Incredible Hulk: Regression

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #286-295, 297-300, Annual #12

by Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema (Illustrator), Herb Trimpe (Illustrator)

Collects Incredible Hulk #286-295 & #297-300 and Annual #12.

Bruce Banner still controls the mind and body of his green-skinned alter ego, but for how long? Banner, estranged from Betty Ross, settles in at his new Northwind laboratory as Kate Waynesboro enters his life as his research assistant - and soon becomes his new love interest. But what ulterior motive is she hiding? Then, when the Hulk returns from Battleworld after the Beyonder's Secret Wars, Banner's all-too precarious hold on his savage half begins slipping - threatening to destroy the happiness he's finally attained! It all comes to a head in a no-holds-barred battle against the entire Marvel Universe - and the ending will shock you!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Comic Book, Superheroes

419 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 10, 1984

About the author

William Timothy Mantlo is an American comic book writer, primarily at Marvel Comics.
(source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Javier Muñoz]

Sigo encontrando muy entretenida esta etapa de Bill Mantlo y Sal Buscema en Hulk... este gran arco argumental de 15 números (incluyendo el número 300 que es un especial de 40 páginas) nos muestra la involución de Bruce Banner, que tras lograr mantener su personalidad cuando se convierte en Hulk, comienza a tener pesadillas en las que vuelve a perder el control, y poco a poco empiezan a hacerse realidad. De nuevo volvemos a tener a un Hulk perseguido por la guardia nacional y S.H.I.E.L.D. y vemos como la personalidad de Banner va desapareciendo... Todo culmina en una gran batalla en la ciudad de nueva york donde el doctor extraño y los vengadores se ven incapaces de detenerle, y se ven obligados a buscar otra alternativa para salvar la ciudad de la ira de Hulk.

Esta saga va de menos a más, y es por eso por lo que no se ha ganado las cuatro estrellas, los primeros cómics son un poco aburridos, en especial en los que se enfrenta a modok y la aberración, pero poco a poco va cogiendo carrerilla hasta un final apoteósico y con una gran relevancia en la historia de Hulk, en general estoy viendo que los cómics de Hulk guionizados por Mantlo contienen las semillas de muchos cómics de Hulk que vendrían en el futuro, se ve que esta etapa ha influenciado a muchos autores posteriores.

[David]

The brilliance continues! Jumping right into final book of the Mantlo trilogy... Loving it.

[Jason]

This volume starts off with a bang with the very powerful Hulk Annual #12 in which Banner-controlled Hulk takes sides in a race war on another planet only to find out the supposed underdogs were as ruthless as those who were oppressing them. It might be the best one-shot Hulk story I've read thus far.
Next issue is a retelling of a Harlan Ellison short story, again a story with a strong moral and social commentary. Mantlo throws a surprising amount of social commentary into his writing for a book about a violent green monster.
We get back into the regular storyline with issue 287. Bereet is still hanging around making movies (it's fascinating to me why Mantlo kept her in the series so long). Meanwhile, Banner finds an assistant and a lover in Katherine Waynesboro, who joins his at his upstate NY lab. Banner-Hulk has a run-in with MODOK and an unusually wussy Abomination, and is still able to keep control of the behemoth. #291 is an interesting one-off written by Ann Nocenti about General Ross struggling with his treachery to the United States, with an opening where Bruce Banner visits Ann's office to seek advice. Things seem to be going well, but Bruce starts having recurring nightmares where the savage Hulk returns (that we find out later are being egged on by Nightmare himself!). He has an encounter with a Boomerang-for-hire, who kidnaps Waynesboro. On his way to rescue her, Banner-Hulk gets taken by the Beyonder to Battleworld for Secret Wars, where Banner starts to lose his grip on the Hulk. Things get worse from there, leading ultimately to a massive confrontation with Spider-Man and the Avengers resulting in Banner relinquishing his final mental hold on the Hulk and allowing his mind to "die." Not wanting to kill Hulk out of respect for his past heroics, Doctor Strange sends him to the Crossroads, where he hopes Hulk will find a world that can handle his anger and allow him to finally get some peace.
Mantlo's pacing in chronicling the descent of Banner towards losing himself in the Hulk is perfect. You really feel the loss of a great hero when Banner's finally gone, and it's devastating to see the mindless Hulk undo all of the good Banner-Hulk had done previously. I'm at a point in David's run (early 400's) where the Hulk is a combined Banner-Hulk and I really think the character is at its best when the brains of Banner and the brawn of the Hulk are working together. So, while the subtitle ("Regression") kind of gave it away, I was still hoping Banner-Hulk would end up on top by the end. That said, I just started Crossroads, and so far it's fantastic. I can't wait to keep going!

