Bill Mantlo offers a history of Bruce Banner being abused as a child. With a symbolic splash page of his birth, and his life being offered to the Hulk God.
Mike Mignola’s art is excellent.
Interesting? Maybe. Necessary? No. But well done. And Peter David will build on it, years later.
Everyone gives Bill Mantlo crap about being a schlocky writer, yet this issue is one of his best. Hulk has been bouncing around dimensions for almost a year now, and here we learn Bruce Banner is still alive, trapped deep in his subconscious, wrestling with memories of pretty horrific child abuse.
Overall, it’s a pretty intense issue—especially for 1980s Marvel—and even Beyonder can’t ruin it. He shows up and can see Banner’s existential struggle with his own identity and past trauma, and resolves to “help” him.
More on that in the upcoming Secret Wars II #4. And then in the pages of Alpha Flight, where this series crosses over.
The next issue of Hulk is tremendous. Nothing like it had ever been done in the history of Marvel or any publisher.
Seriously.
Stay tuned.