John Byrne’s first time drawing a Hulk story. And there’s an appearance from Walter Cronkite right on page one.
The art is amazing, and Roger Stern is on the script so the writing is great, too. And Bob Layton inks. You just can’t go wrong with this team.
There’s a great sequence, above, where Hulk hammers Samson like a nail.
And we get to see Byrne drawing the X-Men again. That’s always a good thing. Angel heads to Gamma Base when he hears Master Mold is back.
Iceman joins the fight against Master Mold, the Sentinel with shape-changing powers.
He wants to blow stuff gamma base from space.
Along the way he sticks the heroes in tubes. Yay! Another entry for my “tubes” tag!
And they’re all pals in the end.
The rare example of an annual worth hunting down and reading.
Stern! Byrne! Layton! Angel! Hulk! Doc Samson! Iceman! ( before he joined the other team ) Candy Southern! Terri Sue! This is the perfect self-contained Marvel Comic, right up there with the 1963 ‘Fantastic Four’ Annual ( #1 ) and ‘Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up’#1, in terms of what it is! This is, actually, the single-best story about the Angel ever produced! The Incredible Hulk himself is relegated to the status of ‘guest-star’ in his own book! And the hell of that is, this is also the very best ‘Incredible Hulk’ Annual ever produced! Even though I enjoyed our mutant’s boredom at having to fight off yet another Sentinel attack, if all I had to fight it off with was a pair of wings, I STILL wouldn’t be getting too cocky about it! Iceman still hasn’t discovered ( among other things- a-hem ) how powerful he truly is, yet, so I don’t think HE can afford to yawn at any Sentinels, either! Of course, this particular Sentinel turns out to be the Super-Granddaddy of them all, so they can’t fight it off, anyway! Good thing this is STILL a Hulk story! I appreciated the sequence where the Angel and the Iceman were nearly roasted to death upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, proving to us all that space-travel isn’t all ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’. ( contrary to Iceman’s comment to the Hulk in re ‘Star Wars’ ) Personally, I have NO INTEREST in space travel- no AIR, no FOOD, no WATER, no Hooters Girls- no thanks!! When a Class-“M”-type planet is discovered in space containing ALL of these things, I MIGHT consider it- maybe. But, until then, like Aqualad told Robin upon being invited into an outer-space adventure in “The New Teen Titans#23- “Sorry- I need water, every hour, on the hour- it might get a little dry up there. So, for now, I believe I’ll just leave outer space to Luke Skywalker. ” Couldn’t have said it better! But, anyway- “The Evil That is Cast…..” THAT’s the way you make funnybooks! Why don’t they MAKE ’em like that, anymore-??? Is Roger Stern retired from writing funnybooks- or dead-?? I’m always the last to know! Excelsior!