[Keith Jones]

A bit over-reliant on narration once the Hulk becomes nonverbal toward the end, but otherwise, a surprisingly readable comic book from the 80s.

[Brent]

Not only is this a big improvement over the previous volume, but it makes that volume better in retrospect. Taking the interesting but uneven ideas from there and using them well here.

[R.b.]

Best of Bill Mantlo's writing on The Incredible Hulk.....with our pal Sal Buscema's art!

It you are a fan of classic Marvel art and story telling, buy this book! Mantlo's run on this title is one of the best ever. Sal Buscema's clean line work in his art works in this era of the character. You get to see many classic nemesis of our favorite green giant. I have much more of an appreciation for this era. The overly rendered art of today's talents just get on my nerves. I long for the days of classic Marvel when every book wasn't illustrated with photo realistic art. Cartooning is the art of exaggeration. You don't have to see every exact detail with ultra realism. Some fans love that. I prefer the art of that bygone era when fans could read one title with no gimmicks or crossovers!

[Kris Shaw]

I had a blast reading this. The M.O.D.O.K./ Abomination/ A.I.M. arc was great, ditto the Circus Of Crime and Dragon Man one. There is so much character development, in the true sense of the term, between Dr. Banner, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Dr. Kate Waynesboro, and the Recordasphere. By true character development I mean events occur which change all involved, not endless conversations about nothing which fans of modern comic books mistake for character development. Boomerang gets his ass handed to him by the Hulk, which was fun to read.

A subplot which had been slowly developing was Dr. Banner's discovery of an energy burst of significant and unknown power. This burst happened a few times, and was ultimately revealed to be (SPOILER!!!) The Beyonder, all of it leading up to the Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars maxi-series. All of the heroes were drawn into “the stonehenge-like construct” in Central Park and whisked away to Battleworld and then dropped back into Central Park at the beginning of the next issue of their respective titles, in this case #294 and 295. It seems like this was a bother to Mantlo's tightly constructed long-term plans, as it is apparent that he had planned on these issues being a cliffhanger with the Boomerang kidnapping of Dr. Waynesboro. The Hulk issues read like it was mere moments, whereas over in Amazing Spider-Man the heroes were gone long enough that it was mystery reported on the front page of The Daily Bugle.

#296 is presented in an abridged form due to the fact that ROM, Spaceknight was a guest star. ROM is a licensed character, a strange case of the comic book tie-in being more interesting and successful than the toy which spawned it. Only pages 4-13 out of 22 total pages are reprinted here, as the cover and the rest of the issue has ROM in it. There are text recap pages for the rest which refer to ROM as an “alien cyborg” and not by name. This book was published prior to Marvel getting the rights to reprint ROM in 2024.

I have enjoyed the Hulk's trials and tribulations with the intellect of Bruce Banner in control. Bill Mantlo has put the Hulk and Banner through their paces while not destroying anything about the series. This is the definition of characters development, folks. The Hulk goes back to his savage self at the hands of (SPOILER!!!) Nightmare, who has been manipulating him for a while to get back at Doctor Strange. This all leads up to a mindless Hulk attacking New York City in #300, with literally every hero in the Marvel Universe taking a shot a stopping him. While it was a double sized issue, I couldn't help but chuckle at how this would have been an event mini-series with a ton of crossover issues and tie-in mini-series and one-shots. I liked comics better back when universe-altering events occurred within a regular series. Number don't lie though, so modern fandom must get off on big dumb endless events and being gouged with endless tie-ins and mini-series.

Credit where credit is due: Chic Stone is one of the most solid inkers in the business. Everything that he touched received a spit-shine to it. Only Joe Sinnott did such solid inking on a consistent basis. Gerry Talaoc settles in as the regular inker, and I was never a fan of his work. Serviceable is as kind as a description as I can give.

I never bothered with the Hulk back when these issues were originally published. Maybe it was the memory of the television series that turned me off, but more likely it was that I didn't have enough money to buy every single comic back then. These covers, many done by Al Milgrom, never leapt off of the spinner rack at me. Most of them are just plain bland, and I fail to see why Sal Buscema didn't do them himself.

