Time Travel and Hulk Don't Mix

 

cover art by Herb Trimpe

Herb Trimpe returns as the artist in Hulk #204 (October 1976), with Trimpe also providing the plot. Len Wein.

In the last issue, Hulk and his gal Jarella were both taken from her microscopic world. Jarella is in isolation until Doc Samson can make sure Earth's atmosphere won't hurt her. Hulk, though, doesn't get this and throws a generic Hulk temper tantrum.

It's interesting to see General Ross's reaction to this. A few years earlier, he would have been happily trying to take down Hulk. Now he at least partially sympathizes with the Emerald Giant (though he can still shout out an occasional "brute!") and primarily wants to make sure no one gets hurt.

Anyway, Hulk is gassed unconscious. Later, a Doctor Kronus comes up with a plan to cure Banner of being the Hulk. The method? Send Banner back in time and simply avoid being exposed to gamma radiation.

Banner talks this over with Jarella first. After all, she loves him as both Banner and the Hulk, so she has a say in the decision. 

It's clear here that Wein was fitting Trimpe's plot into the ongoing arc about Jarella and he does a fine job with this. It's kind of too bad, though, that the obligation to do this was there. Jarella doesn't effect the Kronus story in any significant way. Saving a few pages to add to Hulk's pretty cool fight scene against Evil Kronus at the climax would have been nice.

Anyway, Banner ends up back where it all started. Rather than personally dragging Rick Jones to a shelter, he merely yells a warning about a bomb. Rick jumps for cover, but doesn't quite make it. Banner is no longer the Hulk, but Rick is dead.

Banner snaps back to the present, where he's married to Betty and no one knows the Hulk. But he's mentally crippled from his guilt over Rick, considering himself a murderer. (According to the Marvel Wiki, Banner didn't really change history, but created an alternate Earth--Earth-20476, to be precise.)

It's then that Dr. Kronus attacks, summoning up the Hulk from an alternate past in order to destroy him. In this reality, Kronus considers Banner/Hulk responsible for destroying his life's work. We're not given the details of this, but we really don't need them. This is a case where a detailed back story simply isn't required and Wein was wise not to try to explain to much. (Though I suppose that decision might have been based fitting the story into 18 pages.)

Anyway, Kronus is now a super villain with the ability to manipulate time. I like the ensuing fight scene, which takes us a million years back in time and has Kronus doing stuff like summoning up a glacier from the Ice Age and trapping Hulk inside it.

This is the scene I really wish would have been a page or two longer. Oh, well. It was definitely cool while it lasted.

Hulk gets the best of Kronus, but when he smashes Kronus' helmet, he sees Rick Jones inside. Hulk reverts to Banner, travels back in time and "fixes" the original event so that everything works out the way it did the first time. Rick is saved, but Banner is now the Hulk.

It is a filler issue before getting back to the Jarella story arc, but it's a good filler issue, with a strong story and a great fight scene. And it's always nice to see Herb Trimpe artwork in any issue of the Hulk.

Next week is a Holiday Skip Week. In two weeks, we'll look at the final chapter in "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz."