Looking Back on the Hulk

digresssmlOriginally published March 12, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1321

I wondered if I would be able to read it.

I stood there in the comic book store I frequent once a week and observed the new titles. Apparently it was Books-I-Used-To-Write week. It’s kind of like standing outside a frat house from which you’ve been rejected, knowing that there’s a party going on and that you’re not invited to attend.

There was the latest issue of Aquaman with the newest installment of the systematic dismantling of everything I did in the series. But I was pretty much used to that by now. Right nearby, however, was issue #1 of The Hulk. No longer incredible, but the recipient of a massive ad campaign, a Marvel-created website, and lots of other support that they hadn’t given the title for years while I was writing it.

I stared at it. And thought back to twelve years ago, when Bob Harras approached me about writing it…

Back then, you see, I was still working in the sales department. I had an iron-clad, inviolable rule: Between nine and five, I never discussed editorial matters with anyone. I was striving to keep my writing career and my sales career separate. Of course, since my writing career wasn’t going anywhere at that time, it wasn’t that difficult a chore. My only assignment until that point had been Spectacular Spider-Man, from which I’d been fired by Jim Owsley who was trying to placate Jim Shooter (and hopefully save his own job. Although for some reason Owsley kept trying to get me to change my name to Moishe Rabbi. Could never figure that one out…) So it wasn’t as if editors were banging down my door. In point of fact, no one really wanted me on their books since the idea of a sales guy writing a comic was anathema to practically the entire staff.

It was with some degree of surprise, then, that I looked up from my stack of rack credit forms to see Bob Harras standing in the doorway of my office, asking me if I was interested in taking on The Incredible Hulk. I told him to come back after 5 and we’d discuss it then. He did and we did.

It wasn’t as if there was a ton of interest from other writers. People simply weren’t falling over each other to hop onto a book that many considered to be a dead end. Bob could offer me the title without putting editorial noses out of joint because, unlike the flagship Spider-Man titles, no one in editorial particularly gave a dámņ about who was writing Hulk.

So I said sure. I figured I’d last maybe six months on the title.

Bob showed me the artwork of the artist on the series at that time, a young artist named Todd McFarlane. He wanted to make sure I was okay with McFarlane staying on the title. He’d previously had him working on GI Joe, but writer Larry Hama absolutely couldn’t stand his artwork. Hard to blame Hama; at that point, McFarlane’s art was rife with weaknesses, most of which he’d managed to hide during his previous work on Infinity, Inc., thanks to flashy storytelling stunts such as panels drawn on the side of giant dice (and this isn’t me just being mean in my assessment; McFarlane critiqued his early work in exactly those terms in later interviews.) Harras was determined to get McFarlane to knock off the stunts and concentrate on storytelling, but Hama wasn’t interested in GI Joe being McFarlane’s training grounds. He wanted McFarlane off GI Joe, ASAP.

Harras, however, didn’t want to tell McFarlane that a popular writer wanted him as far from a successful series as possible. He was worried that such a flat rejection might be upsetting to a young artist, discouraging young McFarlane so much that he might not be able to afford home run balls someday.

So instead Harras came up with a cover story, telling McFarlane that it was Hasbro who had arbitrarily said they wanted “a different look” for the book. That way it would seem far less personal. Instead it came across like the capricious demands of an unfathomable corporate mentality, and editor and artist would be able to shrug their collective shoulders and say, “Well, what can you do against such stupidity?” In short, he’d be able to spare McFarlane’s feelings. In the meantime, to keep him busy, he assigned McFarlane to Incredible Hulk.

Was that okay with me, I was asked. If it was, he could make McFarlane’s assignment to the series permanent. My suspicion is that if I’d said no, Bob would have kept him on the title anyway and then asked me to grin and bear it. But, as I noted, I figured I wouldn’t be around for too long on the title anyway, so I chose the path of least resistance. I said, “Yeah, sure, I can work with him.”

Thus began my very unpromising tenure on Incredible Hulk. Unpromising in that, when readers realized that I wasn’t going to change him back to green-and-stupid, I was universally condemned for it. What few letters (and there were very few, I assure you) we received hated everything I was doing. But by and large, fans didn’t bother to write in at all. Missives were so scarce that I wound up publicly pleading for reader feedback just so we wouldn’t feel as if we were operating in a vacuum.

I endeavored to tailor my stories to Todd’s strengths. I asked him what he wanted to draw. “Machinery… lots of huge machinery. And Wolverine. I’ve love to draw Wolverine.” So I gave Bruce a high-tech RV to ride around in, or huge robots to fight. And Harras and I moved heaven and earth with a somewhat intransigent X-office, which didn’t especially feel like lending out X-characters at that time, until we managed to finagle Wolverine for a guest shot.

(I know, I know. I’m speaking of a time when writers had say over which artists were on their books, and there was reluctance to overexpose the X-characters. Not only does it sound like I’m describing another era, it seems like another planet.)

Sales during McFarlane’s run were not particularly good. They spiraled downward until the issue guest starring Wolverine. We had a nice sales spike there, then they plummeted again… but slowly began to build over the following year. Apparently non-regular readers liked what they saw, because they showed up and stayed.

Before I knew it, I’d racked up a year’s tenure, and also developed a long-term game plan. A story had appeared in an earlier issue of Incredible Hulk which established that Bruce Banner had had a remarkably abusive father. The story was credited to Bill Mantlo, although Barry Windsor-Smith has since stated that it was actually he who developed the concept and that it was co-opted by Marvel editorial. Since Mantlo is unfortunately in no condition to say, and my inquiries into the matter with Marvel editorial months ago yielded nothing concrete, I can’t say for sure, although Windsor-Smith certainly makes a convincing case. In any event, the story suggested to me the notion that Bruce Banner actually suffered from what was then called Multiple Personality Disorder, and I knew eventually I’d do a story wherein the Hulk was “cured” via a merging of the personalities. It was just a matter of laying the groundwork for it. Took me four years, but I finally did it.

During that time, I pretty much got to do whatever I wanted on the series because no one cared what I was up to. It was, after all, Incredible Hulk. Bob Harras stepped aside after a year and his assistant, Bobbie Chase, stepped in as editor, and remained for the duration of my tenure on the book. I probably formed a tighter creative bond with her than I did with any other editor, and came to trust her judgment implicitly.

I sailed along peacefully until hitting my first road bump around #359, when I was informed that the highers-up had decreed that a pregnancy storyline I’d embarked upon had to be—you should pardon the expression—aborted. I was furious. I considered resigning from the title at that point, but I still felt I had stories to tell… including the merge story that I’d been working towards. I refused to write a story in which she lost the child, however, so Bob Harras was tapped to write it. It was one of only two issues in my entire run on the series that didn’t bear my name.

Every so often I’d take a whack at tackling controversial subjects. A story on capital punishment, in which I depicted a character being electrocuted on panel, prompted a firestorm of protest. Mightn’t this be too upsetting for younger readers—and even many older ones? My attitude was, Excuse me, this was a fictional character. In the real world, however, real people are really killed by the state. If that’s so upsetting, then it might behoove readers to do something to prevent real executions, rather than raise protests over fictional ones.

Probably the most controversial angle was when I revealed that former Hulk sidekick Jim Wilson had AIDS. As that story developed, I realized I was in a no-win situation when it came to explaining just how Jim had contracted the disease. If I said he was gay, I’d be accused of feeding into the gay-equals-AIDS mindset. If I said he got it through straight sex or a blood transfusion, I’d be accused of being too weasly to reveal that a mainstream Marvel character was gay. Ultimately, as I waffled, I realized that I had inadvertently backed into the point of the story: It didn’t matter how he had contracted the disease. What mattered was that he had it and needed help and support. I wound up giving that exact exchange to Bruce and Betty.

Ah, Betty.

I will never forget when Bobbie suggested knocking off Betty.

