The Incredible Hulk in 1969
I admit to finally softening on this series. Well, actually, I think it’s somewhat improved. Lee left for a while, and then returned to the writer’s chair for Hulk as the decade closed. With his return, there was a comfort with a certain element that wasn’t there before. But what was that element?
CBR suggested that Hulk’s origins were shaky because Banner wasn’t a good guy, Banner’s quest is repetitive, and Hulk only fights for himself. This seems correct, but I think there’s something more basic than that. I think Hulk was an early anti-hero and Marvel didn’t know what to do with that at the time.
Instead of an anti-hero, Hulk sits uneasily into the “flawed hero” or “hidden hero” category. While that role fits like a glove for Namor, who has a real constituency that depends on him, Hulk is a hero of one.
The side characters (standing in for the audience) keep trying to put Hulk into a redemption arc. It’s always “oh, Hulk/Banner did this thing we thought was terrible, but he ended up knowing more than us and did it to save the country.” But that isn’t really what Hulk/Banner is, so we just get this repetition of is-he-or-isn’t-he, and the answer is that he neither is nor isn’t. Today’s reader knows that, but it seems like the writers don’t, because the concept is still too nascent in comics. Lee himself stated once that “it would be fun to get a monster who was really a good guy, but nobody knew that.”
I think my distaste for the character stems from just plain not liking antiheroes as a headliner, whether proto-antihero or the real deal. Punisher and Wolverine are perfectly acceptable side-characters that can punch up a story but, once they’re the edgy headliner, my interest dries up. On my end, it’s not a sense of moralism or the necessity of good vs. evil that causes me to dislike the emphasis on the antihero. I just think we’re in an Age of Antiheroes, and I’m bored with the trope.
But the series has definitely gotten a bit better, in my view, because I think Lee just let Hulk be Hulk.
Rating:
Incredible Hulk (1969): It is what it is. Stan Lee has decided to let Hulk be Hulk, which leads to marginal returns. Thankfully, that’s still better than some of the dreck of the recent past. – Gonz
