“What If” Rick Jones were the Hulk

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Anybody remember the details of that long-ago published story? Because I sure don’t, but I don’t have a copy handy, and I don’t want to duplicate any major story beats.

PAD

36 comments on ““What If” Rick Jones were the Hulk”

  1. I’ve never read it, but the following is copied from http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/3309/wif1cast.html:

    “What If Rick Jones Had Become The Hulk?”
    Don Glut – Sal Buscema – Bill Black
    In Incredible Hulk #1, Bruce Banner throws Rick Jones into a protective trench just before the gamma bomb blast and subsequently becoming the Hulk. But what if Rick threw Bruce and was bombarded with the gamma radiation?

    Rick becomes a savage Hulk who talks like a teenager. After being spotted by soldiers, he leaps away. Bruce eventually found him. The Hulk tried to attack him but the sun rose and he turned back into Rick. To keep the Hulk trapped, Rick was placed just before nightfall into a highly durable bomb shelter, while Bruce continued his work on a cure. Loki discovered that Rick was the Hulk and used him to battle Thor. But the thunder god learned about Loki’s scheme and defeated his evil brother. Afterwards, Thor, the Hulk, Giant Man, Iron Man, and the Wasp became a team called the Avengers. But the Hulk did not remain for too long. Then, Bruce Banner blasted Rick with gamma rays and seemingly cured him from becoming Jade Jaws. Time passed and Jones lived an ordinary life. But suddenly he sees how Captain America is about to be killed by members of Hydra. Rick helps the Captain and in gratefulness, he trains Rick to become his partner. In a fight against Hydra, Rick turns into the Hulk again. Captain America convinced Jade Jaws to stop or he may kill the villains. As a result, the Hulk leaves him. Later, Rick placed the Nega-Bands on his wrists, causing Captain Marvel to return to Earth from the Negative Zone, while Rick was sent to the that Zone. They seemed pleased by doing this. Later, Rick meets Annihilus in the Negative Zone. The Supreme Intelligence helps Rick by untapping his mental abilities. Rick was able to suppress his transformation into the Hulk now. Eventually, Rick and Captain Marvel free themselves from switching places in the Negative Zone. With the Supreme Intelligence’s assistance, Rick used his mental abilities to play an important role in the Kree/Skrull War. But because of this, his life force started to decrease. To save him, Captain Marvel merged with Rick Jones, and they were forced to switch places in the Negative Zone again. Later, Rick began his singing career and met a girl, Lou Ann. She asked Bruce Banner to free Rick from Marvel. Bruce contacted Reed Richards to locate Rick in the Negative Zone. Meanwhile, Annihilus attacked Rick. And Captain Marvel was unconscious on Earth due to a deadly gas. Rick turned into the Hulk and faced Annihilus. Bruce used his gammatron and separated the Hulk and Rick into two separate beings. Then, Reed freed Rick from the Negative Zone and the Hulk caused Annihilus to be destroyed. Captain Marvel was cured by Bruce, who then resumed his research. And the Hulk stayed happy in the Negative Zone having the attention from the other beings of that Zone who he had freed from Annihilus’ dictatorship.

  2. well, i have the issue at home, but its not in front of me at the moment. however, from my memory:

    rick pushes banner into the trench rather than the other way around. thus, rick absorbs the radiation. that night, he turns into a green monster who talks like the hulk combined with a 70’s writer’s conception of how “hep” teenagers talked. The major tropes play out, with thunderbolt ross hunting the hulk, but now with banner desperately trying to help the rick-hulk.

    from there, the story moves to rick trying to live a “rick jones-normal” life, with the helping to found the avengers (they assemble to help/ capture him) becoming captain america’s partner; til his fear and excitement cause him to transform;

    eventually, he meets up with captain marvel, in a manner very similar to the way it played out in real marvel. he puts on the bands, and then gets transported to the negative zone. now, however, he begs marv to leave him there, because there the hulk can’t endanger anyone.

    some time later, reed richards and banner figure out a way to bring rick back. in their efforts they split rick from the hulk – rick comes back to the normal universe, and the hulk stays in the negative zone, fighting annihilus and becoming a hero to the negative-downtrodden.

  3. Well, just dug out the issue — but the synopsis from kosstamojan above is pretty much on target. It’s one of the relatively few What If? stories from that era to have a completely happy ending.

