks, “Hiding! Golly, why couldn’t YOU be brave and adventurous like — Thor! But no… that would just be too much to hope for!” Fucking savage.

Lastly, I leave you with Thor looking like he just saw a spider:

Journey Into Mystery (1952) #83

The Stonemen from Saturn!

Editor’s Note: This entry is pretty short, because 75% of this issue is just fucking boring exposition. Seriously, it’s just Don Blake talking to himself, and the whole time I just want to stab a cane into my eyes. Enjoy anyway, I guess.

Dr. Don Blake is “an America vacationing in Europe!” Why that deserves an exclamation, I don’t know. Maybe Americans didn’t visit Europe that often back in the 60’s. Donnie is wandering away from a windy coast in Norway, using a cane, because he’s frail. As he limps away, behind him, a space ship lands, and out come some aliens. They then talk about how strong they are on earth because the atmosphere has oxygen. Saturn’s atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, which is a lighter substance than oxygen, so I’m not sure why oxygen makes them stronger. To answer my disbelief, Gorr, the only alien with a name, lifts a tree out of the ground, and then some other alien jumps off a cliff to show his friends how strong his body is. Another alien shoots a tree to show off his weapon, but all that happens is the tree just glows, so it’s kind of like a rave tree now. This is all very similar to how my friends and I act when we visit a new place.

Some old guy sees all of this then runs to the village to sound the alarm, but everyone is like, “Shut the fuck up, crazy old man.” Except ole Don, of course. He believes the guy for some reason. The next day, Don decides to climb some rocks to sneak about and find some aliens. He then steps on a stick, which alerts the aliens of his presence. He tries to run away, but he’s gotta use his cane, so he can’t run fast, but then he trips and has to climb some rocks and ends up in a cave. Yeah, it’s all a super weird amount of things that happen. But wait! There’s more! For some reason, the guy who can’t run fast with a cane and who has lost his cane has also lost his pursuers! These super powerful aliens with weapons that can make trees light up have a really hard time keeping up with a caneless guy with a fucked up leg. Anyway… caneless Don wanders through the cave somehow and finds a secret wall! The wall moves and shows him…. you guessed it! A cane! How fortuitous!

“It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.”

Don tries to use the cane to move a boulder, but he’s weak as fuck, so nothing happens. He gets mad and smacks it against a rock, and turns into Thor. Yeah. That’s really what happens. The cane is now a mighty hammer with the inscription, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of… THOR.” Don’s obviously pretty taken aback by the fact that he has just turned into a mythical being but takes the opportunity to start lifting a heavy boulder and talking to himself about how bad ass he is now. He then says, “The stone creatures will never suspect that their frail quarry escaped through this rear exit!” Bro, nobody was even following you.

Now, with his newfound powers, he does exactly what you would expect! He goes and sits down to talk to himself some more. He sets down the hammer and soon turns back into Don. Suit and all. He’s perplexed and then reads the inscription and comes to the conclusion that he has to hold the hammer in order to have the powers. After 60 seconds of not holding it, he reverts back. So he caresses the hammer yet again, and beautiful, golden locks return. He continues to just spew massive amounts of exposition. It’s just awful. Rules of the hammer:

  1. If Thor lets go of the hammer for 60 seconds, he turns back into Don
  2. It’s so heavy that only Thor can lift it.
  3. Whenever Thor hurls the hammer, it must return
  4. The hammer is invincible
  5. Nothing can resist the hammer
  6. Stamping the handle on the ground once will toggle Thor or Don
  7. Stamping the handle on the ground twice will create rain or snow… and turn into a tornado
  8. Stamping the handle on the ground thrice will end the storm

I’m sure all of those rules will stay the same and have no exceptions.

NOT EVEN TREES OF AVERAGE SIZE RESIST IT!

Now that we’ve gone through page upon page of expository dialogue, it’s time to get back to the story! The aliens’ friends have arrived, so the military sends jets to meet their space ships. The aliens flash an image of a dragon, and like half the entire fleet ejects from their planes. Then the aliens laugh as the military fires missiles at them, because they do no damage. They can’t penetrate the “atomic force field.” Don sees all this happening, so he stamps one time and becomes Thor, the God of Thunder. He then explains that he can fly by throwing his hammer but catching his unbreakable thong.

Cisco would be proud.

Thor lands in the middle of the aliens, because he’s 100% proficient with his powers already, and he starts beating the shit out of everyone. They try to cage him, but you can’t cage Thor! He breaks out and keeps kicking their asses. The aliens release Mechano-monster! Thor punches it with his hammer, and it explodes. It was extremely anti-climactic. The aliens leave, and the infantry nears Thor, but he’s terrified of becoming “an international curiosity,” so he stamps his hammer and becomes Don Blake again, and the soldiers are boggled as to why the aliens would leave. When trying to figure it out, they say, “There’s no one in sight… except that lame passer-by, with a gnarled old cane!” If only they knew.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with the world’s stupidest military:

Amazing Fantasy (1962) #15

Spider-Man!

