Banner is separate from Hulk now, so the beast is tearing through the U.S. without any conscience or governor. And we see he’s actually killed hundreds of people.
Doc Samson, Iron Man, Wonder Man, Namor and Hercules show up to stop him.
After beating him down a bit…
…The Avengers let Doc Samson go solo against Hulk…
…after they fight about whether to let him.
Great fight scenes! And that’s really all you want from a Hulk book, anyway.
It has become personal for Samson, and the Avengers seem to be willing to risk more loss of life and property just so Samson can prove himself.
Weird, but OK.
Meanwhile, Bruce Banner forms a team of nerds he calls The Hulkbusters. It’s not worth tagging all of them, but two will later become super “heroes” of a sort. Craig Saunders…
…Will become Redeemer. And Sam LaRoquette…
…Will become Rock.
And then he proposes to Betty Ross in the end
Just to reiterate: The scene where the Sub-Mariner is said to have flown Hercules all the way from Manhattan to New Mexico via his ankle-wings is totally absurd. Hercules weighs 325 pounds per the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and that’s not a lot of weight for someone as mighty as the Sub-Mariner to carry……….UNLESS he’s carrying it over two thousand miles!!!!! True students of the Sub-Mariner understand that this character’s power and might diminishes in direct proportion to the amount of time he is away from the sea!!! Assuming that this feat were even possible for the Sub-Mariner in the first place, by the time he flew both himself and Hercules to the battle scene in New Mexico, he would have been most likely too wasted from the trip to be of any use in the battle against the insanely-raging Hulk!!! What was Byrne thinking, here-??? The Sub-Mariner’s ankle-wings are his equivalent of the little pinions which enable some species of fish to fly up out of the ocean for SHORT DISTANCES!!! I can ASSURE ANYONE that they were NOT designed for TRANS-CONTINENTAL FLIGHT!!!! Not by Mother Nature, not by King Neptune, not by Bill Everett, not by ANY DAMN ONE!!!!!! What is even MORE infuriating about this sequence is that it could have been completely AVOIDED by having these two full-fledged Avengers arrive at the battle scene via AVENGERS QUINJET!!!! Don’t either Namor or Hercules know how to fly an AVENGERS QUINJET-??? That’s BASIC TRAINING for the Avengers!!!!! Sheesh!!!! Does not Byrne realize how FAST those things can FLY-???? An Avengers Quinjet can cover two thousand miles before Namor could armpit-lift Hercules out of New York City!!!! This one little infuriating point nearly RUINED these issues for me. Where in the hell was the editor-??? Was he ASLEEP, or was he just so convinced of John Byrne’s omnipotence that he just decided to not edit the issue???? Either way, it irks me immensely!!! In the final issue of the original ‘X-Men’ series, ( issue#66 ) the X-Men must also travel to the American Southwest ( Las Vegas, specifically ) to also battle the Incredible Hulk, and as the X-Men’s Sentinel-Ship is seen flying out of Westchester, the Angel ( the X-Men’s sole flying member in those days ) is seen flying around the supersonic aircraft. In the following panel, the Sentinel-Ship is depicted on a descent-approach over Las Vegas, with the Angel still buzzing the craft from the outside. That issue’s editor, Stan Lee, caught this, and made a footnote on the bottom of the panel which read “The Angel made the majority of this trip via Sentinel-Ship, not under his own power.” Exactly- because, if he had TRIED, the Sentinel-Ship would have LEFT his feathered fern in the DIRT!!!!! So- maybe this issue of the ‘Incredible Hulk’ required a similar footnote. ANYTHING would have been better than the revelation we were treated to. Sheesh!!!! This ( MASSIVE ) gaffe takes this issue, in my opinion, down from a “B+”, to a merely acceptable “B”. Good evening!!