The Incredible Hulk & The Thing: The Big Change

A MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL

By Jim Starlin & Berni Wrightson (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-299-0

I can’t recall the last time Marvel published an all-original graphic novel as opposed to a collection, but not so very long ago they were a market leader in the field with an entire range of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (285 x 220 mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168 mm) featuring not only proprietary characters but also licensed assets like Conan and even creator-owned properties like Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar.

This one is full-on Marvel Madness and a wonderfully comedic outing for two of the industry’s biggest names. Released in 1987 it teamed old friends and young turks Jim Starlin and Berni Wrightson on a big kids dream project as Marvel’s top monstrous strongmen the Hulk and the Thing are abducted by a cosmic civil servant of the Federation of Matriculon. He needs a couple of tough guys for a bit of Repo work.

Promised two wishes, good for anything their hearts desire, our bellicose heroes are tasked with recovering a fabulous new product (“Mall Addy’s Nutritional Big Change”) from the worst monster on a world full of monsters.

Beautifully painted art and wicked, tongue-in-cheek humour garnish what is basically one great big fight comic. In the immortal words of Tiswas, “this is what they want!”

Fast. Furious. Funny. This proves that – at least in comics – violence does solve some things! Fabulous!

© 1987 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.