    If you want to have a look at a physical copy, let me know and I can pop mine in the mail — but if all you need’s the summary, you’re good.

    TWL

  5. “What if Rick Jones had become the Hulk” was one of my favorite stories, and yes the synopsis at top is pretty much dead on. It’s been years since I’ve read it, and I can still recall specific snatches of dialogue:

    “Come on you fool, we’ve got to get out of here before the bomb goes off.”

    “b-bomb?”

    “You go in the trench first, mister.”

    “…unless you wanna rumble.” (Jones Hulk’s first words).

    “Banner, Hulk gonna total you!” (when Banner’s “cure” wears off).

    “Somehow Hulk has learned to fancy kick” (upon Hulking out while Rick is Captain America’s partner).

    “Hulk ain’t no bully” (Hulk’s agreeing not to kill Hydra agents at Cap’s request).

    As to teenage dialogue, the Jones Hulk refers to the soldiers using “shivs” and “heaters” and disdains their use vs. a good old fashioned “rumble.” or fist fight.

    Rick

  6. I used to have the whole first run of What If…?. Fun stuff, but eventually I decided to use the space for other stuff. After a while, I eventually decided to keep three issues:

  7. From the synopsis:
    “Hulk caused Annihilus to be destroyed.”
    Ah, yes, those good old “Approved by the Comics Code Authority” days when innocent bystanders were in constant danger of super-villains raining down on them from roof-tops and conveniently located cliffs and there was, apparently, a significant difference between “causing someone to be destroyed” and actually destroying them.
    So, I take it this character was no relation to “Crazy” magazine’s “Teen Hulk”? Or a direct inspiration?
    I liked the message from the person who basically reinvented She-Hulk as a ’60s pre-feminist icon. Fascinating. And I’d love to see a “Vertigo” style female Hulk with nudity and PMS rage. (Yes, I know that’s the wrong company – I said “style”.)
    And very glad PAD is going all the way back to the origin for his What If tale. We get so few “real” Marvel comics these days in this era of reinvention, re-conning and “ultimates” or “absolutes” or whatever.
    The idea of having it drawn Kirby Style is wonderful, too. I’m not familiar with the artist mentioned, but Rude or Frenz were good cals, as Rich Buckler would have been. And I loved Bruce Timm’s Hulk from “Avengers 1 1/2”.
    Although, depending on how brilliant this artist is, and since you’re dividing the story up into chapters, it might be fun to see the story drawn “Tales To Astonish” style, as drawn by Kirby, Ditko, Gil Kane and definitive Hulk artist Herb Trimpe. (But then I’d want a Steranko style cover…)

  10. Sounds like a cool story. I wish I’d been able to read it when it first came out. I think it was before my time, but maybe I can find it in one of the back-issue bins.

    The story’s kind of prophetic, you know, when you consider that Rick Jones briefly became a Hulk in the regular Marvel continuity as well.

    –Don aka Ygor

  11. Since Michael R mentioned his top three favorite “What If”s, I’m recalling a couple of my favorite moments from the series.
    From “What if Spider-man stayed in show-biz?” or whatever it was caled, Parker becomes a high profile Hollywood agent representing other super-heroes wanting to clean up in entertainment and licensing. He takes one look at Daredevil’s original dark red and yellow costume and cracks “Who designed your costume, a blind man?”
    And from the wonderful Jack Kirby written “What if the original Marvel Bullpen had become the Fantastic Four?”, I think he gave Stan the best line when “The Man’ is approached by Fabulous Flo Stienberg and asks her “What have you got for me today, Swedish candy? A mechanical owl?”
    I know humor is subjective, but both of those lines still crack me up.
    (Not that, uh, you know, there’s anything particularly funny about blindness, but in context…)

  12. Dear Mr David,

    The issue you’re looking for was one of the first (2-5) issues of the first “What If…?”(although I have memories of it being the second issue. Apologies for not being more specific.

    Best,
    David

  14. Dear Mr David,

    The issue you’re looking for was one of the first (2-5) issues of the first “What If…?”(although I have memories of it being the second issue. Apologies for not being more specific.

    Best,
    David
    —————–
    The second issue was “What if the Hulk had Bruce Banner’s Brain.” The Rick Jones hulk was around the early double digits… i wanna say 10 or 12. I know it’s not 11 because that was the bullpen as fantastic four issue. Issue 2 was also a good story, but I still believe the best hulk “what if” story from the first volume involving thunderbolt ross was “What if the hulk went berserk?” That was in one of the final issues, in the forties, and it has a brilliant Bill Sienkevich (sp?) cover. it also had one of the best endings of the series, featuring Ross and Talbot.

  16. Favorite “What Ifs” — I never had a complete set, but I remember being particularly fond of…

    What if the Invaders Stayed Together after WW2? — because, among other things, it wasn’t a What If.

    What if Gwen Stacy Had Lived? Not the happiest of endings, but a nice story.

    the Rick-as-Hulk story, as mentioned here.

    What if someone else had been bitten by that radioactive spider? — specifically three mini-stories featuring Flash, Betty, and John Jameson respectively.

    Ah, memories.

    TWL

  17. My favorite what ifs were the one where Tony Stark sets the early Avengers all up in Iron Man suits…I think Gil Kane did the art.
    The one where Spider-man stays in showbiz is cool cause DD was his Body Guard. (Pat Brodrik was the artist?)
    I also liked the one what if Captain America never got frozen in Ice.
    BUT…the very first one of the very first Volume had to be the best! It was just soooo “new” at the time, and the cover was so appealing! And then when they started What If again volume 2 ..wasn’t the first issue of that series a sequel to number 1 of the first Volume.
    I’m of course speaking of What if Spiderman joined the FF and then the What if Namor and Sue had a baby.

  18. the first issue of vol 2 was “What if the marvel superheroes had lost the evolutionary war.” there was a fantastic five story in vol 2, with spiderman in it, which was in the timequake storyline, from issues 31-36. that was a direct sequel to the first issue of the first volume. there was also a namor fantastic five story, which was around issue 21 of volume two.

  19. Actually, 7thunders just reminded me of another good one from the first volume: “What if Sue Richards Had Died in Childbirth?”

    I remember one splash page, with nothing but a close-up of Reed, who’s come into the Negative Zone to demonstrate to Annihilus the depths of his mistake.

    Bleak, bleak stuff — but, at least as I remember it, nicely done.

    TWL

  20. Sorry to digress, but I just heard of an “Ultimate Captain Marvel” series–does PAD know anything about it and is that one of the reasons why his series was cancelled??

  21. “Curious… how many What If?s ended up happening in some form in the MU?”

    The Rick Jones-as-Hulk storyline definitely did. My memory is lagging, but I think Rick absorbed the excess gamma radiation from bruce in #324 (the return of the Gray Hulk) and ended up becoming a savage Hulk. PAD himself wrote some of the issues that continued the storyline in the early 330’s, did he not, or had the Rick Jones stuff wrapped up by then? It’s been a few years since I dug those out 😉

    Phinn

  22. You could always go the hard science route, but it might be a fairly short story 🙂

  24. > Sorry to digress, but I just heard of an “Ultimate Captain Marvel” series–does PAD know anything about it and is that one of the reasons why his series was cancelled??

    It’s not a “series.” Ult Cap Marvel will appear in Ellis’ Ultimate Secret mini, but all we have to go on thus far is that that’s a sequel to the current Ultimate Nightmare mini and this cover image: http://www.newsarama.com/WW_Chicago_04/MvL_Presentations/Ult_Secret1.jpg

  25. I must have missed or forgotten the Rick becoming a hulk in regular Marvel Universe continuity.I only remember him absorbing radiation to help the Hulk and getting severe radiation sickness.Forget how he was cured from that though…..

  26. rick’s radiation sickness dates back to the mid 200’s, when bruce was confronted by the xanterean, dark-crawler, and one other, to recruit the hulk to fight the galaxy-master and the abomination. bruce refused to initiate the transformation (i believe he was in control at the time). Rick, believing the world needed a hulk, irradiated himself with Bruce’s gamma gun. all this did, however, was give him cancer and make him glow green. Rick was cured by everyone’s favorite Bird-girl, Bereet.

    Rick became a hulk at the same time the grey hulk reemerged, in issue 324. during doc samson’s nutrient bath cure, rick caught thunderbolt fiddling with the controls, trying to muck it up. he attempted to stop ross, and ross through rick into the bath. Duo-Hulk related wackiness ensues.

    (on a related note… how in the world does a bath filled with nutrients purport to cure Gamma radiation caused mutations? anyone?)

  27. Quoth adam schwartz:

    (on a related note… how in the world does a bath filled with nutrients purport to cure Gamma radiation caused mutations? anyone?)

    Answer: First the Hulk went in, still destabilized, not quite Hulk, not quite Banner as result of the re-merger in #323; Rick was thrown in the vat at roughly the same time. The nutrient bath must have somehow bled off some of the gamma radiation from Banner’s body, both stabilizing his Hulk form by turning him into his “weaker” gray incarnation, and allowing the gamma bled off to affect and change Rick. (And before you ask–it was likely the unique quality of the gamma from Bruce that led to Rick becoming a Bruce-like Hulk instead of a gamma vegetable a la his attempt at becoming a hero in HULK #270.

    ~Gary

  28. Sorry–amendation to the above–the nutrient bath’s intended purpose was NEVER to “cure” gamma creatures, but, as established in HULK #315, to separate Banner and the Hulk into two distinct physical forms. Later, the bath not only inadvertently created the Rick-Hulk and turned Bruce into the gray incarnation in so doing, but it also briefly separated Emil Blonsky from the Abomination, who was then possessed by the spirit of Tyrannus (HULK ANNUAL #15). I believe during a struggle with SHIELD, the bath was destroyed in that same story, or at least rendered so it couldn’t be effectively used again.

    ~Gary

  29. Gary –

    I understood the purpose of the bath… what gets me is that its a bath.

    filled with nutrients.

    its not a radioactive bath. its not a chemical bath.

    it’s a nutrient bath. filled with lots of invigorating nutrients.

    i mean, why not just put bruce into a tub filled with herbal essences? after all, that shampoo is supposedly filled with nutrients.

    (I bet it made his hair all shiny, though)

  30. First–I’m sure “nutrient bath” is something of a gross misnomer, without a feel for the scope for the many processes that take place within.

    The nutrient bath, as I understand it, was devised with the intention that its chemicals, supplied with electrical triggers, would interact with Banner’s unique body chemistry and further certain biological processes, producing in effect some sort of complex series of reactions akin to an extreme form of tissue rejection–except that in this case, Banner rejected the part of him that was the Hulk, i.e. that tissue that was affected by gamma radiation. In #324 obviously what occurred was that the nutrient bath’s chemical reactions were effectively reversed, so that the overall effect was a re-bonding between the normal and gamma-enhanced tissues. Thinking about it this way, it’s easy to see how Rick’s presence in the bath resulted in part of the gamma mistakenly bonding to Rick instead of Bruce, since there were two non-gamma creatures in the bath and only one infected by gamma.

    Clearer?

    ~Gary

  31. clearer… but now you have to explain how a pychiatrist-çûm-physicist with a penchant for growing his hair developed a cure that was dependent on a knowledge of biology and chemistry beyond the doctorate level.

    also, explain how an etymologist developed a complete robotic AI.

    Im just fooling with you.

    its a good explanation.

    I just never liked the term nutrient bath. would have much preferred chemical bath.

    now, your real challenge is to explain why thunderbolt ross thought it was a good idea to try to absorb the power of zzaxx.

  32. I enjoyed the whole roller-coaster ride of Byrne to Milgrom to David on Hulk. One oft-overlooked detail is the great art by Steve Geiger and (I think) Sam de la Rosa on the late Milgrom/early David stories. Geiger’s pencils were terrific, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen his work anywhere else.

    (de la Rosa, of course, inked a great deal of Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar, whose first 12 issues are now available in a single hardcover volume, BTW. Another great series, though I thought the end of the Instrumentality shortchanged a lot of what Starlin had set up. Did we ever find out what Catorlite was, for instance?)

  33. My favorite What if…? was “What if Wolverine had met Conan.” I dont remember if they actually meet or just change places in there respective universes….

  34. “My favorite What if…? was “What if Wolverine had met Conan.” I dont remember if they actually meet or just change places in there respective universes….”

    They met. Wolverine gets to Conan’s world by going through a portal in the Watcher’s crib on the moon. (It’s duing the classic Dark Phoenix storyline.) Wolverine hooks up Red Sonja and yadda, yadda, yadda, ends up in a fight with Conan and some sorceror. Wolverine stays in Conan’s world (I say world because I have a hard time seeing it as the MU’s “past”) and Conan ends up on the moon. Conan ends up rampaging instead of helping the X-Men, Dark Phoenix takes over Jean Grey and the universe is destroyed. Comics Code approved.

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