#comics recap

"The Hulk" by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Ooh, #1 issues are always exciting and today it's time to recap Incredible Hulk (1962)!

Our story begins with Dr. Bruce Banner and his associate Igor about to test their gamma-bomb. Igor is complaining that Bruce hasn't shared the deets of the gamma ray with him when General Ross walks in and tells them to hurry the heck up. Luckily, his lovely daughter Betty steps in to cool everybody down:

They get ready to launch the bomb, but as Bruce is looking out at the test site he sees a kid driving a car right in the danger zone and leaps into action! Meanwhile, Igor is about to prove himself a bad bitch by pressing the button to fire instead of delaying the launch. Bruce manages to get the boy to safety just in time but is hit with the bomb's rays himself and radiation fried!

That didn't look too comfortable...

Bruce comes to back inside the lab, looking surprisingly good for a dude with major radiation poisoning. He and the boy, whose name turns out to be Rick Jones, wait in a room with two cots for something to happen. And something does!

Wait...hang on. The Hulk was originally blue??

Okay, I'm over my shock. The Hulk smashes his way out of the facility and Rick follows since he feels indebted after Bruce saved his life. Soldiers soon come looking for the Hulk and christen him with that name as seen below:

The Hulk, retaining vague memories from his life as Bruce Banner, smashes his way into a cabin where he kept the gamma ray formula. Once inside he finds none other than that bastard Igor trying to steal it from him!

Hulk totally wastes Igor and in the process upends a flask which had the gamma ray formula taped to the bottom. Rick grabs it for him as Hulk sees a photo of himself as Bruce and freaks out, saying he was weak and he's glad he transformed. Just then, though, the sun comes up and with its rays Hulk turns back into Bruce.

Funny, I didn't realize Hulk was some sort of vampire.

The army arrives along with Betty, who supposedly wanted to come apologize for her father's behavior earlier.

Once she leaves, Bruce angsts over potentially becoming the Hulk at sundown again. But that might be the least of his worries, because Igor might be in jail now but that doesn't mean he can't still scheme with his... thumbnail!?

The Russians send word to the Gargoyle, who they all seem to be afraid of. I wonder what his powers are aside from a funny-looking head.

The Gargoyle manages to make his way to the US via rocket just in time for Bruce to change back into the Hulk while driving a jeep with Rick. Hulk wants to go see Betty, and it seems she has Bruce on her mind as well. She wanders outside but faints at the sight of the Hulk.

Unfortunately there's no time to deal with that, as the Gargoyle opens fire using bullets that will supposedly make Hulk his slave. He captures Hulk and Rick and brings them all the way to Russia, but on the way not only do the bullets' effect wear off, Hulk turns back into Bruce!

This is a total wtf moment for Gargoyle, and it turns out he's not one to keep his cool. In fact, he is totally jealous that Bruce gets to be normal at all, and they strike up a deal.

The Gargoyle gets a normal-sized head and also turns on his mother country. He blows up some Russian soldiers along with himself, but not before he sends Bruce and Rick back to the US in another rocket.

For those of you wondering “Why is what is generally a criminal working with a hero?” here’s a brief rundown of things that happened that lead up to this point:

Back in the mid-90s there was an event called Underworld Unleashed in which Nero, DC’s version of Satan, tricked most of the Rogues into attacking key points around… some continent that is literally unrecognizable on a map.  Those points exploded, killing them.  The event went on, Trickster I figured out Neron’s angle and helped the heroes defeat him and the Rogues remained dead at the end of it.  A couple years (real time) later, Flash issues 125-129, Neron is back to his old, manipulating people into giving him unlimited power schtick and brings the Rogues’ souls to Earth, this time as unkillable, power-amplified specters bent on causing as much death and destruction as possible.  Through Linda and Wally’s teamwork and love for each other, Neron is forced to retreat while restoring the Rogues their souls/life.  In the New Year’s Evil special issue, Trickster I tricks the Rogues into going after a sacred treasure in a Zhutan temple when, surprise, Neron pops back up and Heatwave, who emphatically does not want his soul back in Neron’s clutches, convinces the other Rogues to help Tricks and Piper defeat him.  It was a convoluted issue.  After Neron is, yet again, defeated, Heatwave decides to stay with the Zhutan monks, hoping to save his soul by being good.