This is the first issue of a very important character. The Marvel universe will grow significantly; it’s already up to one villainous family: the Fantastic Four, one angry milk sop: The Hulk, and one tiny guy that likes to beat up ants: Ant Man. Now, we are finally introduced to the greatest character of them all: Flash Thompson. Seriously, this guy is awesome. We start off with him teasing this little punk, Peter Parker, about not knowing the difference between a cha-cha and a waltz! What a loser.

For some reason, instead of following the cool, handsome, popular Flash Thompson, the book instead shows us that dweeb, Peter Parker, lying in bed, and it looks like his 1,000-year-old uncle is giving him a weird massage. After that, he goes to see his 2,000-year-old aunt, and she’s made his favorite food: wheatcakes. Everybody fucking loves wheatcakes! Also, why are his aunt and uncle older than Methuselah? I can only imagine they’ll be around for a couple issues. Their old bodies can’t have much more to give.

How does a body that frail even hold up a plate?

We then find out that the giant nerd is a giant nerd. I’m shocked. Peter asks out some girl, and she tells him to go fuck himself, because he’s not Flash Thompson. God, I love Flash Thompson. Peter asks out some guys instead, but they tell him to go fuck himself, because they’re gonna pick up chicks. Then they drive away and say something that sounds like a super awesome song title: “Give our regards to the atom-smashers.” I might put that on a shirt.

Peter’s super sad, because nobody loves him except his nearly-extinct aunt and uncle, so he goes to see some balding man talk about radiation. A spider gets super radiated by radiation and then goes and bites Peter’s hand. Peter sees the spider and wonders “Why is it burning so? Why is it glowing that way??” Peter’s next decision makes it obvious that he’ll become a great scientist, because it’s stupid. Instead of keeping the spider or telling anyone what happened, he decides instead to just leave. I don’t know what happens to the spider, so it’s free to go bite others. That would be weird, if that happened. You think there would be two Peter Parkers?! That would only be cool, because then Flash Thompson would have two nerds to pick on.

When even the nerdy scientists mock you, you know you’re a super nerd.

Peter walks outside and directly into traffic. Since he’s not the Thing, he doesn’t completely fuck over someone’s life. Instead, he jumps kind of high. It’s not super high; it’s like 4 feet. I mean, that’s a decent height, but it’s definitely not superhero high. Flash Thompson would have jumped higher. After he jumps a moderate height, he starts climbing up the side of the wall like a fucking freak. A little boy tells his mom about it, but she ignores him, because parenting in the 60’s wasn’t quite the same. Peter crushes a pipe that’s on top of the building and then comes to the conclusion the spider transferred its power to him. I know I’m tired of all the spiders crushing steel pipes.

It’s really not that high of a jump.

Peter decides that now that he can crush steel pipes just like a spider can that he should go stomp on a mother fucker. So he puts on a disguise and finds the biggest dude he can find and absolutely embarrasses him. Seems like he fits in with the rest of Marvel’s superheroes. Afterwards, a dude pays him money and tells him there’s more where that came from, if he’ll just keep terrorizing dudes. Of course, Peter’s game.

He heads home to design his super-villain costume. He explains to his nearly-dead aunt and uncle all about his powers and his costume, but their ears are full of hardened dust, so they don’t hear him. Instead, Aunt May offers up some crackers and milk while Ben creepily smiles in the background, probably wondering where he even is. He makes some web shooters and then dresses up in his new pajamas and gleefully boosts his own self-esteem, because he’s sad and lonely.

She might be old, but Aunt May’s got some serious knockers.

Peter uses his powers to show off on tv, and then he lets a thief run right past him, and a cop is all like, “What’s with you, mister?? All you hadda do was trip him, or hold him just for a minute!” and Peter says, “Sorry, pal! That’s your job! I’m thru being pushed around — by anyone!” Insecurities win again. You know who wouldn’t have succumbed to his insecurities? Flash Thompson. Because he doesn’t have any. Peter gets home to find his aunt and uncle have cheated death another day and have bought him a microscope! Treat the ones you love before you die.

Someone’s wheatcakes are going to his head.

“In the days that follow, Spiderman becomes the sensation of the nation!” Sometimes there’s a hyphen, and sometimes there isn’t. I doubt that will ever become a point of contention. Anyway… he’s in every single newspaper and on tv and has an agent, so I’m sure he’s raking in the dough. He gets back home only to see police at his house. He sees the cop from before who tells him Uncle Ben is dead. Peter is shocked! Not because he’s dead; we all knew that was about to happen. One can only best the reaper for so long. No, he’s shocked, because Ben was murdered! Apparently there was a guy that couldn’t wait 10 more minutes for Father Time to finally take what he’s owed.

I love that the cop tells him where the guy is.

The cop then lets Peter know Aunt May is next door, making me wonder why the cop was still there and how much longer Aunt May can hold off her own inevitable doom. Peter puts on his silly pajamas and fwips around town until he finds the guy that stole Ben’s last 10 minutes of life. He’s so distraught and angry that he punches the guy one time only to find out that it’s the thief he let escape before! He serves the thief up to the police then goes and cries in the street like a crackhead who dropped his sack in the gutter. The narration then says “With great power there must also come — great responsibility!” What clever words the narrator wrote out for us.

