What's strange is that even more than 20 years later, there's an odd disconnect when it comes to Huk #319 and #320 -- you feel that another John Byrne issue must follow.

With all due respect to Al Milgrom, the disparity in quality between these two issues delineates just how great a comics creator John was at the time compared to nearly everyone else out there (what's scary is that, if anything, the gap between JB and your average comic writer/artist else has increased with time).

The B&W art posted here looks beautiful. Sorry if this has been asked before, but what was the deal with Keith Williams doing the background inks in most of this run? Is there a particular story behind this?

Marc Baptiste wrote: (P.S., Does anyone know if the line "Yore hash is grass" made it into print?  I don't have my copies handy, but, I have read them so many times and for some reason that line stood out in Ryan's scan as if I was reading it for the first time.)

Yepper.

Sam, it was just a feeling about Doc Samson...he gets one of the Hulkbusters killed and barely blinks an eye. That's a heavy-duty obsession, the kind that ends up getting people killed. Doc's actions were growing more and more erratic and violent...the way JB seemed to work at that time, he definitely had characters undergo torturous arcs leading to painful, sometimes deadly resolutions, such as Sue Richards, Walt Langkowski, Jim Hudson...I think Doc had become lively and interesting in a mere short time, so killing him off would have been a shame. At the same time, Doc's obsession was reaching critical mass, and something had to give. The story dictated it, I think.

Even the mindless Hulk, in MARVEL FANFARE, was actually either developing a personae or one was emerging. JB looked to be sowing seeds of some kind with regards to the mindless Hulk...was he really mindless? Instinctual? Or did he have the capability to learn, perhaps even reason, without Banner's influence?

The story points of interest here:

• Doc Samson's increasingly violent obsession with killing the mindless Hulk.
• Rick Jones' return.
• Banner and Betty wedded.
• The limit of the Hulk's "pure" personae, devoid of Banner.
• The Hulkbuster unit's ineffectual pursuit of the Hulk...Banner must know if the Avengers can't stop the Hulk, his Hulkbusters have no chance.
• The Avengers' looming presence.

Rick Jones is another interesting part of this. Here's a character who's been coasting at that point. JB never did anything JUST for the sake of nostalgia...every character had an arc, and every character had a purpose. I can see a scenario where Rick Jones becomes Banner's new experiment, perhaps Jones volunteering to take on the Kirby Hulk personae, a kind of full return to what Might Have Been, had Banner not saved Rick's life in HULK 1.

Banner would be convinced Rick could become a "super soldier" Hulkbuster Hulk, with Rick's mind intact but slanted toward the brutality of the Kirby Hulk.

It's amazing to me how, in the space of so few issues, JB managed to create such a fertile ground for speculation for the Hulk's panting public. I could go off on these crazy What If? scenarios all day.

Wow, Bill Mantlo lost a little in my eyes right off the bat..."I felt that I was hampered by some very unimaginative art, which we didn't seem to be able to change, and I gradually lost interest, and that's not a good way to do a book."

That's a pretty low blow to Sal Buscema in particular and Gerry Talaoc as well. I read the Hulk comic because of Sal, not because of Mantlo's generally repetitious and mediocre scripts.

"AVENGERS number 1 is my definitive Hulk."

Hear hear, JB.

By JB's fifth issue, the Hulk should have undergone a big change...he was going to be turned back into the Kirby Hulk, with strength comparible to that time period. Weaker than the Thing was then (1986), and definitely way below Thor level.

What happened to that plan? Or was it right around the corner?

You know, I'd love to have seen the whole "addicted" Banner subplot, particularly as it relates to my favorite version of the Thing, during the early 100s of the FF, when Ben could change to the Thing at will (art by John Buscema)

Ben was brutal and uncompromising and savage...also, he'd get upset and start to change without even realizing it, until Johnny had to ask him to stop, since it creeped him out.

I think it sounds like Banner was definitely going to be fluctuating between his Banner soft-spoken "We must find a solution" to the thug Hulk "So what? I'm the Hulk. Let'm eat my fists." Back and forth within the same panel perhaps.