Incredible Hulk Epic Collection, Volume 19: Ghost of the Past by Peter David, et al.

Marvel’s ’90s nadir

The 19th Incredible Hulk volume in Marvel’s Epic Collection series of paperbacks reprints Hulk Comics from 1992 to 1994, including Incredible Hulk #397 to 496, Incredible Hulk Annuals 18 and 19, and a few crossover issues from other titles like Doctor Strange and Silver Surfer. During this period in Marvel history, Peter David was a popular and highly acclaimed writer who seemed like the heir apparent to Chris Claremont. I think what made David so popular was that he injected irreverent tongue-in-cheek humor into most of his stories. As a result, however, three decades later, most of the jokes aren’t funny anymore, and every issue feels like an inconsequential waste of time. At this time, the Hulk had Bruce Banner’s brain intact, so he was a smart Hulk (Smulk?). David, however, never lets him do anything smart. Unlike Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, the Banner-brained Hulk doesn’t engage in any of Banner’s scientific pursuits. Here he’s just a big bruiser. David basically gives him the same wise-cracking personality of The Thing, but without the Brooklyn accent.

The ‘90s were a terrible decade for Marvel art. After several of Marvel’s best artists fled the company to found Image Comics (and even some of those “best” weren’t very good), many of the company’s major titles were left in the hands of mediocre pencillers and untried newcomers. Dale Keown was one of the good ones left behind. Keown draws an excellent Hulk, and other big hulkish brutes, but he’s not so skilled at drawing regular human beings. Unfortunately, Keown only handles a few of the issues in this volume; the rest are in the hands of forgettable lesser-knowns who indulge in the blocky anatomy of the Rob Liefeld school. The ‘90s were also a dismal decade for inking. No one seemed to want to draw shadows anymore, so every panel is made up of thin, chicken-scratch cross-hatchings. This period in Marvel art was a desolate no-man’s land in which Photoshop coloring hadn’t yet become the standard, but in the meantime everyone forgot how to use a pen and brush. Add to that the fact that everything in the ‘90s was EXTREME! so costumes are outrageous and Rick Jones looks like a refugee from a hair metal band. Hulk Annual #19 introduces a villain called Lazarus, typical of this trend, whose outfit looks like a truck full of spikes, tentacles, and shiny armor unloaded on him.

The Leader is the only major Hulk villain to show up in these issues, with the U-Foes under his employ. The Abomination appears briefly in a dream sequence. During this run, the Hulk is mixed up with an organization called the Pantheon, whose members were all named after Greek gods, but they weren’t really Greek gods like the Avengers’ Hercules. They were all just kind of boring and forgettable. A crossover with the former Defenders is plagued by David’s humor and extreme ‘90s villains. There’s the usual romantic strife between Hulk and Betty and Rick Jones and his girlfriend. I liked the Hulk a lot better in the old days when he was dumb and angry. Those classic stories from the ‘60s and ‘70s had more depth and treated the Hulk as a tragic hero. The more Marvel messed with the Hulk—transforming him into different creatures, changing his color, and of course, the oft-repeated trope of Hulk and Banner battling inside of his/their mind—the sillier the character got.

I was an active reader of Marvel Comics in the early ‘90s. In fact, I own some of these Hulk issues in their original printings. It was about this time, however, that I decided to stop reading comics because the quality had declined so much. I like the Epic Collection paperbacks because they allow me to go back and read classic Marvel comics from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Hulk Volume 19, however, consists of comics that are far from epic and past Marvel’s prime.