Lastly, here’s frisky Uncle Ben:

Fantastic Four #5

Prisoners of Doctor Doom!

This is the first appearance of a guy named Doctor Doom. Not only is his name a bit silly, but the very first thing we ever see him doing is playing with giant Fantastic Four dolls. They’re supposed to look like chess pieces, but they’re definitely dolls. Just based on those two things, I feel like there’s no way we’ll see a lot of this guy in the comics. Anyway, he thinks that for all the humans on earth, only he has the power to defeat the Fantastic Four.

We then go to Johnny Storm reading the first issue of The Incredible Hulk. Yes, the Hulk is a comic book character in this universe, meaning that either 1) he can’t exist in the universe, or 2) someone is already making money on his likeness. I don’t know the copyright laws of the 60’s, but if I was the Hulk, I would be pissed! Johnny talks some shit to Thing, and they end up fighting, because why write characters evolving? Let’s just keep doing the same panel-filling shit over and over again. Want to guess what happens next? That’s right! A big hug from Mr. Fantastic Hugger!

I’ve seen Reed hug Ben more than anything else in this comic so far.

That’s when the lights go out, and surprisingly, Reed and Ben don’t start making out. Instead, a giant net swoops down over the building from a helicopter floating above. Johnny tries to set it on fire, but “it must be asbestos!” I hope people were investing in asbestos back then. Doctor Doom introduces himself from the helicopter, and Reed instantly recognizes the voice, but Reed “thought he was dead!” Flashback time! A man by the name of Victor Von Doom (you’re really supposed to believe someone exists with that name) was fascinated by sorcery and black magic! But he was also a brilliant scientist, interested only in forbidden experiments! Probably like testing gamma radiation effects on people’s brains. There’s then a large explosion from Victor Von Doom’s laboratory that badly disfigures his face! That explains why he wears his mask. What a crazy story. I hope that if this guy sticks around that the story never changes. Victor is expelled from the school, and the last thing Reed ever heard was that “he was prowling the wastelands of Tibet, still seeking forbidden secrets of black magic and sorcery!” Wait… if that’s the last thing he heard of, then why did he think he was dead?

That’s the dopest helicopter.

Doctor Doom then demands they send Sue to be his hostage. Because everyone else has powers capable of defeating him, but there’s no way a girl that turns invisible could ever thwart his plot. Ben, of course, wants to just destroy stuff, but when he grabs the net, it shocks the shit out of him. Remember that the net was just set up to be made from asbestos. Asbestos is an insulator. It doesn’t conduct electricity. Probably some kind of black magic, I guess. Sue decides, for the good of the group, she’ll go. For some reason, everyone but Ben is scared of what could happen, although Doom just has a net around their building and has not threatened any harm to them whatsoever. At any rate, Reed gladly lets her go, most likely due to her inability to say “no” to Namor’s proposal.

Doctor Doom opens up a part of the net for her to get through, and nobody else uses that moment to jump through the hole. They just let her go and keep hanging out inside. She climbs up the net, and once Doom has her in his clutches, he orders the guys to do the same, but they gotta promise not to attack him. Everyone agrees to be civil with the super villain and then boards, and they go back to Doom’s house, which is a super cool castle. Then Doom is sitting on his throne next to a tiger and Sue Storm. About 5 feet away is the rest of the Fantastic Four. They’re not in a net or anything. They’re just standing there. 5 feet away. For once in his life, Thing is spot on and tells them to bum rush the fucker, but Johnny reminds him that they swore not to attack him. It makes sense that they would value their word and honor over the likes of Sue Storm’s life. Plus, Doom reminds them he’s got a tiger, and tigers are fast. I’m guessing it could single-pawedly defeat the super strong Thing, elastic Mr. Fantastic, and flying Human Torch, because why else would Doom threaten them with something so fucking ridiculous?

“My sister’s life matters. But so does keeping a promise!”

Instead of just lighting a mother fucker on fire, they decide to hear him out. He tells them his plan: they have to travel back in time to obtain the treasure chest of the legendary Blackbeard! He’s brilliant enough to build a time machine but not to build any other machine that could possibly make him any money. This was the only way. Also, he can’t go, because he has to operate the machine. This was his plan. He didn’t offer to pay some bum (maybe because he was worried it would be Namor). He didn’t offer to pay just about anyone. No. He decided to go through this elaborate plan to trick the Fantastic Four into stealing the treasure for him. The brilliant scientists in the Marvel universe are astoundingly not brilliant.

Reed’s totally for the idea. Ben is skeptical, because what if Doom doesn’t bring them back. Doom says he will, and Reed vouches for his character. If there’s one constant in this relationship, it’s that they don’t lie to each other. He then sends them back in time, but they realize they’re still dressed up in their silly clothes. Neither brilliant scientist thought of this before the trip. They peer around a corner to see two guys fighting over who gets to keep the giant bag of clothes they just stole. How fortuitous! Ben appears, and they just run away. All of the clothes fit the team perfectly. Pirates are better at sizing than men’s clothing stores. Thing still looks like a nightmare come to life, but the clothes they stole from the thieves also came with a wig, fake beard, and mustache, which helps to hide his hideousness a bit, but it seems like people would still notice a giant, scaley-faced, orange person.

