This post has been literally two years in the making as I distinctively remember mentioning in my 2016 Kelley Jones birthday posts that I plan to do a post on Dale Keown´s run on THE INCREDIBLE HULK once finished.
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As usual it took me a bit longer than expected but while preparing the material for this post I came upon a few really good pieces of original art so that I had to split it into two parts. Now Today´s comic readers only know Dale Keown from his covers - mostly variants - or the occassional special project but before he went to iMAGE where he sold the same four issues of THE PITT for years he was doing interior work on a monthly basis which helped Marvel´s green skinned gamma giant get back on track.
While the writing by Peter David was still strong ( although it started to get a bit formulaic at this point and there are a few aspects that don´t make much sense during Dale Keown´s tenure on the book ) the art had been floundering quite a bit. After Todd McFarlane´s sensational run on the book wrapped up in the double - sized issue 345 Jeff Purves became the regular artist on HULK and his art style was just not right for the book.
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That coupled with this whole " intelligent Hulk in Las Vegas as Mr. Fixit "schtick brought the book into a really weird territory that led to declining sales. Luckily Dale Keown stepped in with issue 367 - which was the last part of a 4 part story - and took over the artistic reigns with issue 369.
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Comparing the difference between Jeff Purves´ Hulk and Dale Keown´s Hulk to the difference of day and night would be an understatement and within a few issues this was once again a must read book. The title was firing on all cylinders and after a short but sweet reunion of the original Defenders - sans Silver Surfer - things only really kicked into overdrive.
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During the last few years - from Todd McFarlane to Jeff Purves - we got the grey Hulk who was more intelligent than the green Hulk but also weaker. Plus instead of the change being triggered by strong emotions - which is what most people associate with the Hulk because of the tv show starring Bill Bixby as Doctor David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the incredible Hulk - he changed by sundown and reverted to Banner when the sun came up. To irk Banner the Hulk always tried to get Banner into difficult situations like jumping on top of a huge mountain so Banner could not get off or getting totally plastered so Banner was out for the day.
Anyway, for years we got stuck with the grey Hulk and it looked like it was going to be that way for the duration when during a story where Bruce tried desperately to reunite with Betty and was stopped at every turn the green Hulk suddenly burst out of Bruce Banner shedding him like a snake.
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You can imagine the shock wave that went through comic fandom when old jade skin returned but if you believe that the grey Hulk would be history with this think again. It seems that Peter David likes to eat his cake and keep it at the same time because both versions appeared in the pages from now on and you never knew which Hulk you would get Today.
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Things kicked up a notch when the Hulk went up against one of the most underused super villains, the Super Skrull, which reunited Bruce and Betty with longtime sidekick for half of the Marvel universe heroes Rick Jones.
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Of course I can´t mention Rick Jones without mentioning his better half the mega busty redhead Marlo who became an important part of the supporting cast ( no pun intended ). Hubba hubba, what a tomato !
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At this point Marlo had been intimate with Mr. Fixit without knowing that Bruce Banner was his alter ego and after he mysteriously disappeared from Las Vegas she met Rick. When Bruce was finally confronted with her and Betty he had kind of a mental breakdown and in a stroke of genius Doc Samson - or Peter David if you want to get meta - brought in the criminal Ringmaster who helped to merge all of the different personalities ( Bruce Banner, the grey Hulk and the green Hulk ) into one dominant persona.
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Now the nature of this new persona is something that I always found very questionable - as longtime readers of this blog know. It contradicts all of Bruce´s life up to this point. After the merger Hulk becomes basically a bully which for me is a bit hard to swallow because he has been bullied by other people his whole life. Peter David seems to think that deep down all people are bullies and the ones who are bullied by others are just weaker than them but once they get the power they become bullies themselves.
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Philosophical disputes about the nature of man aside, you thought the story would go in the usual direction - we already had an intelligent Hulk although back then with only the Bruce Banner persona in issues 272 to 300 ( which was too short for my taste ) - but as usual Peter David threw his readers a curve ball with the shadowy organization the Pantheon.
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You always hear that 90s comic books were crap which is a thesis to which I don´t subscribe because unlike most people who make that statement I was actually reading 90s comic books as they were coming out and while there was a lot more bad comics than in previous decades that was mostly due to the fact that comic books became a hot commodity so there were more titles than ever before. Despite all this there were still enough good comics to read and THE INCREDIBLE HULK was one of them. Aside from a few personal mannerisms which you probably don´t pick up at first Peter David was spinning a very entertaining story which lasted longer than anyone ever would have expected and Dale Keown was just born to draw the incredible Hulk. He also was killing it with perspective which is one of the reasons why I find it so sad he mostly draws variant covers Today.
