The Incredible Hulk #3/1

Banished to Outer Space

By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers

Villains: none

Guest Appearances: Rick Jones

So, What Happens?

The Hulk rages at being trapped in his cell, but it is strong enough to hold him. Rick leaves him there and tries to get some rest but is taken in by the military who demand he bring them the Hulk so he can test a rocket for them.

Rick returns to the cell just as the Hulk smashes free from it and turns on Rick for locking him in. Rick flees, leading the Hulk to the army’s rocket. Once the Hulk is inside, the rocket launches, on a trajectory that should keep him away from the earth forever.

The rocket passes through cosmic rays that transform the Hulk back to Banner. When Rick realises what he has done he sabotages the rocket’s guidance computers, forcing the rocket to crash back to earth and somehow linking him to the Hulk by a burst of radiation.

Rick runs to the rocket’s crash site and is confronted by the angry Hulk who chases him across the desert. Exhausted Rick eventually stops and faces the Hulk and is amazed to find that the Hulk does as commanded when ordered to stop. In fact, Rick soon learns that the Hulk will follow all of his commands. It seems that the radiation has somehow put the Hulk under Rick’s mental command.

That night when Rick falls asleep th e Hulk slips from his command and goes on a rampage. Rick wakes in time to stop it and commands the Hulk to carry him off to the desert cell and away from civilisation. There Rick forces himself to stay awake so that the Hulk will remain under his control and not hurt anyone.

So is it any good?:

It’s a mess. It probably works best if you look at the story as a horror story that stars Rick Jones and look at the Hulk merely as an unstoppable monster who will come back to haunt Rick no matter how far away he is sent and however good Rick’s intentions are.

While decades of Hulk stories have taught us to sympathise with him against the US Military he has as yet not displayed a single heroic action in three stories (as opposed to Banner who has been both resourceful and good hearted throughout), the Hulk in fact decided to attack the planet earth in the previous issue. Based on that Rick’s efforts to hamper the military’s plans for the Hulk are just as misguided as his attempt to go into the bomb test site in issue 1.

Rick’s intentions might be good but the Hulk repeatedly turns on him and here with the bizarre mind-link he is given actual responsibility for any damage the Hulk does to go with the fact that he in fact created the Hulk.

The story is let down by the plot holes, why does Rick using the rocket’s control system give him a mental hold over the Hulk? I guess Stan realised that the setup of the first two issues with a heroic daytime Banner being replaced by a destructive nocturnal Hulk was quite limiting but we have yet to really hit upon the classic setup where anger or strong emotion triggers a transformation.

There is some very effective art, especially if you view the Hulk as a monster and not the lead, it reads like a very good horror comic but it’s still a mess thematically.

Are there any goofy moments?

The way the radiation links Rick and the Hulk is pretty inexplicable.

As is the way that a space rocket leaves the atmosphere before Rick even knows what is going on and yet still manages to crash back down within walking distance when Rick finally decides to interfere with the flight.

Trivia:

The story is obviously a thematic influence on the countless other times people tried to trick the Hulk and then send him off the planet right up to the recent Planet Hulk storyline.

Is it a landmark?:

Not really, it is the first of many changes in the status quo for the Hulk’s transformations but that’s about it.