We're here at the tail end of Hulk's Astonish run. He shared this title with Namor (and Ant Man) from issues #59 forward, and now the two are battling it out for the whole issue. Very awesome!
Cover: A neat cover, Namor and hulk flying into the sky over new york. A 3.5/5 for me.
Page 1-3:
Namor watches the hulk falling to his death from last issue and decides to save him in order to team up with him for his own needs. Namor finds a ship floating in the water as he rises to the surface, and the gunfire from the ship just bounces off Namor. He then rams the ship from below, tipping it over. We then see the puppet-master, one of Namor's villains, shouting about how he can't defeat Namor...who just knocked over his ship.
Page 4:
Puppet-master reads in the newspaper that the hulk is buried under the landslide. This master of voodoo then makes a clay figure of the hulk in order to control him and crush Namor.
Dude! Loki already tried this in the avengers...it didn't work. Oh, hold on...it's not voodoo...he's using radioactive clay that somehow works like voodoo. Regardless of ridiculous science, the puppet-master orders hulk to awake! The green giant smashes some rocks and breaks free.
Page 5:
I'm surprised the puppet master is still alive, he has like almost no talent! Update: The latest news actually shows that he was killed under unknown circumstances during the FF Original Sin tie-ins.
Meanwhile, general ross tries to blow up all the rocks along with the hulk while rick jones tries to protect the hulk. Just then, the hulk smashes his way into the open.
Page 6-7:
Jones goes down to talk to the hulk, but the puppet master orders him to ignore everyone else...so jones is bopped out of the way. Ross screams as the hulk leaps away. The hulk then splashes into the water next to namor. The puppet master orders the hulk to destroy the sub-mariner while namor tries to negotiate with him. The hulk punches namor in the face...
Page 8-9:
Namor kicks the hulk away and declares the battle begun! The two super-strong heroes just smash each other with seemly equal strength. The hulk points out how weak namor really is on land. Namor then shows how he can fly, while hulk only can jump.
Page 10-12:
Namor smacks hulk around in mid-air, but then hulk grabs him and swings him into the background. Unfortunately, the puppet master points out that hulk just threw him into the WATER! Massive fail! As namor falls into the ocean, we see Rick Jones being treated at a hospital.
Page 13-14:The love triangle between betty and talbot continues. While talbot is happy that the hulk is insane, since betty is now all his. However, Betty is sad because this violent outburst makes her think that banner has lost his mind. Talbot is also angry since NOTHING can kill the hulk. Meanwhile, the sub mariner rises from the water and flies back into the air.
Page 15-16:Namor smashes into the hulk with his catchphrase: Imperious Rex! Awesome! Hulk happened to be near a pool, so namor uses the water to gain an edge, punching the hulk around. Realizing this, the hulk smashes into namor and jumps out of the water. All this commotion alerts the military and the government, of course. One thing that I missed is that they are actually fighting in Miami and not new york. This leads to a lot of lines about hurricanes and background characters in casual shirts.
Page 17-23: Some dramatic shots of the two titans hitting each other. Plus more jumping/flying. Namor eventually flips hulk into the sea, where he gets smashed by waves and whatnot. Plus namor directs a wave to smash into the puppet master's base. On the shore, namor finds bruce banner and just leaves him alone...not knowing he is the hulk. However, on the last page we see that the hulk puppet still survives!
I think this issue was pretty good even though nothing much happened. I think it earns a 8/10 just for being an interesting concept with some awesome dramatic art. Namor seemed to have an advantage, so I think in a fair fight he would just drown the hulk eventually...or at least retreat. Besides that, the issue had nothing else going for it, plus the puppet master is a dumb villain. Think about it this way, even the weak minded hulk was able to resist the puppet control near the end [it was a really minor detail, but it happened]. So that.
Tales to Astonish #101 by the same authors as above.
This issue is a pretty weird one. The cover is great as we see Hulk just jumping down the rainbow bridge, totally a easy 8/10.
The issue opens right after #100 and the battle with namor and hulk reduced to bruce, Loki forces the Hulk to transform (so, anyone with magic powers can just do that? One of the worst thing about early hulk stories is that the transformation rules keep changing) and teleport him to Asgard to cause havoc!
Hiemdal attacks him, and of course, you don't want to make the hulk angry. By power ratings alone, Hulk could crush an asguardian with only moderate difficulty, and he knocks over the god with no problem.
I'd also like to note that the Hulk here demonstrates what I'd call moderate (rather than low) intelligence once again. [using full sentences, coming up with simple strategy, ect.]
Hulk next finds Hogun the Grim, one of the Warriors Three and body slams him into the ground.
The other two warriors arrive to help, but I don't think it will really matter when it comes to fighting the Hulk. Hulk (again showing more thought than normal) decides that he doesn’t want to fight and just demands to know where he is. Loki manages to trick more warriors into starting another attack.
Seriously? Why do the asguardians trust Loki? Does nobody else in Asgard know that he's evil? Wasn't he imprisoned before in Journey into Mystery? He's a known villain!
Loki's Criminal Record [considering I'm up to JiM 109]:
Escaping from his tree prison in JiM 85 and releasing animals from the zoo
Escaping again after Odin tells him not to in JiM 88 and attempts to conquer the earth
Escaping for a third time in JiM 92, even when restrained by uru chains.)
And those are just the first three times he escaped, why does anybody trust him at all?
Anyway, Loki gets tired of the hulk and turns him back into Banner and throws him down a pit.(So, he can do that too? It seems like Loki could have just killed Hulk at any time by just transforming him, like in the Avengers comic...) A cool issue for sure, but loki is strangely overpowered, and to an extent so is the Hulk when compared to the asguardians. A 6/10 for me.
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