“It’d be a way of really shaking up the book,” she pointed out. “Betty’s always been his anchor… and if he were cut adrift, imagine how—”

“Fine, she’s toast,” I said.

But it quickly became clear, once the storyline had been started, that highers up at Marvel wanted a series completely different from what I was prepared to write. The death of Betty, I was told, was to launch a storyline which would take the Hulk back to brainless, inarticulate savagery. Big fights, ideally with the Avengers, and crossover storylines would be the order of the day. I tried to come up with storylines that would address what Marvel wanted while, at the same time, maintaining something of what I wanted to bring to the storyline. The highers up didn’t like any of it.

Or maybe they just didn’t like me anymore. I was, after all, old news. Marvel is event-driven, you see, and my being on Incredible Hulk is simply not an event. You can’t start a book over with a #1 when it’s the same old writer on it. I found myself wishing that they’d gone through with their earlier plans to drop the title during the Heroes Reborn mess. That way I might have gotten the prodigal son returning welcome that Mark Waid got on Captain America.

In any event, it was made clear to me that, since I was unable or unwilling to produce the stories they wanted to see—that I felt the direction they wanted for the series was just wrong—my presence was no longer wanted, needed or required.

Their prerogative, of course. I had mentally prepared myself for it years ago, ever since Chris Claremont spoke of how he had come to think of the X-Men as “his” characters, and how difficult it was for him to come to terms with losing them. I endeavored to learn from that and never lose sight of who owned the Hulk, so that when the inevitable time came that I was shunted aside, I’d have insulated myself.

I was given an opportunity to write one last story to try and “wrap up” my storylines. I gave them nothing they were expecting, jumping to a point ten years down the line. Convinced that within a very short time, no one would remember or care about everything I’d put into the series as subsequent writers would doubtlessly undo or ignore all that I’d accomplished, I split my own persona, speaking alternately through Bruce (“My legacy will be nothing but fallen, forgotten rubble.”) and Rick (“There’s other things in life, y’know?… Realize what’s important. Family, loved ones… that’s the important thing.”)

And as Rick held a child on his knee who bore a striking resemblance to my youngest, Ariel, he spoke on my behalf once more as he said, “I could keep on talking about (the Hulk) for ages… but sometimes you reach a point where something stops you.” Yeah. Something like a desire to bring in someone new.

When I’d been forced off the series, John Byrne proclaimed on his computer board that my leaving was proof that “there was a God.” Empathetic talk from someone who’d had his own share of editorially-motivated departures. I wondered how long it would take him to grab the series. Not long, as it turned out.

So there I was in the comic store, my mind awash with mixed emotions over my tenure on the series. And questions. What would the book look like? What angle would the storyline take? Would there be gaping plot holes? And most importantly… how long would it take for Byrne to show up as a character in the book, a la She-Hulk? (I’d materialized on panel as the priest at Rick and Marlo’s wedding, but that was nine years into the run. In my last issue, Rick spoke to an off-panel writer named Peter, but that could easily have been Peter Parker since he worked for The Bugle.)

Ultimately, I did something I always scold other people for: I skimmed it/read it in the store. Yup. The Hulk drawn as big and monstrous, quite ably and satisfyingly unsubtle. Just what Marvel wanted.

Bruce Banner, afraid that he’s rampaging and presenting a danger to people in the town, remains in the town rather than getting the hëll out of there so that he won’t endanger more people. A sheriff trustingly leaves his young daughter in the care of a stranger he just met. Gloriously huge plot holes. And lo and behold, there was Byrne on the last page. I admired his restraint. At least Bruce didn’t look like Dr. Quest anymore.

It was like reading about a stranger. I put the book back, bought the latest Strangers in Paradise and Cerebus, and left, certain that the book would likely be a big hit. I could hear the noise of the party going on without me. Ah well. There’s always other frat houses.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

18 comments on “Looking Back on the Hulk

  1. Your run on Hulk still remains the run that defines what quality comics writing is supposed to be.

    It has everything that makes me love comics. Your writing made me understand what the Hulk is “really” about in terms of theme. You took a character I didn’t care about and made me care about him. You made sure the book had real supporting characters who could start/carry arcs on their own. There were stories I didn’t like, and angles I disagreed with, and I learned to “discuss” the stories in my head instead of just giving them a thumbs-up, thumbs-down and dropping the book. Artists came and went, and I learned to see the story even through the uneven art.