Pirate? Or first appearance of Nick Fury?

The guys go into a pub where some other guys buy them drinks. One drink a piece puts them out. That’s how much of a lightweight they all are. One drink. Passed out. The rapists then carry the dudes to their ship. They don’t have any problems carrying Thing. Pirates are probably very strong. Then the guys wake up in the “musty hold of a pirate ship” where Ben breaks through the ceiling and begins beating the bejeezus out of the pirates. They actually aren’t that strong at all. Reed punches one guy, and Johnny melts a sword. The pirates realize they’re outclassed and consider the Fantastic Guys as their new masters, but then the ship gets attacked! Reed looks through a telescope and says “She’s loaded with treasure! It could be Blackbeard!” The pirate ship just keeps its treasure out for all to see.

Johnny, the guy whose power is the largest weakness for a giant, wooden ship, flies over to the enemy pirate ship and does exactly what you would expect! He flies around one person and then dives into the water in order to create steam! Those pirates’ pores are going to be feeling great, but not their hair! Reed uses that moment to create a bridge from his ship to their ship, where his crew runs across him to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Sure would be nice to have a guy whose body can turn into fire. The “good” pirates win, and they proclaim Ben Grimm their new leader, and they call him Blackbeard. That’s right! The Thing is actually Blackbeard! What a twist! And here I thought Blackbeard was Edward Teach, but apparently he was Ben Grimm all along. Really, it all makes sense when you consider some of the horrible things Blackbeard did, it’s right in line with Ben’s murderous personality: he likes destroying things; he likes hurting people; he likes treasure…. this is all coming together…

You could also have just shot fire at the water for the same effect.

The guys divvy up the treasure amongst the crew then fill the chest with chains, because Doctor Doom only requested Blackbeard’s chest, not the treasure. That’s so clever. Not as clever as just rescuing your female member when you had the opportunity, but still pretty clever. Ben says he wants to stay, because, again, he gets to murder and destroy with reckless abandon, but the guys want to go back home, so he tells his new crew to tie them up. Luckily, Johnny is still soaked in water, so he can’t do anything, and they wrap Reed up in a sail. The guy fit his whole body through a rivet hole, but wrapping him up in a sail will keep his hugging at bay. Ben says to put them in a life boat and then leave them behind, so that Ben and his crew can get lost in the fog that doesn’t seem to be anywhere near them. Unfortunately a fucking tornado just appears out of nowhere and wrecks the ship.

All three guys end up on a beach together with the treasure chest. Everyone else is dead, I think. Pretty fortuitous happenings. Doctor Doom hits his button to bring the guys back, and when they show up, he explains to them that the treasure contains Merlin’s baubles that make their owner invincible! Normally a super villain shouldn’t disclose this information with his would-be enemies, but they’ve set up a circle of trust, so it’s only fair that he share with them. Johnny points out that those baubles ended up at the bottom of the sea and could be found by Namor at some point, but Reed doesn’t give a shit.

That’s when Doctor Doom opens the chest and finds worthless chains! The loss of Merlin’s baubles is nothing compared to the loss of trust he had with his nemesis, so he becomes very enraged! But before he can do anything, Ben decides to punch him to death. He hits him, and the body explodes! It was “nothin’ but a robot!” Doom drops a disco ball from the ceiling with his face on it and again explains his plan, telling them he’s going to remove all the oxygen from their room and explains exactly where he’s located. He then taunts Human Torch, because he can’t flame on, because there’s no oxygen. So he must have just instantly removed a large portion of oxygen from the room. Probably left some farts in there.

How can they dance without air?!

Now it’s time for Sue to show why she’s truly the greatest member of the team. She turns invisible and then hits a button on his machine, but it was around a corner where he wouldn’t have been able to see her anyway, but just in case…. After hitting the button, the machine blows up, because the brilliant scientist put a button on his machine that could blow it up. To think, Doom chose her, thinking she didn’t have the power to defeat him, yet she actually retained the power to push a button this whole time! Sue escapes and finds the guys in time to know exactly where the button is to open the door, although it was hidden in the wall. Her button-pushing skills are on point! She then goes inside the room and lets Reed untie her. I probably would have opted to stay outside the room, but her decision doesn’t backfire. Reed stretches outside the window… Yes, the brilliant scientist, Doctor Doom, put them in a room with a window and was able to take the air out of it, and nobody thought to stick their head out the window. So yeah, Reed stretches outside the window and pulls on a bar while Ben punches it, and a giant hole opens up, and I don’t know why they didn’t do this when they were worried about air. This whole thing is honestly very confusing.

Why was Reed even needed here?

They get out of the building, but then they have to cross a moat. If only there was someone on their team they could use as a bridge. Since there isn’t, Johnny decides to use his brain and gives his flame “the intensity of atomic heat,” which allows him to “boil a section of the water away and fuse the ground, turning it into a glass-like substance.” I don’t know what any of that means, but he makes an ice bridge with fire or something. Then he flies around the castle to smoke out Doom, but he just puts on a jet pack and flies away. Johnny can’t keep up with him, because he’s fucking stupid and just wasted all of his energy making an unnecessary ice bridge. He plummets from the sky but catches a tree branch that miraculously doesn’t break and saves his life. Reed tells him “That was a great try!” like he’s a 3-year-old that just did an okay job of wiping his ass after a huge shit. Thing says, “Bah! They don’t pay off for also-rans!” I have no idea what that means.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with Reed caressing Thing’s breast:

The Incredible Hulk (1962) #2

“The Terror of the Toad Men!”

First thing we see is the Hulk wading through a swamp at night. Except now he’s green instead of grey, which is very confusing. Maybe the gamma radiation sunk in a bit more. Then we see a cop shining his flashlight, stating “I thought I heard someone thru the underbrush!” His car is behind him, which leads me to believe that the Hulk was making such loud noises that the cop could hear him from the road. So yeah… the Hulk was just hanging out at night in the swamp in some brush, making super loud noises. I’m very concerned as to what was going on in there, but, luckily, when we see him, he does have his pants on. Anyway… the cop jumps in his car and shoots at the Hulk as he drives away. He speeds into town, using his loud speaker to tell everyone to get off the streets and lock their doors. Concrete walls are no match for Hulk, but locked doors on houses is his weakness.

“That’s a mighty big stick in your hand, Mr. Hulk.”

A woman tells her children to get indoors. Really, it’s pretty late, and they should be inside already anyway. Hulk shows up, and the police know who he is but somehow don’t know what he’s capable of, because they try to ram a truck into him. It doesn’t work. After watching him take the entire force of a truck colliding into him and not phasing him one bit, they decide the best plan of action is to try and hold him down. They’re not the brightest. Hulk starts whipping people with a light post before finally Rick Jones can burst onto the scene and lead him away. It would appear that everyone just allows this. They don’t follow him or question him or anything. They’re just like, “Cool. See you later!”

He just needs a Snickers.

Of course, they have to go over his back story again, which just goes to show that you could have put half the first comic into one page. Fast forward to “the present” where we see an unearthly spacecraft thundering into our solar system. Inside are some really ugly aliens. We’re 7 issues into this reading list, and we’re on our second set of aliens. Surely this won’t be a common theme. They use a beam of magnetic energy, called grapplers, that beam down to earth and are “focused on the most brilliant scientific brain on earth” according to their command. More proof that Reed Richards isn’t the smartest man on earth. We then see General “Thunderbolt” Ross calling Bruce a milksop and a goldbrick. I’ve never heard of a goldbrick, but it sounds like a compliment to me. Bruce takes Rick to a secluded cave. This isn’t going where you think it is. They’re doing scientific research.

This guy totally sops milk.

Once they dive into the cave, I wonder why the lack of indirect sunlight doesn’t turn Bruce into the Hulk like it did in outer space, but maybe there’s a beam of light that makes its way down into the depths of their dark cave. Somehow. Bruce has set up a room in the cave with a door of concrete that’s 10 feet thick that will be used to house him when he’s the Hulk, because “even the Hulk won’t be able to break out.” Then they are hurled backwards, unable to move! Something pins them to the floor! The Toad men show up and carry them out with magnetic ray guns. They’re loaded up into the ship and carted off to space where one of the Toad Men speaks English to Bruce, explaining how powerful his magnetic rays are and what kind of devastation he could cause on the earth, if Bruce denies his nefarious request! That request is for Bruce to explain how much science he knows. The idea of interviewing Bruce had never crossed his mind.

They look more like they’re drunk than rooted to the ground.

Then my favorite part happens! The leader realizes that Rick is fucking worthless and fires him out of the ship! But, you know… safely back to earth. He’s not a total monster. To counter this, he could have just not captured him, but what’s the fun in that? Anyway… he makes the gravest of mistakes: he flies to “the dark side of earth!” That means it’s time to fucking PARTY! Earth Hulk relies on time-based darkness, but Space Hulk relies on sun-positioning darkness. Bruce turns into Hulk right as two English-speaking Toad Men are walking to the chamber in which the Hulk is being held. He breaks through the wall, and the Toad Men are aghast. One fires at him at point-blank range and misses, so the Hulk takes the Toad Man’s gun from him and starts shooting up the place. Then he locks up some dudes and goes wandering about the ship. He sees super advanced weapons and gives serious thought to wiping out all of mankind.

“Whoa! At least wait until we get to the cave!”

General “Thunderbolt” Ross is screaming to shoot down any UFOs. There’s a countdown to fire “America’s mighty defense rockets” at the ship, and Rick, who landed safely and soundly right outside of the base, goes running, yelling that they have to stop or kill Bruce! They don’t give a shit and fire all the rockets anyway. The ship crash lands also right outside of the base, although it was just on another side of the planet, and out walks Bruce Banner! Although it certainly seems to be night time. General “Thunderbolt” Ross comes to the stupidest assumption that he was trying a sneak attack on his own country. Some of the Toad Men use their magnetic weapons to dig tunnels to escape before being seen. Soldiers surround the ship, but not a single one looks inside the strange tunnel right outside of it.

