Web of Spider-Man #44 and Hulk #349 (1988)

Peter David brings his Spider-Man work and Hulk work together.  As part of his national book tour, Peter Parker goes to Vegas, where a bunch of Cyborg survivalists are shooting each other in the “Warzone Games” competition.  Yeah, that’s dumb, but don’t worry.  It’s just a device: The chaos brings Mr. Fixit out of the woodwork, so we can have pages and pages of Spidey vs. this new, significantly weaker Hulk.

It’s fun.

And unlike all the other dummies in Las Vegas, Spider-Man immediately figures out that he’s really Hulk.

Also, Peter does book signings at Comic-Cons and doesn’t even rate as high as Tom DeFalco.

At the end of the issue is a cliffhanger, with Dr. Doom showing up and Peter David writing the line, “Doctor’s orders.”  I wonder how long he was saving that one—it’s a great line that nobody’s ever used before.  Anyway, more on that next issue.

To now, Hulk has been self-contained and we still don’t know how he ended up in Vegas working for a mobster.  In this one issue, Spider-Man comes along and Dr. Doom arrives at the end.  It looks like David is ready to reintroduce Hulk to the Marvel Universe…

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