#shrunken bones

With the battle against Van Nyborg ended, Ben Grimm has had enough and takes off in the Fantasticar. Having gotten rid of the Thing, Doc and Nighthawk go into Val's Dad's house expressing their concerns about Val's downer behavior. They find Val looking at a photo album and now we know how old she is and when she got married.

Nighthawk has a less than enthusiastic reaction to his news. Val just found out this morning her body is married and doesn't know how to feel about it. Val wishes to go find him. Nighthawk bolts. We confirm that Nighthawk has the hots for Val. On a side note, Sal and colorist George Roussos have conspired to make it look like Nighthawk is wearing his underpants on the outside.

Cut to Westbury, Connecticut. There really is one. I checked! A couple find the Hulk playing with children on their front lawn. Mr. Couple freaks out and launches himself at the Hulk. Mr. Couple goes flying and Hulk barely felt it. Hulk then gets angry, demolishes Mr. Couple's house and flies off to the relief of neighbor Dr. Arthur Nagan. Dr. Nagan goes to his house where a dude with far too much skin is conducting an experiment. He's produced a formula form them to exact revenge for something or other. They just need the proper head to receive it. Yeah, it sounds that way to me too. Dr. Nagan informs extremely wrinkled skin man that he already has a proper head.

Back to Coobler's Roost, Val has located her "husband's" boarding house and she is received by a very unwelcoming Ms. Lafferty, the houses owner. She accuses Val of terrible things like trying to divorce Jack for the money he inherited from his father. Val runs off begging Doc to take her home. The pair magically pop back to Doc's Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City while we change our focus to Nighthawk.

Nighthawk is think as Kyle, not his hero alter-ego and ponders about all the weird women he's wooed and dated. His mind drifts to someone named Trixie. Entering his fancy penthouse, he finds said Trixie waiting for him. Kyle tells Trixie that the Nighthawk uniform is more than a Halloween costume and asks Trixie if she's got any skeletons in her closet. She says she's got an evil uncle but, in the classic Airplane style, that's not important.

We find Hulk's alter-ego, Dr. Bruce Banner walking up to Doc's Sanctum. Doc and Clea hear Bruce knock on the door and answer it as Wong is busy making dinner and Val is on the couch sulking. Bruce collapses when he gets in the house and Doc puts him in a chair to rest. For a former top neurosurgeon this level of care seems a bit inadequate.

Our mystery men from Connecticut have driven into New York City and await an assignation with a third. After a long-winded explanation on why they can't take their formula, the third appears and it's Chondu the Mystic. He's obviously named after Chandu the Magician from early movie and serial fame. According to official sources, Chandu was an inspiration for Doc!

Chondu lets us know what happened to the two others. Dr. Nagan had his head transplanted onto an ape's body and excessively wrinkled man work with cellular compression but didn't get it quite right. Dr. Nagan injects the formula directly into Chondu's skull and things start to go nutty from there.

Nighthawk is out on his balcony. Trixie, a.k.a. Trish fell asleep mid-sentence and has now come barging out onto the balcony not looking entirely sane.

After slapping her out back into unconsciousness he looks down and see's the rest of city in a similar state. Back at the Sanctum Hulk has started acting like all the other insane residents of the city, rudely breaking one of Doc's windows. Val attempts to subdue the green menace but he's too powerful for her. Doc attempts magical means but some sort of interference prevents him.

Dr. Nagan is robbing a jewelry store and thinking world domination thoughts when he's clobbered by Nighthawk. Dr. Nagan slaps back with his bag of jewels (the one's he robbed, not those) and Nighthawk is stunned for a bit. Dr. Nagan returns to his partners in crime just as the serum in Chondu wears off. They drive off before the police start hunting and the city's residents start returning to normal. Nighthawk returns to his teammates while Doc ponders if it's over or just a prelude for more naughtiness to come.

This issue closes out the previous arc with the Thing and expands on Val's identity crisis. Had I remembered how long her crisis went on I'd have created a tag for it. We also get some insight into Kyle's background. One of his ex-girlfriends has stopped by for a reason yet to be determined and will probably have implications for our non-team. There's no additional insight into Doc or Hulk. Perhaps Steve is leaving that to those character's solos books.

Drawing on unofficial Marvel pre-history (anything before FF #1 during this era) is always a bit of fun. It certainly won't have the explosive popularity of dragging Namor and Captain America into the present. Each of three had a single appearance back when Marvel was sometimes calling itself Atlas. They were short tales with an ironic ending. Dr. Nagan is the only one who is sinister while Shrunken bones is misguided. He must have continued his experiments off-screen because he didn't look like that at the end of his first tale. Chondu was practically a hero, if a ruthless one, sentencing a criminal to spend the rest of his life in limbo.