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In issues 386 and 387 the Hulk faces Sabra, an israeli super heroine who had encountered the Hulk before ( some readers may remember her from THE CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS about which I am still planning to write a post ) and who was mad at him because she was one of the heroes who supported his amnesty. Which blew up in her face when the Hulk reverted to a mindless monster and went on a rampage that left Doctor Strange no other choice than to exile him to the crossroads after the part of Bruce Banner had apparently committed psychic suicide. This happened in issue 300 and the following stories were the first Hulk stories I read in the US version. For anybody interested in that period of Hulk´s history you can find it in the aptly named CROSSROADS paperback. Coming back to Sabra, I read somewhere that Peter David brought her in because he wanted to make her part of the regular cast. I don´t know the exact reason why that was nixed and by whom, if it was because she was israseli and they didn´t want to get too political or what because I don´t remember where I read this but I would have liked to see more of her. With all the talk about Dale Keown´s ability to draw musclebound monsters like the Hulk or the Pitt one often forgets that he drew some pretty hot females during this run.
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I have mentioned that there were a few personal mannerisms of Peter David that could quickly become annoying to readers and one of them was his need to contradict - or rectify like he probably saw it - stories written by other writers. Sometimes stories in which the Hulk appeared but sometimes just stories of other writers he tried to dis. His war with Erik Larsen - and you can´t call it anything else - has gone down in the annals of comic history and I believe at the root of it was the age old envy of creators who can only write of other creators who can write and draw. Peter David not only coined the word wartists for those people ( which would include such creators like Dave Sim, Terry Moore or Jeff Smith ) he also wrote many stories explicitly to make Erik Larsen look bad. Okay, with the word wartists Peter David meant to dis most of the creative people at iMAGE who started out as artists and then tried their hand at writing but is there really a difference if someone starts out as a writer and then starts to draw ? I mean, most of the people who went to iMAGE also wrote their own stories to have complete creative control but with the way some of the books at Marvel were written at that time the couldn´t do it worse. Whichever your position may be in that debate it got frustrating for the reader when Peter David included a scene where the Hulk beat Doc Ock without much problem after Erik Larsen had pimped him with adamantium tentacles and he had beaten up the Hulk in the RETURN OF THE SINISTER SIX storyline in AMAZING SPIDER - MAN. Which by the way is available as an Epic Collection from amazon Germany for 24 bucks. Another of this instances was THE INCREDIBLE HULK 388 where Sam Wilson had become infected with Aids and asked the Hulk to give him a blood transfusion well knowing that there was a high risk it could turn him into a monster.
keown
As usual it took me a bit longer than expected but while preparing the material for this post I came upon a few really good pieces of original art so that I had to split it into two parts. Now Today´s comic readers only know Dale Keown from his covers - mostly variants - or the occassional special project but before he went to iMAGE where he sold the same four issues of THE PITT for years he was doing interior work on a monthly basis which helped Marvel´s green skinned gamma giant get back on track.
While the writing by Peter David was still strong ( although it started to get a bit formulaic at this point and there are a few aspects that don´t make much sense during Dale Keown´s tenure on the book ) the art had been floundering quite a bit. After Todd McFarlane´s sensational run on the book wrapped up in the double - sized issue 345 Jeff Purves became the regular artist on HULK and his art style was just not right for the book.
That coupled with this whole " intelligent Hulk in Las Vegas as Mr. Fixit "schtick brought the book into a really weird territory that led to declining sales. Luckily Dale Keown stepped in with issue 367 - which was the last part of a 4 part story - and took over the artistic reigns with issue 369.
Comparing the difference between Jeff Purves´ Hulk and Dale Keown´s Hulk to the difference of day and night would be an understatement and within a few issues this was once again a must read book. The title was firing on all cylinders and after a short but sweet reunion of the original Defenders - sans Silver Surfer - things only really kicked into overdrive.
During the last few years - from Todd McFarlane to Jeff Purves - we got the grey Hulk who was more intelligent than the green Hulk but also weaker. Plus instead of the change being triggered by strong emotions - which is what most people associate with the Hulk because of the tv show starring Bill Bixby as Doctor David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the incredible Hulk - he changed by sundown and reverted to Banner when the sun came up. To irk Banner the Hulk always tried to get Banner into difficult situations like jumping on top of a huge mountain so Banner could not get off or getting totally plastered so Banner was out for the day.
Anyway, for years we got stuck with the grey Hulk and it looked like it was going to be that way for the duration when during a story where Bruce tried desperately to reunite with Betty and was stopped at every turn the green Hulk suddenly burst out of Bruce Banner shedding him like a snake.
You can imagine the shock wave that went through comic fandom when old jade skin returned but if you believe that the grey Hulk would be history with this think again. It seems that Peter David likes to eat his cake and keep it at the same time because both versions appeared in the pages from now on and you never knew which Hulk you would get Today.