That is, to my knowledge, the last we see of Mick until his appearance in Superboy 65.  Recaps are taken from issues 65, 76-81, 87-90

"The Fantastic Four Meet the Skrulls from Outer Space!" by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

In the opening to the second issue of Fantastic Four, we see our heroes committing unforgivable acts of crime. The Thing ruptures the support beam to an off-shore Texas Tower (which if you're like me, you discovered was a radar facility used during the Cold War while writing this post), toppling it. The Invisible Girl makes off with a $10 million gem by turning invisible and walking out of the jewelry store. The Human Torch melts a new monument (seen below), and Reed (gasp) switches off the power to the whole city using his absurdly long arm.

In Johnny's defense here, this monument looks suspiciously like one of those Confederate ones so maybe he did us all a favor.

But how could our heroes do such horrible things? Well it turns out that they are in fact being impersonated by Skrulls. (This is the first issue in which the Skrulls appear.) Watch "Reed" transform back into one below.

Naturally, the FF get some slack in the media for supposedly having committed these crimes, and they hole up in a cabin to talk things over. The Thing suggests a hands-on strategy:

Ben looks so sad here it breaks my heart. And he does have a point. Reed lucked out comparatively in the whole mutations game.

But they don't have time to work out a strategy before the army comes and throws them in federal prison. They're locked in separate cells and each work out ways to escape. Susan, predictably, turns invisible and makes her way past the guards. Johnny, seen below, is totally going to be able to sue the prison in a few years when he gets sick from the asbestos. Ben does what he does best and smashes his way out. And Reed? Well... See the panels I've picked out below.

Once they're out of the prison, the group decide to sabotage a rocket in order to lure the Skrulls out and convince them they're also Skrulls. Johnny and Ben fight about who will do it, and wow, didn't expect Ben to go so dark. New sadboi blorbo acquired?

Johnny manages to infiltrate the Skrulls' headquarters and shoots off a flare gun to call the others. They fight, and rather than be killed by the Thing the Skrulls end up telling them about their impending invasion of earth.

The FF decide to impersonate the Skrulls and talk to their leader, giving them "proof" that the FF are actually monsters by showing them monster drawings. Frightened, the Skrulls decide to leave Earth alone for their own safety. And the FF tell them they'll sacrifice themselves on Earth to remove evidence they were ever there.

Mission accomplished, they go back to Earth, but not before the cosmic rays hit them again, mutating Ben back into a human briefly. Sadly, though, it doesn't last.

The end of the issue has the FF proving to the authorities that they were being impersonated by Skrulls, and they also decide what to do with the Skrulls who were left on Earth.

I know I, for one, am amused by the cow thing.

"The Coming of ... Sub-Mariner!" by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

This issue starts out with the remaining 3 members of FF (if you'll remember, in our last issue Johnny quit the band) discussing going to find Johnny. Ben thinks they should just leave him to rot, but he's easily outvoted.

The gang take the Fantasticar, leaving Johnny's section behind, and then split up to search the city. Sue decides to search while invisible and continues to menace the public with no remorse. (Also just a note but I think this is the first issue where she's referred to as Sue and not Susan.)

She's not the only one to earn the title of public menace in my book, though. Reed is out here grabbing people right off their motorcycles. Does he lack the foresight to know that without a driver that motorcycle is going to wreck or does he just not care?

It turns out Johnny is with some friends working on their sports car engines, which the Thing guesses correctly. He then threatens Johnny by reminding him there's gasoline all over the garage so if his flames get out of control he'll wind up blowing up his friends. Ben actually gets a bit out of control himself, picking up one of the cars and hurling it at Johnny, reportedly in retaliation for calling him ugly before.

In the midst of it all, Ben turns back into a human, which gives Johnny a chance to escape. Tragically, his transformation doesn't last long.

Johnny flees to a "men's hotel" in the Bowery, which seems to be a somewhat seedy location. He picks up an old comic from the 1940s that has the Sub-Mariner on it, and then men there insist that an old guy who's been there a while is just as strong. They provoke him and a fight breaks out, but Johnny stops them. It turns out the guy has amnesia and can't remember who he is, so Johnny helps him out...by giving him a shave with his flames!

Meanwhile, in the name of continuing his search Reed holds a helicopter hostage. Completely normal behavior.

Sue walks right past Johnny and Namor and narrowly misses Johnny picking up Namor and throwing him into the sea to jog his memory.

When Namor returns to his undersea kingdom, however, he finds that it's been destroyed due to nuclear tests and vows revenge on the human race. Learning of this, Johnny sends up a flare and the other members of the FF rush to his aid.

Back in the ocean, Namor grabs a trumpet-horn from his ancestors and awakens a giant fish-monster called Giganto! (This guy is basically a giant whale with legs.) He leads it to the surface, where it attacks New York City and puts Johnny's flame out with his blowhole lmao. Not to worry, though, because the Thing comes up with a plan to blow the monster to smithereens by entering its mouth with a nuclear bomb strapped to his back...