    Waid’s run on Flash did the same things, but for me, you were first. It took me more than ten years before I could stomach looking at another Hulk book for any length of time. Your runs on other books have been equally as good, or even better, but it was your run on Hulk that brought you to my attention and made you my favorite author.

    Not comics author, but author, period.

    Should I ever end up in a paradisiacal afterlife, the first comic I see on the pearly stands will be the next issue of your Hulk run, and I’ll get to read stories that develop, expand, and move beyond the concepts hinted at in that final issue.

  2. I have to admit (and apologize to you) that I only read Incy Hulk sporadically- usually when there was time travel involved or an unusual storyline. Having said that, I was genuinely sorry to see you leave the book. Not knowing what the behind-the-scenes story was, I always wondered what had happened. Thank you for sharing your thoughts regarding the aftermath (and for re-publishing it so that I could read it).

    HJK

  3. Peter –

    The first time I can recall seeing your name was after reading the first issue in the Sin Eater story arc in Spec Spider-Man. When Jean DeWolff died I was so… stunned? surprised? Not at her death, although that was a surprise. But that it was different, it worked, it had the effect on me that I assume was intended. Only 3-4 pages in I was already taken with the story and eager to read more. By the shotgun blast on the last page I was very much in “Who wrote this? Never heard of him. What else has he done and where can I find it?”

    I’ve bought pretty much everything you’re written since that I could lay hands on. Admittedly with various levels of enjoyment. (Apropos never worked as well for me, although I still look forward to the fourth volume.) And a high point has always been your run on Incredible Hulk.

    Like Eric Qel-Droma above, you have become a favorite author and I thank you far beyond my writing skills can express.

  4. I am one of probably many fans of yours who knows realistically you won’t remember me from the teeming hordes that bombard you at signings and conventions, but always hopes I will somehow stand out.

    I first met you twenty years ago (and a little change). I was freshly in New York for the summer and had just found Jim Hanley’s Universe down in Tribeca. You were there that day for a signing. I angsted for a moment over the fact that I had none of my books or comics, and eventually grabbed the current issue of the Incredible Hulk and a back copy of your first issue of X-Factor and — by merest chance — a paperback of Q-In-Law and asked you to sign them (and Gary to sign tat issue of Incy Hulk, since it WAS a Hulk signing and he was there, too).

    That was when I got to tell you Imzadi was probably the best book I’d ever read. You snarked that I apparently hadn’t read that many books, and I told you I had over a thousand at last count, not including comics. I still stand by that assessment. You said you were just a hack, but Peter… even if you are a hack, you’re a dámņëd good one. You’re a Storyteller. There is a very short list of authors whose work I will move heaven and earth to get, and you’re one. I have every print novel you’ve ever published — in hardcover, where applicable. I need to tackle your e-novels now. And, germane to this post…

    I didn’t know about your run on Aquaman until after you were off the book again. I have since gotten every issue you wrote. Back when the X-books were still a managable number of titles, I was already collecting X-Factor, but when you came on, I was thrilled, and you didn’t disappoint. After you left, I quit X-Factor, and since Excalibur ended around the same time and the other X-books were going way off track, I quit the entire group.

    Your runs on Robin and Incredible Hulk are the most bittersweet for me, though. I found out you had taken over the books early on, filled in the couple issues I’d missed, and hung on for the duration. I am still bitter at you being basically forced off both of those because I LIKED the stories being told therein. Tim and Steph were good for each other. I liked them together and I liked who they were around each other. The instant you were off that book, I stopped buying. The direction they took the story left a bad taste in my mouth that I’ve never gotten rid of.