Things kicked up a notch when the Hulk went up against one of the most underused super villains, the Super Skrull, which reunited Bruce and Betty with longtime sidekick for half of the Marvel universe heroes Rick Jones.
Of course I can´t mention Rick Jones without mentioning his better half the mega busty redhead Marlo who became an important part of the supporting cast ( no pun intended ). Hubba hubba, what a tomato !
At this point Marlo had been intimate with Mr. Fixit without knowing that Bruce Banner was his alter ego and after he mysteriously disappeared from Las Vegas she met Rick. When Bruce was finally confronted with her and Betty he had kind of a mental breakdown and in a stroke of genius Doc Samson - or Peter David if you want to get meta - brought in the criminal Ringmaster who helped to merge all of the different personalities ( Bruce Banner, the grey Hulk and the green Hulk ) into one dominant persona.
Now the nature of this new persona is something that I always found very questionable - as longtime readers of this blog know. It contradicts all of Bruce´s life up to this point. After the merger Hulk becomes basically a bully which for me is a bit hard to swallow because he has been bullied by other people his whole life. Peter David seems to think that deep down all people are bullies and the ones who are bullied by others are just weaker than them but once they get the power they become bullies themselves.
Philosophical disputes about the nature of man aside, you thought the story would go in the usual direction - we already had an intelligent Hulk although back then with only the Bruce Banner persona in issues 272 to 300 ( which was too short for my taste ) - but as usual Peter David threw his readers a curve ball with the shadowy organization the Pantheon.
You always hear that 90s comic books were crap which is a thesis to which I don´t subscribe because unlike most people who make that statement I was actually reading 90s comic books as they were coming out and while there was a lot more bad comics than in previous decades that was mostly due to the fact that comic books became a hot commodity so there were more titles than ever before. Despite all this there were still enough good comics to read and THE INCREDIBLE HULK was one of them. Aside from a few personal mannerisms which you probably don´t pick up at first Peter David was spinning a very entertaining story which lasted longer than anyone ever would have expected and Dale Keown was just born to draw the incredible Hulk. He also was killing it with perspective which is one of the reasons why I find it so sad he mostly draws variant covers Today.
In issues 386 and 387 the Hulk faces Sabra, an israeli super heroine who had encountered the Hulk before ( some readers may remember her from THE CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS about which I am still planning to write a post ) and who was mad at him because she was one of the heroes who supported his amnesty. Which blew up in her face when the Hulk reverted to a mindless monster and went on a rampage that left Doctor Strange no other choice than to exile him to the crossroads after the part of Bruce Banner had apparently committed psychic suicide. This happened in issue 300 and the following stories were the first Hulk stories I read in the US version. For anybody interested in that period of Hulk´s history you can find it in the aptly named CROSSROADS paperback. Coming back to Sabra, I read somewhere that Peter David brought her in because he wanted to make her part of the regular cast. I don´t know the exact reason why that was nixed and by whom, if it was because she was israseli and they didn´t want to get too political or what because I don´t remember where I read this but I would have liked to see more of her. With all the talk about Dale Keown´s ability to draw musclebound monsters like the Hulk or the Pitt one often forgets that he drew some pretty hot females during this run.
I have mentioned that there were a few personal mannerisms of Peter David that could quickly become annoying to readers and one of them was his need to contradict - or rectify like he probably saw it - stories written by other writers. Sometimes stories in which the Hulk appeared but sometimes just stories of other writers he tried to dis. His war with Erik Larsen - and you can´t call it anything else - has gone down in the annals of comic history and I believe at the root of it was the age old envy of creators who can only write of other creators who can write and draw. Peter David not only coined the word wartists for those people ( which would include such creators like Dave Sim, Terry Moore or Jeff Smith ) he also wrote many stories explicitly to make Erik Larsen look bad. Okay, with the word wartists Peter David meant to dis most of the creative people at iMAGE who started out as artists and then tried their hand at writing but is there really a difference if someone starts out as a writer and then starts to draw ? I mean, most of the people who went to iMAGE also wrote their own stories to have complete creative control but with the way some of the books at Marvel were written at that time the couldn´t do it worse. Whichever your position may be in that debate it got frustrating for the reader when Peter David included a scene where the Hulk beat Doc Ock without much problem after Erik Larsen had pimped him with adamantium tentacles and he had beaten up the Hulk in the RETURN OF THE SINISTER SIX storyline in AMAZING SPIDER - MAN. Which by the way is available as an Epic Collection from amazon Germany for 24 bucks. Another of this instances was THE INCREDIBLE HULK 388 where Sam Wilson had become infected with Aids and asked the Hulk to give him a blood transfusion well knowing that there was a high risk it could turn him into a monster.
keown