Ben's mission succeeds and Giganto is blown up. Namor still has the horn, though, which means he can continue to call sea monsters. Sue tries to grab it from him, but he captures her, which leads to this interesting situation:

Namor offers to leave mankind alone if only she'll marry him. She almost agrees to sacrifice herself for the rest of humanity, but Johnny saves the day by flying upward in a spiral and creating a tornado with which he moves Namor and the sea monster's carcass back over to the deepest part of the ocean. Namor ends up dropping the horn in the ocean so he now needs to figure out a different plan for revenge, but he swears not to give up.

"The Menace of the Miracle Man" by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

There's a new guy in town: the Miracle Man! Our story opens with the FF attending what appears to be a magic show. The Miracle Man makes himself appear gigantic, turns himself into a cloud of gas, and harnesses lightning! Seeing the FF in the audience, he provokes them and Ben ends up joining him on stage for a little wood chopping competition.

Get rekt, Ben. Somewhat predictably, he doesn't take the humiliation well and tries to punch the Miracle Man, but it doesn't seem to affect him. 🤔

After the show, Reed expresses that he's sure glad the Miracle Man isn't a criminal...

Oops! I think he just jinxed himself. Good thing Sue just made them all costumes so that they're extra prepared to fight him! The '60s girlboss energy is unparalleled.

The Miracle Man brings a large monster statue that was in front of a movie premiere to life and sends a memo to the commissioner that he is declaring war on the whole human race.

The FF try to stop the monster, first with Reed's stretchy limbs and then by burning it with Johnny's fire (which works, but then Johnny gets caught in the crossfire and most of his flames get put out). Meanwhile, the Thing gets trapped in a sudden sinkhole and Susan turns invisible to sneak off with the Miracle Man as he escapes.

While she's doing her thing, the rest of the FF regroup, but instead of doing anything useful they fight amongst themselves. As usual, Ben has a point.

Johnny also storms (heh) off. But what's happening with the Invisible Girl? Well, she's encountering her mortal enemy, dogs! (And mine when I'm playing The Last of Us Part II and the dogs sniff me out.)

Uh oh... Under the Miracle Man's command, Sue signals the other FF members and they come running. When they get there, Miracle Man is holding...a giant key?

Luckily, Reed is well-equipped to handle a little machine gun action. By turning into a giant rubber ball lmao.

Ben also jumps in to block some of the bullets a la Luke Cage. How touching. 🥺

Unfortunately, the Miracle Man starts to escape in his tank, so the crew go after him in a car. But uh oh, the Miracle Man shoots out one of their tires! So Reed fills in.

Johnny winds up temporarily blinding the Miracle Man with his flames, which causes Reed to figure out that the Miracle Man doesn't actually have any powers-- he's been hypnotizing them the whole time!

Of course, we can't end the issue without Ben getting up in a tizzy about Johnny getting most of the credit for saving the day, and Johnny gets so mad that he quits the FF and flies off! Not without an ominous last word from Reed, however: "What can we do, if... if he should turn against us?!!"

Foreshadowing for the next installment, perhaps?

"Prisoners of Doctor Doom!" by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

This issue contains the very first appearance of Doctor Doom, who as I'm sure many of you know is a pretty significant recurring villain. On the opening page, he claims that he's the only one on Earth that can defeat the FF and takes a helicopter to go see them.

The FF themselves are engaging in leisure activities, one of which being Johnny's reading the Incredible Hulk comic, which is a fun Easter egg:

As one can probably predict at this point, Johnny's barb devolves into a whole fight between him and Ben, with Reed stepping in to pin Ben to the ground with his stretchy limbs, and Sue firing at Johnny with a fire extinguisher. All seems well again.

But suddenly! The power goes out and Doctor Doom drops a giant net over their building from his helicopter! He introduces himself, which prompts Reed to recognize him from his voice as someone he knew from college. Read the explanation below.

von Doom tells the FF he wants Sue as hostage, and she agrees to go to his ship so that she can lure him out for the rest of them. Once she's onboard, von Doom tells the rest of them to board the ship but to promise not to attack, which, uh, sure, dude, just take their word for it. He picks them up via a contraption that looks to me like a golden plunger:

He flies them to his castle, where he informs them of his real motives: he wants to send them back in time via time machine to recover Blackbeard's treasure! With Sue still hostage, they agree and are sent back a few hundred years.

As the next panels show, once there they decide they need new clothes, but this doesn't go the way I, at least, expected it too, for they don't steal the pirates' actual clothes, just their "booty."