    Likewise the Hulk. I have every one of the issues you wrote. I’ve even taken care of my triptych-covered Rick-and-Marlo’s-wedding issue so that gimmick cover hasn’t gotten mangled. The personality integration was wonderfully done, I love Doc Samson’s role in all of that. A whole and healing Bruce/Hulk was a rich foundation for who knows how many stories. What might a big, strong, brilliant, invulnerable guy with anger issues be able to contribute to the Marvel Universe? I wish we could have found out…

    Editors, to me, are like politicians — I think desire for the office should automatically disqualify the aspirant from ever holding it. Whenever you came onto a book, I automatically started reading (and recommending it to others). Every time you left, I stopped (and stopped recommending). Doesn’t seem like a good sales policy…

    But then, I’m weird, apparently — I prefer substance over flash (no offense to Barry or Wally), story over pointless action. I thought, in the ’70s and ’80s, that we’d learned comics didn’t have to be dumbed-down kiddie fare. That complex stories could be told and people would read them and want more. ElfQuest, Cerebus, Strangers in Paradise, Bone, Girl Genius… There are reasons these titles have endured — even years after many have ended. I hold your run on the Hulk pretty close to that category (and would probably be smack in the middle of it, barring editorial interference). And, as at the signing in New York back in the summer of ’93, I actually know what I’m taking about.

    1. “Your runs on Robin and Incredible Hulk are the most bittersweet for me, though”

      Huh? When did PAD ever write the Robin series? He did write Tim as part of “Young Justice” but I don’t really recall Steph being in the series nor do I recall Tim talking about Steph in the series.

      1. Okay, I feel like an idiot now. >_< That was Chuck Dixon. I remember now liking it because his style was a lot LIKE Peter's. I guess in the fog of memory, I just blurred the two. And when it took a hard right with Dixon's departure at issue 100, I couldn't make the transition with the book and quit. Sorry My Old™ showed for a minute there.

      2. No prob, Jonah. Just was making sure I hadn’t missed any of PAD’s work. (Granted, I don’t have everything PAD’s written but I do usually get his books. Also, I quit getting “Robin” back around 2000 so it was possible I’d just skipped over the listing in Previews.)

  5. I will always owe a debt to Todd McFarlane for introducing me to Peter David’s writing. Wanting to track down his previous work while I was enjoying his run on Amazing Spider-Man, I got his Incredible Hulk run, having to save up to get each issue. Reading it was—well, a marvel. Who was writing this cool, bad-ášš dialogue? Peter David? Hmph. Never heard of him. But then I found out he wrote Star Trek novels. And a column in the Comics Buyer’s Guide, which was the main reason I got a subscripton. And this. And that. My Peter David reading continued to this day, long after I lost interest in McFarlane, his mindless anti-writer diatribes, and Spawn, which I gave up reading after trying it a for a year, selling those twelve issues to a co-worker cheap. Long after that, your run on Hulk remains the definitive version for, and will always represent a seminal point in my comics reading history, with the merge issue (#377, IIRC) ranking as possibly the most powerful single issue of a monthly series I ever read. And that final issue with the elder Rick being interviewed? God, I remember what a powerfully effective and brilliantly metafictional way to end a run on a book, Peter. Kudos again, years later. 🙂

    And speaking of Rick and Marlo’s wedding, why did you show up as a priest. I don’t know if anyone ever established Rick’s religion, but even if he were Christian, why not just establish Marlo as Jewish, since you created her, so you could show up as a rabbi? Did you not want to repeat yourself after having done that with Doc Samson?

    As far as your observation that “It was like reading about a stranger”, I got that when I read Jeph Loeb’s Hulk #1, in which Doc Samson, along with a couple of other Avengers are investigation the murder of the Abomination in IIRC, Russia, and when some Russian superheroes show up, Samson, rather than try to resolve the conflict without a scuffle, up and punches one of the Russians with what I recall was no provocation at all. Contrast this with the personality that you established for Samson during the post-merge Pantheon period, in which he tried to get Bruce/Hulk to resolve conflicts without violence. I like Jeph Loeb, and I liked his work on Superman for All Seasons, Batman: Hush, and the “Public Enemies” story arc of Superman/Batman, but here he just flat-out ignored everything about the character that was established by the writer who may have worked with him the most. It’s that sort of disregard for continuity, and by extension, the readers, that tends to turn me off a book.

