A Hero From Another Time
This is a pretty bizarre issue of Hulk, which is saying a lot in the era of late 70's - early 80's Marvel in which anything goes, and plenty of trippy wtf stories abound. Bruce Banner is doing his usual vagabond thing, and as fate would have it, while roaming through suburban Los Alamos, arrives at the home of 3D Man, whose youngest son happens to be a big Hulk fan. What follows is an interesting tale with considerable focus placed on 3D Man's origin and motivations. The fight itself is as one would expect a 3D Man vs. Hulk matchup to be, sans the obvious beatdown that should have been doled out by the Hulk. The side plot of Betty Ross and Rick Jones, besieged by Changelings at Thunderbolt Ross's cabin is more interesting, and what expects the next issue to be cooler than this one from the build up. Sal Buscema draws a great Hulk, and there isn't much to complain about the overall, and for some reason, I really really dig this cover, which would have been even cooler where it not for the obnoxious banner ad at the top which plagued too many an issue from this time period. Mantlo is a great writer, but I think there was a potentially deep and powerful story about 3D Man waiting to be told. After all, he "dies" in a plane crash only to be turned into a bizarre 1950's superhero by the skrulls, and spends decades contained in his brother's glasses, who also happens to be having sex and starting a family with the love of his life? There's endless fodder for a really cool story to be told from this awfully bizarre premise, in fact one doesn't even really need the Hulk during the more effective moments in this issue. But, for whatever reason, this does happen in an issue of the Hulk. And either the limits of the format or the limits of Mantlo's writing made me feel like way too many punches were pulled, in what could have been a barrage of awesomenss.