Mantlo was a favorite of mine as a kid, and his writing holds up thirty odd years later. These “proto-Epic” thick trades are a joy.

[Richard Alexander]

There are a couple of iffy moments and a lot of guff you can skim past through, but this is still a really good and important part of Hulk and Bruce's development.
To see all that work and effort that Bruce put in to finally get control over the Hulk, as much of an accident as that was too, it becomes quite sad at the end all because of Nightmare messing things up and get back at Doctor Strange. What a dick.
Sal's art in the final 4 or so issues takes a massive jump in quality suddenly which really elevated everything and made it all look so good. That was really cool to see his progress jump like that and depict a really savage Hulk. It feels like because savage Hulk was so subdued with Banner in control, by that final issue they really went all out. It's fantastic.

[Christopher M.]

An improvement on the previous volume as the "Professor Hulk" story takes a tragic turn (partly because they want Hulk to "smash" in the Secret Wars crossover event) and finds love with the SHIELD scientist sent to spy on him instead of the kooky alien movie director who has been following him around for no clear reason for several years in comic issues time. Plus a cliffhanger ending!

[Jdetrick]

We continue with sub par writing and art. The only good thing I can say about these issues is that they have a direction, something this title often lacks.

[William Cruise]

If you're a fan of Greg Pak's Planet Hulk or World War Hulk, you'll notice the influence that Bill Mantlo had on those stories. The only downside to the collected edition of these issues is that, for some strange reason, ROM Space Knight was edited out of the story. Half of that issue was explained away in a page of text instead.

[Jon Shanks]

I read this as a precursor to one of the most fondly-remembered Hulk stories from my childhood, "Crossroads", in which a mindless, rampaging Hulk is set adrift on the crossroads of realities by Dr. Strange, where he is not bothering humanity and may even find a new home somewhere. I bought that volume, but decided I wanted to know how he got there, so bought the collection of comics leading up to this point, "Regression", where we find that Bruce Banner has asserted control over the Hulk, so other than the colour and size, there is very little difference between the two, however, events occur, causing Banner to lose control of the beast once again. The collection starts off with a couple of slightly preachy stories as writer Bill Mantlo attempt to wax philosophical with varying degrees of success. After that, we get into the meat of the storyline with some classic Hulk adversaries:; The Abomination, MODOK (+ Ms. MODOK!), General Ross (including an excellent story from Ross' perspective) and some lesser foes: Dragon Man, The Circus of Crime and Boomerang)?!) as Banner's tenuous grip falters. There is some pretty decent storytelling although two things slightly hamper it: one issue is only partially reprinted as the rest of the story featured Rom: Spaceknight, a character based on a Parker Brothers toy to which Marvel no longer own the rights, the other being the the original "Secret Wars" event takes place at a crucial point in the story (where the Hulk and other heroes and villains are whisked away by a godlike being to fight for its amusement), however, Mantlo incorporates the latter into his narrative easily. The art is decent enough, but nothing outstanding. Overall, a decent enough read, but I think, just a staging ground for a better story to come (I hope!).

[Don Weiss]

After giving Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk, everything he's always wanted, the long-running creative team of writer Bill Mantlo and artist Sal Buscema tragically reveal that, with our hero now on top of the world, there's no place for him to go but down.

Collected in this volume are the controversial "Hero" story (inspired by a Harlan Ellison-written tale), the MODOK/General Ross storyline (which would later help set the stage for the "Red Hulk" stories), and finally the "Regression" itself, which shows the Hulk's sanity and reason gradually slipping away, until he is again the savage brute he was before... and then, finally, something much worse.

The only gripe I have about this collection is that it's not quite 100% complete. Portions of issue #296, including the cover, have been omitted because they feature ROM the Spaceknight, a licensed character to which Marvel no longer has the rights. I expected the issue to be omitted entirely for this reason, but was pleasantly surprised to find that Marvel made a real effort to include the important, Hulk-centric portion of the story, a turning point for the character, while replacing the removed bits with descriptive texts. Kudos to Marvel for their ingenuity.

Three decades later, REGRESSION remains one of the highlights of the Hulk's enduring saga, one of the finest examples of what has become a staple of the character: the pain of loss in spite of possessing virtually unlimited power and strength. Next: The Crossroads!