They don their disguises, and, as Reed says, Ben looks like a real natural!

The lads go to a tavern, unsure where exactly Blackbeard is, but a pirate crew sees them and roofies their drinks in order to kidnap them and force them to work as their crew.

When they wake up, they make quick work of their kidnappers, with Ben busting up through the ship's deck, and Reed manipulating his height to punch the guy in the crow's nest. Johnny, for his part, melts a pirate's sword.

This doesn't mean they're in the clear, however, for just then they're attacked by another pirate ship!

Johnny uses his flames to turn the ocean into steam, destroying the ship's visibility, and Reed stretches across to their ship to provide a walkway for the rest of them to board the other ship.

They fight gallantly, but there's one unexpected side effect-- the pirate crew nickname Ben Blackbeard, taking him as their leader.

Oh hello, time paradox.

After they swap out the jewels for a worthless set of chains to give to von Doom, Ben decides he quite likes being Blackbeard as opposed to the Thing and tries to send Reed and Johnny away so he can live out a life here in the past, but a storm hits the ship before anything too fatal can occur. They wash ashore along with the chest, and it's then that they get zapped back to the present.

While von Doom is checking the contents of the chest, the following happens:

That was a nice touch of foreshadowing for a later plot with Namor, there.

Doctor Doom isn't kidding and he really does start to suck the oxygen out of the room, but luckily Sue turns invisible and short circuits his machine while he's not paying attention, saving them. Once they're all together, they bust out of the castle, which provides an opportunity for Johnny to demonstrate a new ability:

Johnny then tries to smoke von Doom out of his castle, but he escapes handily. The issue ends with them expressing concern that now both Namor and Doctor Doom are still on the loose, and there's no telling what they'll do.

My inaugural read is Fantastic Four (1961) #1 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. Image descriptions are in alt text.

In this comic, Reed Richards calls the Fantastic Four together to beat evil for the first time! How exciting! The opening pages spend a great deal of time detailing how each of the members get to Reed, and... I'll be frank. These guys are clearly menaces to society.

Susan Storm, or the Invisible Girl, seemingly forgets how to maneuver around people when she goes invisible.

Meanwhile, Ben Grimm, or the Thing, not only smashes through a doorway on his way out of a business establishment, but then after traveling through the sewer he busts right out of the street, totaling an oncoming car!

Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, is possibly the worst of them all. Because he doesn't take the time to get out of his car before transforming, he melts it right in front of the serviceman who just fixed it. (Inconsiderate, to say the least.) He also melts several airplanes, endangering the pilots. Yeesh.

Luckily, Reed is there to save the day with his stretchy, horrifying body. (Seriously, have you seen this guy?)

His fight with Ben after they first gain their powers in a flashback scene is one for the body horror books. For the record, while there seems to also be some kind of love triangle of jealousy going on here, I think Ben is in the right. He didn't want to go into outer space and risk his safety, but Reed was adamant they go, cosmic rays be damned. And now look at them both:

Anyway, once our team is assembled and we've gotten their origin story, they end up on Monster Isle after tracking seismic activity. Predictably, they fight a bunch of monsters, Johnny uses Reed as a parachute, and they fall into a pit...where they meet Mole Man!

He plans to send his mighty mole creatures to attack the world's surface from underground and wipe out everybody. How nice of him. But the Fantastic Four have other ideas and fight their way out of his lair, sealing Mole Man in his cave supposedly for all eternity!

"Quogg" by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

Once again I'll only be focusing on the relevant story from this issue rather than reviewing all of them. Our story is called "Quogg!" and as you can see didn't merit a spot on the cover. I want to say this is because the story just isn't very good and the creators probably knew it. Anyway, on to our recap!

Our protagonist is a guy who gets caught stealing and flees from the authorities and into the jungle! They follow him, so he tries to shake them off by...throwing his car over a ledge.

Not surprisingly, this maneuver doesn't work and the men continue to follow him until he steps onto a crumbling cliff and falls into some water and they give up.

He eventually makes his way to a village, where in no time he's already making plans to be an asshole.

As you can see above, he sneaks into Quogg's valley. Once inside, he sees there's a lone hut. He begins making plans to fool the villagers, assuming they are merely superstitious...because man, this guy is an asshole.

At this point, I don't know about you but I'd very much like this guy to get his comeuppance. Luckily, this turns out to be the case because there IS a Quogg!

The hut was Quogg the whole time! Welp, can't say I'm sorry for our racist criminal. I hope Quogg ate the shit out of him.

If you're wondering what the hell this issue is doing in the Order, it's because Quogg reappears in Monsters Unleashed (2017) #3, making him a reoccurring character.