    1. I remember liking the Loeb’s Halloween Batman various series. Around the time of Hush thought I stopped liking most of his work. To me it felt that the way he approaches a story is first by envisionent “cool” moments events and then wrapping them anyway he can with a plot. Hush for example: Gordon shoots Batman “ear” off, Batman punches Superman, Jason Todd returns.

      I had tha same reaction you had when reading Hulk #1. It was the same reaction I had when he took over the the Ultimates and Ultimatum.

  6. The nineties had driven me away from comics by this time; I had to go back and finish reading this magnum opus years later. The conclusion still stung.

    In the years since, has Byrne’s run back at the helm of this book ever come up again?

  7. That dig about McFarlane and home run balls reminded me of the documentary Up for Grabs, which is about the struggle for ownership of Barry Bonds’s record-breaking home run ball that McFarlane would eventually buy. It’s hilarious, exactly like a true-life Christopher Guest movie, and one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen.

  8. Hmmm.
    I was actually known amongst my friends for being a fan of yours before anyone else. The Hulk was interesting to me.
    And I hadn’t read anything I was interested in since Walt Simonson left Thor. So I picked up, of all things, the countdown with Walt’s covers.
    And all of the sudden I was cool, because the Hulk had become the “secret” that everyone was reading.
    I read your whole tenure, and even went with your mini-series.
    Again, I followed James Robinson’s Starman and did the same thing.
    Because of that I read your comics. And I don’t read comics anymore. Except for those written by you, Robinson and Simonson.
    I was waiting for this column. I follow writers. And in Walt’s case, one artist.
    I miss that in the comics world. Waiting for that next issue. Stupid internet.
    TAC

  9. I’m still having trouble with comments. The main page says there are seven comments for this story, but when I click on the story I can only see the comment from Eric.

    Maybe someone mentioned that there was a fix for this in the past. I don’t know, I couldn’t read the comments.

  10. For all the Hulk’s size and bluster, there were a lot of great little character moment’s during that run.

    Indeed I think my favorite quiet moment may have been when a lonely Bruce Banner finally finds love in the arms of his cousin Jen. Love being a beautiful many splendored creature capable of taking on many forms, including in this case incest and rape. The tender lyricism in his words, as Bruce wistfully recalls the reason for there torrid love affair, ’cause shes the only one who can take the whole thing (ie his huge Hulk çøçk)’.

    And of course who can forget the heartwarming scene of Bruce siring not just one child, but an entire legion of Hulk offspring. Then followed the heartbreak of watching a single dad having to provide nourishment for such a large family, only to come up with the ingenious solution of eating the other Marvel heroes like they were greased up pieces of chicken at a Chinese buffet and šhìŧŧìņg them out like bricks after.

    Oh wait… oh I see here that was Mark Millar, not PAD. Whoops, my bad. Well at least the legacy of your decade long run still lives on… Good times, good times…

  11. Pad,

    Like Luigi, I consider your run on Hulk to be the definitive version. Despite being a fan of the Bill Bixby TV series as a kid, I only owned a handful of issues (all from the late 70s, as it happens) prior to picking up your run on the advice of a friend.

    And even though I already own the individual issues, I’ve also bought the Hulk: Visionaries trade paperbacks collecting your run.

    And when I quote a line from a comic, there’s a good chance it’s from your Hulk run.

    Rick

  12. A few years ago Chris Claremont did X-MEN FOREVER which was advertised as continuing his run on X-men after X-MEN(1991)#3. The book existed in its own continuity. So why can’t PAD do HULK FOREVER under the same premise?

    1. A HULK Forever series would definitely be Great!
      I also have a very fond memory of PAD run on the HULK
      Just thinking about the punisher in vegas story makes me laugh

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