{"id":18487,"date":"2018-06-08T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T08:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=18487"},"modified":"2018-06-07T15:31:41","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T15:31:41","slug":"incredible-hulk-marvel-masterworks-volume-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2018\/06\/08\/incredible-hulk-marvel-masterworks-volume-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Incredible Hulk Marvel Masterworks volume 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy Stan Lee<\/strong>, Roy Thomas<\/strong>, Herb Trimpe<\/strong> & various (Marvel)
\nISBN: 978-0-7851-3491-6 (HB)<\/p>\n

As the 1960s drew to a socially-divisive close, the Incredible Hulk<\/strong> was settling into a comfortable niche and enjoyable formula as tragic nuclear scientist Bruce Banner<\/em> wandered America and the world, seeking cures for his self-inflicted gamma-transformative curse, alternately aided or hunted by prospective father-in-law US General \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thunderbolt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ross<\/em> and a variety of guest-star heroes and villains.<\/p>\n

Writer Stan Lee was gradually distancing himself from the creative chair as he became Marvel’s publisher, and neophyte artist Herb Trimpe was increasingly making the character his own with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153standard-received\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jack Kirby-originated house art-style quickly evolving into startlingly abstract mannerism, augmented by an unmatched facility for drawing technology\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 especially honking great ordnance and vehicles.<\/p>\n

And of course, as comics readers increasingly turned to monsters and supernatural themes, no one could deny the cathartic reader-release of a mighty big \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hulk Smash\u00e2\u20ac\u009d moment\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

This chronologically accurate hardback and eBook compendium contains Incredible Hulk<\/strong> #111-121, spanning January-November 1969 and opens after a charmingly self-deprecating Introduction from Trimpe.<\/p>\n

Then it’s on to the bombastic action, as a shocking cliffhanger from the previous volume is resolved\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Umbu the Unliving<\/em> was yet another extraterrestrial device left to facilitate Earth’s demise, but Banner and his green alter-ego had destroyed it with the assistance of Savage Land jungle lord Ka-Zar<\/em>, albeit at the cost of Banner’s life. Now its makers come looking for the saboteurs at the behest of their tyrannical cosmic overlord, Galaxy Master<\/em> in ‘Shanghaied in Space!’<\/em> (by Lee, Trimpe & Dan Adkins), using their arcane technologies to reanimate Banner’s corpse so they have a scapegoat to hand to their demonic boss\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Transported to the heart of the evil empire, ‘The Brute Battles On!’<\/em>, eventually destroying the inimical energy being and sparking a revolution before being rocketed back to Earth by a grateful alien princess\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Issue #113 finds the recently returned Hulk brutally battling an upgraded Sandman<\/em> in ‘Where Fall the Shifting Sands!’<\/em>, before the sinister silicon villain pops right back a month later beside the Mandarin<\/em> in #114’s ‘At Last I Will Have My Revenge!’<\/em>; two fast-paced power-packed yarns to whet jaded (sorry, puns are my kryptonite!) appetites for the extended return of the Jade Giant’s greatest foe.<\/p>\n

‘The Leader Lives!’<\/em> opens with the man-monster a prisoner of the US Army, when the long-believed-dead gamma genius – as smart as the Hulk is strong – taking control of the base for his own nefarious purposes.<\/p>\n

‘The Eve of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Annihilation!’<\/em> reveals the Leader’s atomic Armageddon plans for our pitiful planet even as the indomitable Hulk escapes a seemingly perfect prison with the aid of the always-unpredictable Betty Ross before the saga explosively concludes in countdown-clock thriller ‘World’s End?’<\/em>, notable not just for its cataclysmic dramatic conclusion, but also for Trimpe taking over the inking of his own pencils.<\/p>\n

Incredible Hulk <\/strong>#118 (August 1969) depicts a duplicitous courtier at the Sub-Mariner<\/em>‘s sunken citadel orchestrating ‘A Clash of Titans’<\/em> (as related by Stan Lee and Trimpe) after which the green Goliath stumbles into a South American secretly country conquered by and ‘At the Mercy of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Maximus the Mad’<\/em>: a two-part tale that concludes with the Roy Thomas scripted ‘On the Side of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the Evil Inhumans!’<\/em><\/p>\n

This all-out action extravaganza sees the Hulk also fighting the Costa Salvador army, the ubiquitous moustachioed rebels, General Ross’ specialist US army forces and even a giant hypnotic robot before giving way to a moodier menace as Ol’ Greenskin returns to North America\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Wrapping up this tome is a soggy interlude in Florida where the man-monster learns ‘Within the Swamp, There Stirs\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 a Glob!’<\/em><\/p>\n

Designed as tribute in equal parts to Theodore Sturgeon’s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the Hillman Comics Character The Heap<\/em> – who slopped his way through the back of Airboy Comics<\/strong> in the early 1950s – this muck-encrusted monstrosity predates both DC’s Swamp Thing<\/strong> and Marvel’s own Man-Thing<\/strong> in a tale of woeful tragedy and unrequited love when the remains of a long-dead escaped convict are accidentally irradiated and take on a shambling semblance of life.<\/p>\n

Surely it’s just bad luck that Betty and the Hulk are in its misanthropic path?<\/p>\n

Adding even more lustre and appeal to this tome are the cover to Incredible Hulk Annual <\/strong>#2 and Marie Severin’s colour-guide to #119’s cover.<\/p>\n

This titanic tome of Hulk heroics offers visceral thrillers and chaotic clashes overflowing with dynamism, enthusiasm and sheer quality: full-on, butt-kicking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153breaking-stuff\u00e2\u20ac\u009d yarns to enthral and delight the destructive eight-year-old in everyone. Just remember to read, not do\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1969, 2007, 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Herb Trimpe & various (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0-7851-3491-6 (HB) As the 1960s drew to a socially-divisive close, the Incredible Hulk was settling into a comfortable niche and enjoyable formula as tragic nuclear scientist Bruce Banner wandered America and the world, seeking cures for his self-inflicted gamma-transformative curse, alternately aided or hunted … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Incredible Hulk Marvel Masterworks volume 5”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[98,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hulk","category-marvel-superheroes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4Ob","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}