What about the guys Bruce threw in a holding cell? Did they just evaporate?

The aliens send a massive flair that flies out of the earth’s orbit and is bright enough for another ship, which seems to house the Toad King, to see it, but nobody else on earth sees it. It’s the signal to attack earth! Bruce is in a maximum security prison, but Rick is allowed to just stand outside the bars and chat with him. General “Thunderbolt” Ross goes home to Betty wondering why he jumped to the stupidest conclusion of all time, but then he gets a call about an alien invasion, to which he is SUPER shocked. Betty uses this opportunity to beg for her milksop to be let out of jail.

If only we had some kind of warning! Even from a milksop!

A whole fleet of ships is flying over the earth! They’re doing none of that magnetism stuff that they talked about before though. Just flying around, flexing on bitches. The Toad King uses his magnetism to jam every earth tv and radio receiver and project his face and give a speech in English. He uses this time to explain his entire plan to the world. He just blathers on and on and on and fucking on about his plan, too. Like… we get it, man: you’re gonna overthrow us. He finally tells them that they can stop all this from happening by just surrendering. Which may have been more poignant had he just rooted everyone in place, but instead, he moved the moon a little bit.

It looks like she’s tickling a little flying whale’s belly. “Gootchie gootchie gooo!”

General “Thunderbolt” Ross proclaims “NEVER!” and continues spewing about how they’ll find a way to save the day eventually. But then… although it was kind of like night before, it’s actually really real night now, so Bruce turns into the Hulk! He breaks through the wall of his maximum security prison, finds a railroad tie and uses it to plug a howitzer, which he picks up, and a bunch of dudes just hang onto it for some reason. He smashes a few things and then totally peeps on Betty. Super creepy. His urges get the best of him, and he pops on in for a chat. She screams for help, and General “Thunderbolt” Ross and an entire platoon are right outside of the house when it happens. How fortuitous! They try to break down the door, but… I don’t know… I think Hulk just chucks Betty at the door to fuck them all up.

Pretty sure that’s a woman’s body flying through the door.

General “Thunderbolt” Ross “orders a charging tank to smash thru the rear of the house” where everyone just kind of stares at each other. Rick shows up, telling everyone that he’s the Hulk’s friend, but the Hulk bitch slaps the shit out of Rick again, proclaiming he has no friends. Of course, everyone jumps on the Hulk, because why the fuck not? He shakes them off then picks up Betty. Physically, I mean; he doesn’t use some smooth lines on her. He takes her to his lab where he tells her he wants to kill everyone. Rick bursts in to save her, but Hulk says he’s gonna silence him forever! Rick just stands there like a fucking boss and explains that the earth needs the Hulk’s help, but then the sun comes up super fast, and Hulk takes a nap and turns back into Bruce. Night lasts like an hour in this place. Bruce wakes up, and Rick explains what happened, and then we see that Betty is “still” unconscious. We were never told she went unconscious, but we can presume it was before the whole were-Hulk transformation happened.

Rick is basically a honey badger.

Somehow a giant beast was able to just walk on over to his lab without an entire fucking Army finding him, so Bruce tucks Betty in on the couch and then leads Rick to a warehouse of sorts that has a gamma ray gun that he had invented. Bruce only invents things having to do with gamma rays. He then proclaims that there’s no way to know what the ray would do to fields of magnetic energy. Except there totally is, because gamma rays are a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation, which the world’s most brilliant scientist who only invents things based on gamma radiation should know. He needs 60 seconds to fire his weapon, but the Army that failed to find a monstrous creature carrying the general’s daughter has somehow spotted Bruce and Rick running into the warehouse. The Army comes running in, but Rick, that sassy minx, shoots them with a fire hose. That gives Bruce just enough time to fire the gamma ray cannon, which somehow hits every single mother fucking alien ship. They were just completely lined up, waiting for that burst of gamma radiation. The gamma ray “strikes the aliens’ magnetic field head on, reversing the attraction of their rays, and sending the toad ships spinning across the void of space, helplessly out of control… forever!”

Note to future alien species: don’t attack in a straight line.

Yeah, no.. that’s not what would happen. The gamma ray burst would penetrate the magnetic shields (it’s penetrative, remember?) and then irradiate everyone inside, and then there’s no way of knowing what would happen after that, because we don’t know the biological makeup of the Toad Men. Anyway… General “Thunderbolt” Ross pardons Bruce Banner the milksop, since he saved the entire world.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with the Hulk bitch slapping Rick:

The Incredible Hulk (1962) #1

The Hulk

Editor’s note: this is a larger issue. I thought about breaking it up into two reviews, but then I thought about not breaking it up into two reviews, and the last thought won. Enjoy this somewhat long review.

This issue begins with giving us a glimpse of the Hulk! I’m sure most have heard of the Hulk, but for those that don’t, I’ll describe him for you. Other people familiar with him will all agree with my description: he is a giant, muscular, grey man.

