The Incredible Hulk #102

Eleven months after his wife Laura was killed in a car crash from which he had been unable to save her, Dr. David Bruce Banner, Ph.D., M.D.(Wilfred Bailey "Bill" Bixby), is having nightmares about the tragedy. He and a fellow scientist employed in the Culver Institute, Dr. Elaina Harding Marks, Ph.D., M.D.(Susan Sullivan), have commenced, having been inspired by that tragedy, to search for some way to tap into the hidden physical strengths that all humans are known to possess, but of which few humans actually employ even a full twenty percent. But much to Marks's dismay, Banner keeps losing his cool over his frustration with his failure. This, she warns him, has now begun to interfere with his examination of a medical phenomenon with cool scientific objectivity. In the meantime, Banner has had to fend off the intrusiveness of Jack McGee(Jack Colvin), who works as an investigative reporter for a newspaper called the National Register. The National Register, a tabloid newspaper specializing in sensationalism, is attempting to obtain information for a report on Banner's research in tapping into human strength, but Banner dismisses McGee's, and the National Register's, interest by likening it to interest in "murder, rape, UFOs, horoscopes, and Farrah Fawcett" and denying that he fits into any of those categories. McGee responds, in turn, that he does not give up easily. This persistence on McGee's part will have devastating consequences.

In the course of this research, Banner and Marks interview and test seventy-eight different people, and discover that they have a genetic abnormality--elevated adenine-thymine content in their DNA. (They are able to detect this abnormality through enhancements of the Institute's equipment that Dr. Benjamin Culver(Charles Siebert), its Director, has been conducting.) Evidently, extreme emotional commitment causes this to energize their muscles in some way; however, Banner's own DNA proves to have this genetic abnormality too, and to have it to a greater extent than most of--indeed, ALL--the others, but he had never found the strength that they had had. Marks surmises that something external is operating.

That something, as a chart of sunspot activity that a puzzled Culver allows Banner to borrow shows, is gamma radiation. Every case of abnormally high strength has occurred on a day of high gamma activity from sunspots, and Laura's death occurred on a day of low gamma activity. Banner tries unsuccessfully to call Marks and inform her of this; when that fails, he decides to inject himself with a gamma-radiation dose. He does not consider, in doing so, that Culver has enhanced the gamma injector of the radiology laboratory as well, since the injector is not calibrated. Setting the controls for a two-minute automatic countdown to a fifteen-second radiation event that he hopes will bombard him with three hundred thousand gamma units, Banner injects himself with the gamma dosage using the uncalibrated injector. But since its controls are un-monitored, Banner does not realize that he is actually bombarding himself with almost two MILLION gamma units--and thus he administers an accidental overdose of gamma radiation to himself.

Worse for Banner, the night he does this is one when an electrical storm strikes. As Banner is driving home on Crossway Road, one of the tires on his car blows out from running over a broken roadblock. As he is attempting to change the tire, he scrapes his hand, twice, on the road--and as a direct result of the extreme negative stress, for what will be the first of many times, he transforms physically into a gigantic green-skinned creature(Lou Ferrigno), more ape than man, of inhuman primality but possessed of super-human strength. This creature, who is driven by rage, destroys what was otherwise intact of Banner's car, then walks away from the wreckage.

The following morning, on the shore of a lake near where he had left the wreckage of Banner's car, the creature encounters a girl, who, fleeing him in terror, falls into the lake. (One brief shot of Richard Kiel, who was initially chosen as the creature before Lou Ferrigno was ultimately signed, survived the final editing process.) Her father then shoots at the creature, the bullet from his rifle's single round passing directly through the creature's shoulder, and the creature breaks the man's rifle over his knee and throws the smaller man into the lake. Then he tears up the camp the girl and her father had maintained on the lake's shore and flees. On another shore of the same lake, the creature finally calms down...and transforms back to David Banner, who remembers nothing of what has happened.

Banner pays a visit to Marks, whom his condition horrifies. He there explains as much as he can remember about the previous night, saying that he cannot go to the hospital in spite of having been shot in his shoulder--it may be too dangerous. Marks agrees to join Banner at the Culver Institute's Southwest Laboratory Building, where a hyperbaric chamber for deep-sea experiments is maintained. Before they can leave for that particular lab, however, McGee visits Marks trying to learn more about Banner's and her research; Marks rebuffs him. Then she and Banner leave for the lab.

In the lab, Banner and Marks try to re-create the conditions of the previous night to find out what happened. But after two hours, they achieve no results similar to what had happened. It is then that Banner learns the potential consequences of the enhanced but uncalibrated gamma injector in the main lab--the possibility exists that he might have bombarded himself with an accidental overdose of gamma radiation. Banner has been fitted with brain-wave recording electrodes, which he wears to sleep.

