Comic Browser: #1 - We Found the Ninth Wonder of the World! #2 - When Aliens Meet! #3 - I Journeyed Back to the 20th Century! #4 - I Was a Prisoner of the Martians! #5 - I Was Trapped by the Things on Easter Island! #6 - I Saw the Invasion of the Stone Men #7 - He Waits For Us in the Glacier! #8 - I Dared Defy the Floating Head! #9 - Return of the Genie! #10 - I Was Trapped By Titano the Monster That Time Forgot! #11 - I Found Monstrom! The Dweller in the Black Swamp! #12 - I Discovered Gorgilla! The Monster of Midnight Mountain! #13 - I Challenged... Groot! The Monster from Planet X! #14 - I Created Krang! The Most Fantastic Monster The World Has Ever Known! (Chapter One) #15 - I Learned the Dread Secret of the Blip! #16 - Here Comes...Thorr the Unbelievable #17 - Vandoom, the Man Who Made a Creature! (Chapter 1) #18 - Gorgilla Strikes Again! #19 - Rommbu! #20 - What Was "X" the Thing That Lived! (Part 1) #21 - Trull! The Inhuman! #22 - I Dared to Battle the Crawling Creature! (Part 1) #23 - The Unbelievable Menace of Moomba (Part 1) #24 - I Found the Abominable Snowman! (Part 1) #25 - I Was Captured by the Creature from Krogarr! #26 - Look Out!! Here Come the...Four-Armed Men! #27 - The Man in the Ant Hill #28 - I Am the... Gorilla-Man #29 - When the Space Beasts Attack!! #30 - The Return of the Gorilla-Man #31 - When the Mummy Walks #32 - Quicksand! #33 - Dead Storage #34 - A Monster at My Window! #35 - Return of the Ant-Man! #36 - The Challenge of Comrade X! #37 - Trapped by the Protecter! #38 - Betrayed by the Ants! #39 - The Vengeance of the Scarlet Beetle! #40 - The Day That Ant-Man Failed! #41 - Prisoner of the Slave-World! #42 - The Voice of Doom! #43 - The Mad Master of Time! #44 - The Creature from Kosmos! #45 - The Terrible Traps of Egghead! #46 - ..When Cyclops Walks the Earth #47 - Music to Scream By #48 - The Porcupine! #49 - The Birth of Giant-Man! #50 - The Human Top! #51 - Showdown with the Human Top #52 - The Black Knight Strikes! #53 - Trapped by the Porcupine! #54 - No Place to Hide! #55 - On the Trail of the Human Top! #56 - The Coming of the Magician! #57 - On the Trail of the Amazing Spider-Man! #58 - The Coming of… Colossus #59 - Enter: The Hulk! #60 - Can A Man With Green Skin And A Petulant Personality Find True Happiness In Today's Status-Seeking S #61 - Captured At Last! #62 - Enter... The Chameleon! #63 - A Titan Rides The Train! #64 - The Horde Of Humanoids! #65 - On The Rampage Against The Reds! #66 - The Power Of Doctor Banner #67 - Where Strikes The Behemoth! #68 - Back From The Dead! #69 - Trapped In The Lair Of The Leader! #70 - To Live Again! #71 - Like A Beast At Bay! #72 - Within The Monster Dwells A Man! #73 - Another World, Another Foe! #74 - The Wisdom Of The Watcher! #75 - Not All My Power Can Save Me! #76 - I Against The World! #77 - Bruce Banner Is The Hulk #78 - The Hulk Must Die! #79 - The Titan And The Torment #80 - They Dwell In The Depths! #81 - The Stage Is Set! #82 - The Power of Iron Man! #83 - Less Than Monster, More Than Man #84 - Rampage in the City! #85 - The Missile And The Monster #86 - The Birth Of The Hulk-Killer #87 - The Humanoid And The Hero! #88 - Boomerang and The Brute #89 - ... Then, There Shall Come A Stranger! #90 - The Abomination! #91 - Whosoever Harms The Hulk..! #92 - Turning Point #93 - He Who Strikes The Silver Surfer #94 - To The Beckoning Stars! #95 - A World He Never Made! #96 - What Have I Created? #97 - The Legions Of Living Lightning #98 - The Puppet And The Power #99 - When The Monster Wakes #100 - Let There Be Battle #101 - Where Walk The Immortals
Hulk (still with Banner’s intellect) defeats Anphibious (Qnax) and returns to Earth with the “Ultimate Machine” since the Watcher does not stand in his way.
Victorious, the Leader puts the Ultimate Machine, a helmet of sorts, on his head. But the vast amount of information in it is way too much, even for the Leader, and dies.
--
Review: Finally Hulk gets to fight a foe worthy of his power, this big red amphibian guy and it’s cool but there’s a few interesting bits as the series slowly gropes its way toward being one of Marvel’s all-time gems. Herein, Banner’s mind in Hulk’s body feels Hulk’s mind is taking control in situations where Hulk is the expert e.g. fighting monsters. This bodes ill for Banner whose grip on Hulk’s brain is tenuous at best. The big surprise in the story is that it has a definite end; the series has been running since issue #60 was one ongoing serial, a continuous narrative broken up into chapters but still one story. But here, the big tough guy is sent home and the Leader gets what he has always wanted—and it kills him. Nice moral to the story. What’s next? We’ll see!
The story doesn’t move far with Subby still fighting the Faceless Ones, who resemble pointy-eared frog men, since last issue. And Krang gets tough with his rebellious citizens. The real hero is Vashti, who sets out by seahorse (because they’re the most psychically sensitive of sea creatures), allowing the horse to steer by following the fish grapevine to locate Namor. Actually that would make the seahorse the smartest one in the issue, wouldn’t it? But its contributions are minimized and its participation unrewarded, in a clear case of speciesism. (Joke.) Another thing I’ve just noticed: the Subby series gives Stan Lee a lot of opportunity to devise silly and strictly literal names for all sorts of things; this issue alone shows us the Robo-Tank with Sense-Stun Rays, a Plasti-Cage, a Mobile-Defensive Wall, and the Magna-Beam. A challenge: show these names to a friend who is not familiar with early Marvel and ask him what he thinks they do. My prediction: they’ll get at least four out of five. Who knew Subby would be more fun than Reed Richards for crazy inventions with dumb names?
Comments: Cover credits: Hulk inset: Bob Powell/Mike Esposito
Hulk story: The Leader dies but returns, alive and well, in INCREDIBLE HULK #115. Hulk knows the Sub-Mariner; they teamed up in AVENGERS #3. It seems the inhabitants of Earth have a reputation for braggadocio in the rest of the universe; wonder who ratted us out? Artist Mike Esposito credited as Mickey DeMeo.
Subby story: Part five of seven parts. Penciler Gene Colan credited as Adam Austin. The letters page includes one by future comics dealer Bud Plant.
> Tales to Astonish comic book info and issue index
Listed in alphabetical order. All stories.