He looks like he’s asking to borrow money from me.

We’re then out in the desert where we see a giant penis-shaped G-Bomb. Miles away is a concrete bunker which houses the genius scientists, Bruce Banner, who created the bomb. Some guy named Igor is like, “Hey, it’s gonna be dangerous to blow this thing up,” but Bruce is like, “stfu bitch.” General “Thunderbolt” Ross, whose name must always be displayed as General “Thunderbolt” Ross, screams at Igor and Bruce and is telling them to blow the thing up, but Bruce, who was just advocating for blowing it up, tells General “Thunderbolt” Ross that he wants to make sure he takes every precaution. General “Thunderbolt” Ross then screams at him and calls him a milksop. That’s a word that really needs a comeback. You milksop, you. Then his daughter, Betty, tells him to calm down, because Bruce is totally dreamy, and he tells her to keep out of it, because “This is man talk!” Ah, the 60’s. She then uses Bruce as a means of telling the reader who he is as a character. Because we hadn’t picked up yet that he’s a screaming fuck wad.

First panel is also what I look like on the toilet after eating Chipotle.

Bruce says it’s time for the countdown, and General “Thunderbolt” Ross says, “It’s ding-dong well about time!” I really need 60’s lingo to return. Then Igor tells Bruce he wants to know his secrets, but Bruce refuses to tell him but then explains exactly where all of the secrets are located in case he wishes to find them. Igor explains that nobody has checked Bruce’s work for errors, and Bruce, the pompous asshole, says “I don’t make errors, Igor!” One of the most brilliant scientists in the world doesn’t believe in peer reviews. I guess if you don’t think you have any peers then there’s no point, eh? So they start the final countdown, and then Bruce sees a car driving through the test site. If you weren’t aware, getting past guards at government installations is super easy, barely an inconvenience. Bruce tells Igor to stop the countdown, so he can save the person driving the car. He gets there just in time to throw the kid into a ditch. Unfortunately, Igor is kind of a prick, so he fires the bomb anyway. Bruce is bombarded with “mysterious gamma rays!” Of course, the bombardment of such radiation causes him to die.

Third panel is also what I look like on the toilet after eating Chipotle.

No, I’m kidding. He’s fine. He just slept it off. Typically that amount of radiation would literally just cause all of the molecules in his body to separate, making him basically dissolve right in front of our eyes. Maybe those clothes are made of lead or something. Either way, after a couple hours of sleep, he’s back to normal. Come to find out Rick Jones was the teenager in the car, and he just picked up the insanely-highly-radiated body of Bruce Banner and brought him back to the bunker. Rick is also fine. After an undetermined amount of time, the sun starts to go down, and the two of them are hanging out in their room together, and Bruce starts to feel strange for some unknown reason. Then Rick says the radio is only putting out static, and Bruce tells him it’s not a radio but a Geiger counter! It’s counting a lot of Geigers, and suddenly Bruce transforms into the Hulk! The very first thing the big, grey monster does is bitch slap Rick across the room.

Me, running to the bathroom after eating Chipotle.

The Hulk then breaks through the wall. No wall is safe in the land of Marvel comics. He then smashes a Jeep. No car is safe in the land of Marvel comics. Hulk escapes and then, being one of the strongest beings in the world, hides from the puny men with guns who are hunting him. Back at the bunker, everyone just takes to calling him the Hulk. Nicknames spread fast there. General “Thunderbolt” Ross wonders what happened to that milksop, Bruce Banner and his teenage friend, Rick Jones. We then see Rick is following the Hulk. Then Hulk’s skin inexplicably turns normal color for one panel.

Me, bursting through the bathroom door after eating Chipotle.

Hulk sneakily goes back to Bruce’s office where he finds that treacherous Igor rifling through his stuff, looking for the secrets that Bruce told him where to find. Hulk throws him around the room a bit; it’s really fun to see. Fuck Igor. He knocks something over that definitely looks like some kind of CLEAR bottle, and taped to the bottom of it is something with the front page reading “Top Secret Report on Gamma Ray Bomb.” Rick thinks something with such a title might be important. Then the Hulk sees a picture of Bruce Banner in Bruce’s home. A framed picture. Bruce keeps a framed picture of his own face in his house. Hulk realizes that’s his alter ego and gets pissed off, because he doesn’t want to be associated with such a milksop. In his anger, he fucking backhands Rick again. Luckily, this all took like 12 hours to happen, so the sun comes up, and Hulk reverts back to Bruce Banner. That’s right! All those that are familiar with the Hulk know that the transformation is much like being a werewolf. Sun goes down: Hulk time. Sun comes up: Banner time. I’m guessing he doesn’t get a lot of sleep.

Me, on the toilet, after eating Chipotle, remembering happier times.