But he then again has his nightmare about how his late wife Laura had died--and within seconds of Banner's sudden awakening from it, the creature is tearing up the hyperbaric chamber in blind rage to escape; this time with Marks watching him do so. Marks is able to record what she perceives of the creature, and to calm him down...in consequence of which Banner re-emerges. Marks figures that such anger and emotional stress as Banner's nightmare had caused him is what triggers the transformation; Banner realizes, and says out loud, "That means it's uncontrollable." If the transformations can happen in his sleep or any time his anger builds up, even in his unconscious, then Banner denies that he either has any control over the physical transformations or even remembers what the creature does. He expresses fears that he was wounded because the creature had killed, or had tried to kill, someone the night before. But Marks refuses to believe this, noting that David Banner is not a killer. She notes that the creature embodies Banner's primitive emotions run wild, and that even though the creature may be undisciplined and may tear a hyperbaric pressure chamber apart, because David Banner will not kill, the creature will not kill either. Just then, Banner and Marks are told (by the voice of producer Kenneth Johnson himself) that a Highway Patrol unit is at the entrance awaiting Banner.

A police officer (Eric Server) notifies Banner that his car's wreckage has been found and gives him twenty-four hours to arrange for clearing the debris; after that, the Highway Patrol will do so and will bill Banner for its work. McGee shows up at the lab, at that point, carrying a plaster cast of what he calls the footprint of a creature, which he calls a "Hulk," that was found near Banner's car. The police officer, however, says that no authoritative proof exists that the footprints found near the car are real, and wants to avoid starting a panic. McGee describes the attacks "that Hulk" made on the girl and her father, and Marks gets him to confirm that they were not injured. Banner denies knowing anything about "that big hulking creature that's attacking people," and Marks warns McGee about a deadly strain of microbe supposedly being studied in that lab. Smoking a cigarette, McGee waits for Banner and Marks to leave, then pokes around the lab building on his own. He there finds some evidence of "that Hulk's" presence, but not enough for the story he wants to tell.

Banner and Marks attempt to reverse what has happened to Banner using X-rays, but without success. They leave the main lab and return to the southwest lab, where McGee is hiding out. Startled out of his hiding place in a supply closet, McGee accidentally knocks over a jug of chemical, which spills. Banner and Marks say that the microbe, fortunately for McGee, is now back at the main lab. Banner takes McGee outside, warning him that the Institute is private property and saying that he has never seen this creature McGee is describing. Accused of lying, Banner barely recovers his composure and says jokingly, with a smile, "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

But the spilled chemical now interacts with another chemical, and an explosion results that sets the lab on fire. Banner is appalled to see that Marks has been pinned underneath a large piece of rubble, and his horror and terror boil over as a result--and the creature plunges into the fiery remains of the lab, atttempting to rescue Marks from it.

Worst of all for Banner, McGee sees him go into the lab, but does NOT see him come OUT OF it. Instead, he sees the creature, "that Hulk," emerge from the lab, holding Marks's body in his arms. Then the remains of the lab burn down; McGee's leg is injured.

In the woods, Marks, who is now dying from the internal injuries she had sustained, finally admits, addressing that part of the creature, "that Hulk," which still remains Banner, "Dear, dear David...I have loved you...for such a very...long time...and I always will. And I always will." She then dies, and the creature, "that Hulk," roars in grief and rage.

At Marks's funeral a handful of days later, McGee, now limping on a crutch, meets Culver, who is disgusted at the National Register's coverage of the tragedy. The copy of the National Register McGee holds bears the headline Incredible "Hulk" Kills 2. McGee explains to Culver, to whom he acknowledges having seen the Hulk, that he has given a description of the Hulk to law enforcement agencies, and a warrant of criminal arrest, for murder, has been issued in the Hulk's name. The Hulk, McGee says, will not stay hidden for long; when he IS eventually captured, he will become the subject of one of the Twentieth Century's best stories. Disgusted, Culver leaves.

A handful of hours pass before Banner, very much alive, visits both the cenotaph that marks his "death" and the grave of the very dead Marks. He will keep searching for some way to become normal again, and think of some place safer to move his work along those lines. He finally admits, "I love you, Elaina. I think you loved me too...although you never said it."

Amnesiac for the Hulk's experiences as Banner is, he will never know that Marks had said just that, to the Hulk, immediately before she died.

Already, David Banner has judged it safer for the general public to continue to believe that he too is dead as a result of the accidental explosion which had ignited the fire that had burned down the Culver Institute's Southwest Laboratory, since, as he himself cannot even remember what happened in the fire, he can never prove that neither he nor the Hulk were responsible for Marks's death. Nor will he be able to stay very long in any one place or with any one family or household or work any one job for very long, to protect anyone else from charges of possibly harboring a criminal suspect. There will be but one set of circumstances under which he will be able to reveal to the general public that he is not dead, and that will be when, somehow, he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him--the spirit of The Incredible HULK.

The highly successful series follows from there.