The Army bursts in along with Betty who’s so happy to see Bruce again. Two soldiers grab Igor, one proclaiming, “Look, Captain! It’s Igor, the spy we’ve been searching for!” Oh. He’s a spy. I wonder when this happened, because like 18 hours ago he was hanging out with everyone. I’ll be honest, I kind of figured it ever since I found out his name is Igor. Anyway… some soldiers talk about gorillas and bears, and then Bruce starts crying in front of Betty, totally succumbing to his milksop moniker, but she blames it on illness, and Rick says he’s just tired. Betty leaves, and… I guess the Army did too, because they’re just gone. Rick is like, “Whew! Glad that’s over,” and Bruce is like, “Nah, man. This is just the beginning…” Then he makes some sort of terrifying face. Then it looks like he dies peacefully.

1) Sitting on the toilet after eating Chipotle. 2) Shitting. 3) Done.

That’s basically the end of that story (which means I’ll end the tired Chipotle jokes), and we see Igor lying in bed in his jail cell, pumping up his own self worth. He then shows that he has a “sub-miniature transistor short wave sending set” pasted onto his thumbnail, which allows him to communicate to his Russian cohorts “behind the iron curtain.” How fortuitous! Then they have to send a message to the Gargoyle. Does every-fucking-body need a “the” in their name? I’m surprised it’s not The Doctor Doom. So nobody wants to go tell the news to the Gargoyle. He’s apparently very violent and terrifying. Sounds a lot like my boss. An unfortunate soul goes and delivers the message by sliding a note under his door then scampering away, and Gargoyle talks about how he gets off on their fear of him. The note tells him someone is nearly as powerful as him, so he vows to capture him as a symbol of his might. Everyone already fears him, so this really comes down to insecurities, which.. I mean… look at that fucking face….

What a grotesque face.

As you can see, he’s very ugly. Almost nightmare fuel. But here’s the thing: the term “gargoyle” is actually used for carvings on (typically) Gothic buildings. This is something most people are aware of. What most people aren’t aware of is that a gargoyle is only considered a gargoyle, if it has a spout which pushes water away from the building. If it does not have a spout, it is considered a grotesque. Unless he’s making a dick joke, his name shouldn’t be the Gargoyle. It should be the Grotesque. Anyway… he rides on a missile to America, which gets shot down, but he survives and also lands almost exactly where he needed to land at almost the exact moment that Bruce turns into the Hulk. How fortuitous!

Who hasn’t had one of these days, amirite?

Hulk decides he wants some poonani, so he begins his walk to Betty’s house. Rick is like, “Calm your dick, man!” but it’s of no use. Hulk needs what Hulk needs. We then go to the house of General “Thunderbolt” Ross and his lovely daughter, Betty, who is day dreaming about Bruce Banner, the man she’s spent an entire 15-20 minutes around. She decides she needs some fresh air to calm her fanny flutters and wanders outside where the Hulk shows up. Women of the 60’s are horrifically weak and emotionally unstable, so she faints. Then the Grotesque… I’m sorry… then the Gargoyle shows up with a gun, and Hulk calls him a bitch, telling him bullets can’t harm him. Grot… Gargoyle was prepared though! He shoots the Hulk, claiming “The instant it strikes you, it saps your will– making you my slave!” So he has bullets that make people his slave. Then the Gargoyle shoots Rick with a slave pellet, because he believes “in taking no chances.” The man who believes he’s as powerful as the Hulk and believes in taking no chances decides his best option is to leave the puny human alive. Why kill a good slave, I guess?

The next page says otherwise, Hulk.

Betty wakes up, and her dad is convinced that he needs to murder the Hulk. Then the Gargoyle uses his slave pellets on a truck driver to drive him where he wants to go. You’d think someone so feared would just kill a dude and steal his truck, but maybe he just doesn’t like driving. The guy takes him to the dock where Gargoyle slaves up a couple rowers to take him to a submarine where he launches alllll the way into space for some reason. Hulk turns back to Banner, making it seem as though direct sunlight is the source of the were-Hulk powers. I’m guessing if Bruce walks into a windowless basement, he just turns into the Hulk? Pretty strange. They all land “on communist soil” only for all to exit with no Hulk! It’s dark in soviet Russia.

From hero to zero, if you ask me.

Gargoyle quickly susses out that Bruce is the Hulk. Finally, a scientist that can use some reasoning. He locks Banner in a basement (don’t worry; it has a window), and then shit gets super weird. Gargoyle recognizes Bruce Banner as America’s foremost atomic scientist and thus….. he starts crying. He pours his cold, dead heart out to Bruce, asking him, “Why would you want to be a monster?” He professes all of his insecurities, and Bruce says not to worry, because he can cure him! With radiation! Radiation is really the answer to solving all of the world’s problems. The down side to this is that Gargoyle’s brain will suffer, and he’ll lose all of his intelligence. Why does Bruce know all this? What kind of sick testing has he been doing on people? Anyway… Bruce, it appears, just walks into Gargoyle’s laboratory and builds the exact device needed in like 2.5 minutes. He turns the Gargoyle into a sexy dude who’s totally dumb now. He’s finally achieved his dream of not looking absolutely hideous! He lets Rick and Bruce fly home in a rocket, and now that he’s finally achieved his life-long dream, he voluntarily kills himself by blowing up the communist base. I told you he was dumb now. Thus ends the Gargoyle. And his spout.

Lastly, I leave you with Hulk mocking Betty for fainting: