your friendly neighborhood HULK????

Heh, he did ask...

^ nice book there

Web of Spider-Man #69:



"Late morning in J. Jonah Jameson's new office where the esteemed publisher is showing a news report to five of his employees... among them, Joe Robertson, Betty Brant, and Peter Parker. The report concerns "a wild beast roaming the Connecticut countryside". Peter wonders what kind of wild beast they can be talking about. "The nearest zoo to that part of New England", he says, "is in the Bronx". Jonah tells Peter to go cover the story and find out. But when Peter asks if he is going to write the story as well as take pictures, Jonah refers him to his partner... the newest Jameson Publications reporter, Betty Brant. Peter is surprised by this. Up til now, he has always thought of Betty as a secretary. But JJJ has gotten the idea that Betty has the talent to do the job. This story is her first big break.

Just as the twosome are about to head out for Connecticut, Robbie asks for a word with Peter. The photog hasn't gotten along with Robbie since the editor-in-chief accused him of faking photos. This talk, thinks Pete, could be trouble.

(Okay, time to get our bearings. At this point in time, J. Jonah Jameson is not in charge of the Daily Bugle. That newspaper was wrested away from him, in a hostile takeover by Thomas Fireheart, the civilian identity of the Puma. (As revealed in The Spectacular Spider-Man #157, Mid-November 1989.) Fireheart, in some misguided attempt to repair the dishonor he has done Spider-Man buys the newspaper and begins publishing pro-Spidey articles and photographs. Jameson is forced to start a new publishing venture. He introduces Jameson Publications (on West 23rd Street in Tribeca) and puts out a magazine called "The Jameson News Digest". The trouble starts, in Web of Spider-Man #63, April 1990, when Peter and MJ stage a photo shoot, using Spider-Man for an ad campaign. At some point in the shoot, Peter removing his Spidey mask, revealing himself. Unfortunately, sleezy shutterbug Nick Katzenberg is up on the roof spying on the Parkers (trying to determine how Peter gets such great shots of Spidey) and he snaps photos of Peter, maskless, in his Spidey-suit. One issue later, Katzenberg shows those photos to JJJ and Robbie and the only way Peter can protect his secret I.D. is to tell them that he faked the photos. He argues that he was justified in doing this faking because the photos are for an advertising layout and are not real news photos. Jonah seems to buy this but Robbie is incensed. He and Peter argue about this and almost lose their friendship over this. Things get worse (in Web of Spider-Man #66, July 1990) when the first issue of "The Jameson News Digest" comes out and features a Peter Parker photo on the cover. Robbie feels betrayed by this, since he feels Peter should be punished for his previous faked photos. All clear? Let's get back to it.)

Elsewhere, at the Cyberbiokinetic Institute of Greater New York, a large brooding bald man with a goatee watches the "wild beast" report and decides this may be the perfect time to test his biokinetic energy absorber (a rather unwieldly device that looks like something Galactus would wear on his head). The man turns out to be the brother of the inventer who used "an earlier prototype model of this device" to steal the Thing's appearance and powers way back in Fantastic Four #51 ("This Man, This Monster", June 1966). In that story, the nameless scientist, jealous of Reed Richards, intends to impersonate the Thing and destroy the Fantastic Four. Instead, he learns to respect the FF's leader and ends up sacrificing his own life in the Negative Zone to save Mr. Fantastic. But his brother knows none of this. He only knows that he received a letter from Ricardo (as the nameless FF villain is now named) that told him he planned to test his device on the Thing. Never hearing from Ricardo again, the brother assumes that the Fantastic Four killed him. So, over the years, the brother worked from Ricardo's note to re-create and improve the device. If he can stage a successful test, he plans to avenge Ricardo's death.

Back at Jameson Publications, Peter and Robbie have their showdown which turns into a reconciliation. Robbie tells Peter he has realized that he was holding him to an unreasonable standard of ethics as compensation for his own feelings of failure when he failed, years before, to testify against the mobster called Tombstone. But, through the latest encounter with Tombstone in the previous issue, Robbie has learned that forgiveness "has to start with ourselves". He and Peter forgive each other as they give each other a big hug.

In Connecticut, a roadblock of cops waits for the wild beast. What they don't expect is a massive figure falling from the sky at the end of an immense jump. It is the Incredible Hulk and he bellows, "Puny Cops!" as he wipes out their squad cars with his landing. But, this time, the Hulk carries Betty Ross Banner in his arms. The cops see her and hold their fire, radioing in for more reinforcements.

Up in the air, Betty talks the Hulk into trying to find a place to hide. He may be bulletproof but she is not. He may be impervious to harm but she is not. The Hulk lands near an old ice house. The pair enter, with Betty assuring the Hulk that they will be safe inside. The very word seems to calm the Hulk and when Betty adds that "You're safe with me", the Hulk reverts back to Bruce Banner. Betty holds him close and promises him that she will stay with him, that "I won't ever let you face that monster alone again".

In Queens, Mary Jane Watson-Parker's young cousin Kristy is being released from an eating disorders clinic. Kristy was a semi-regular figure in recent issues of "Web", where it was revealed that she was bulimic. Now, she leaves the center, in the care of MJ. Kristy thinks she will be forced to leave New York and live with her Aunt Martha but MJ reveals that Harry and Liz Osborn want to hire her "as a live-in babysitter for their little boy Norman". In fact, Liz and Normie are waiting outside the clinic and Normie gives Kristy a big hug. (What ever happened with all of this? Was Kristy just forgotten? Or was there some resolution to her au pair position with the Osborns?)

Liz tells MJ that having Kristy around will give her and Harry more time for romance. Without it, "even the happiest married couples become just roommates", she says and MJ wonders if that is the problem with her relationship. Is it the looking for romance that makes her find Jason Jerome so attractive? (Remember MJ's flirtation with infidelity? If not... it's not really all that important. Or, to put it another way, all these backtracks to previous issues have pretty much worn me out!)

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, Betty drives Pete to the scene of the wild beast sightings. She explains that she has decided to take charge of her own life. In the past she let others make decisions for her and all she got was "a dead-end career as a professional secretary and a nervous breakdown after my husband died". (Betty's husband was Ned Leeds who was killed in Spider-Man vs. Wolverine (February 1987) and subsequently revealed to be the original Hobgoblin only to be "unrevealed" as Hobby many years later. But you knew that.) Now Betty has chosen to take charge of her own life. A big part of that was to accept Jonah's offer of a reporter position.

This soliloquy by Betty is interrupted by a long line of cars waiting at a police barricade. A cop on a bullhorn instructs all the drivers that the road is closed and gives directions for a detour. But Peter notices a jeep that ignores all this and drives off into the roadside woods. Telling Betty to stay with the car while he gets some photos (and ignoring her cries of "You're not in charge.. Peterrrrrrr", our hero finds the seclusion of the woods and dons the Spidey duds. He webslings through the trees, following the tracks left by the jeep.

And in the jeep, our bald and goateed mad scientist uses his Bio-kinetic energy wave receiver to trace a "massive biological energy source". As he gets closer he is suprised to discover that the "energy source is not entirely biological". It contains, in fact, "gamma radiation in gigantic quantities". And it is coming from the ice house dead ahead.

The scientist stops his jeep, removes his "Galactus helmet" from a suitcase and enters the ice house. The tracer leads him upstairs to a sleeping couple. The scientist learns that "the radiation source... it's that man!" Then he recognizes the man as Dr. Robert Bruce Banner.

Our clueless bad guy thinks he's stumbled on the perfect situation. With Bruce Banner asleep, he can, using his energy absorber, siphon off the power of the Hulk. He applies the pincers on the device to Banner's head which results in Bruce feeling extreme pain. Betty wakes up in alarm as Bruce pushes his assailant away and rapidly turns into the Incredible Hulk. The scientist's calm ("Nothing to worry about, Banner..." turns to fear as the green behemoth turns on him, knocks him aside with a loud cry of "Shut up!" and stands menacingly above him branding him with the crime of being "Banner's friend". Bleeding from the forehead, the scientist can only cower and plead for the Hulk to stop.

Luckily for him, the Amazing Spider-Man is just outside. Spidey smashes through a nearby window and tells the Hulk to back off. The Hulk's sudden movement (along with his great weight) cause him to crash right through the floor and land in a large supply of ice. Spidey follows, trying to hide his surprise at meeting the green goliath. After all, at this point in time, the Hulk is supposed to be dead! (No, no, forget it. You can look that one up for yourselves!) The Hulk isn't even slowed by his fall. He rises up, holding a block of ice and flings it at the wall-crawler. Spidey dodges it easily, declaring the Hulk to be "as much fun as a polar bear during oral surgery". (Huh?) But the ice block shatters a support and the rest of the second floor crashes down, bringing Betty Banner and our bad guy along with it. Betty rushes to the side of the unconscious scientist (who still clutches his device in his hands). He is so still that she fears he is dead. (And, in fact, he is dead. So doesn't this make the Hulk a murderer?) Hulk has no sympathy for any man who is "Banner's friend". In fact, the thought of Banner gets him so worked up that he ends up pounding ice into fragments while screaming "Banner! Banner! Banner!" As Spidey tries to dodge ice chips, Betty takes the energy absorber from the scientist's hands. In the confusion of ice, broken floorboards, and Hulk, she accidentally touches the pincers to Spider-Man's arm. The wall-crawler is immediately overwhelmed with the same sort of pain that Bruce Banner experienced when the pincers touched him.

Spidey is down, which puts him just where the Hulk wants him. Displaying no mercy, the giant grabs Spidey by the neck, lifts him high in the air, then throws him through the ice house wall. The webhead lands in a small pond about a hundred yards away. But it isn't over yet. In a last ditch effort to defend himself, Spidey had sprayed webbing in the Hulk's face even as he was thrown through the wall. This move only further angers the behemoth. He effortlessly rips the webbing away and leaps to join Spidey (feet first) in the pond. The Hulk holds Spidey down in the water and punches him, all the while chanting "Banner's friend! Banner's friend! Banner's friend!" For a moment the two combatants disappear under the water, then they spring up again, each with his hand around the other's throat. But the Hulk is much more powerful than Spider-Man and soon the weakened wall-crawler's hand falls away from the green one's neck. Hulk, however, does not ease up. With a worried and helpless Betty Banner looking on, the duo submerges again. She looks down at the two figures, praying for her and Bruce's sake, that the Hulk does not kill Spider-Man. When she sees the smaller figure fall away from the larger figure, she fears the worst. The Hulk surfaces, expressing apathy for the fate of his opponent, ("Puny Spider stopped fighting. Hulk doesn't care about bug!" and tells Betty they must leave right now. She scoops her up and leaps away. To her anguished question about Spidey's ultimate fate, the Hulk only replies, "Hulk wants to go now. We go!" (Hey, Betty, forget about what he did to Spider-Man! He killed the guy with the energy absorber, didn't he?)

Two minutes later, Spidey finally surfaces. His leg was caught in an underwater root and he was too exhausted to free it any sooner. He watches the Hulk leap away and tries to find the bright side to the whole affair. At least he got some photos with his automatic camera but he also has a killer migraine "not to mention an itch on my back that just won't quit". And it is no coincidence that that itch is in the same spot where his costume has split as if he were growing larger. It also is the source of a faint glow of radiation. Not to mention being the spot where Betty Banner accidentally walloped him with the energy device's pincers."

Web of Spider-Man #70:



"It is about four and a half hours since the events of the previous issue and Spidey is back in New York. He has put a websack of his clothing on his back, grabbed the biokenetic energy absorber and hopped a train by clinging to the outside. But whatver happened to him in his fight has taken a toll. He falls asleep as he rides the train and almost loses his grip. He is, in fact, so woozy that he has a hard time remembering why he went to Connecticut. He has forgotten Betty Brant Leeds completely and only recalls that the wild beast he was sent to photograph was the Hulk, that he was jolted by some "electronic thingy", that the Hulk took off leaving "a dead guy" behind. Spidey leaves the dead guy for the approaching police but takes the energy absorber with him, hoping to analyze it.

The train arrives at Grand Central Station and Spidey, now back in his Parker duds, lugs the absorber through the terminal. (Hey, wait! Who's the full-figured blonde in the low-cut red mini-skirt with the fishnet stockings and the spiked heels walking by Peter? She only shows up in one panel and that's it. You can't even see her face! Alex Saviuk, you tease!) Pete is so weak that he can hardly lift the machine so he goes to the public lockers and stashes it in one of them. As he does so, his spider-sense goes off but Pete sees no nearby danger. "Just some guy getting off of a train from Chicago." (And the guy... I think... is Thomas Firehart, alias the Puma, but I may be wrong about this. It doesn't arise again in this story, anyway.) So, feeling weak, not thinking well, and a spider-sense (perhaps) on the blink, Pete doesn't dare web-sling. Instead, he steps outside and hails a taxi. On the sidewalk, two young punks harass a heavyset man. They knock his hat off his head ("Hat patrol, pops! Yer in violation!" and stick a finger in his gut. Before it can go any further, the NYPD shows up and chases the punks away. Pete is glad to see it. He's too wiped to help out as Spidey. But it isn't quite over. The punks head into Grand Central, trying to think up more trouble.

A half-hour later, a blurry, unshaven Peter Parker shows up at Jameson Publications and tosses his roll of film on Jonah's desk. He tells the publisher it is the "pics I took in Connecticut" but Jameson isn't happy. Nor is the woman sitting, with crossed arms, in a chair behind Peter. "You remember Betty Leeds", Jonah says, "the reporter you were assigned to worth with!" Poor addled Pete tries to apologize but Betty is in no mood for it. She points a finger in his finger and angrily tells him "You're the sorriest excuse for a professional I've ever seen!" Then Jonah joins in, telling our hero "leaving the scene of a news event was downright irresponsible". The two taking turns letting Pete have it (and, in the midst of this, we learn that Betty discovered the identity of the dead scientist; Armand Jones) until he can bear it no more. He puts his hands up to his ears and screams "Leave me alone!", then bolts from the office. Betty is surprised by this. "I didn't realize Peter was so sensitive", she says. "Sensitive?", JJJ replies, "try sea-sick! Boy's turning green around the gills!"

Up on the roof, Pete changes to Spidey, but he is so woozy that he doesn't realize his spider-sense is talking to him, trying to warn him of the approach of two security guards. They pull guns on him and tell him to come quietly "or we'll have to shoot!" This confrontation makes Spidey mad and when Spidey gets mad... well, in this instance, he grows larger, ripping through portions of his costume. The skin that shows through is a Hulk-like green. His intellect and vocabulary take on a Hulkish quality as well. The web-slinger turns on the guards and declares, "Spider smash!"

The guards keep their cool and shoot repeatedly at the changed webster but their bullets just bounce off. The Spider-Hulk reaches down and rips up the entire roof, sending the guards into a tumble. One of them falls over the side, though the other pulls him back up. As for Spidey... he's already forgotten about them. He uses powerful leg muscles to leap away.

The Spider-Hulk lands in a rubble-strewn landscape in the shadow of a bridge. He doesn't understand why "puny men" tried to hurt him. After all, "Spider can't be hurt! Spider strong!" But Spider is exhausted as well. He passes out amidst the rubble and changes back to his normal self. Soon after, five figures come out of the shadows and surround him.

Several hours later, Spidey comes to and is offered a hot bowl of soup. The shadowy figures turn out to be just some of the homeless group that live in the abandoned, ruined buildings. They have a fire going in a garbage can and people of all ages stand around it. Spidey is grateful for the soup. He tells the young woman who offers it that he's been delirious and had "the weirdest dream". Then he notices the state of his costume and knows his memories are real. He thanks the group for the soup but leaves quickly, fearing another transformation where he may "endanger these people". And he remembers that Betty mentioned a dead scientist. He wonders if that scientist could have designed the machine "that zapped me". The only way to find out is to check with Betty... assuming she's still talking to him.

A half hour later, Peter arrives at Betty's Forest Hills high-rise apartment. Betty is initially impatient with Pete until she sees how awful he looks. "You really are sick!", she says as she lets him in. Betty is so concerned that she wants to call Mary Jane to help out but Peter nixes that. All he wants is the address for Armand Jones. Betty brings it and Peter takes off.

It is 10:25 PM by the time Spider-Man arrives at Jones' laboratory. It is on the top floor of its building and accessible by a skylight. Spidey enters and is normal enough to pay heed to his spider-sense. It warns him of an electric eye burglar alarm that he covers with his webbing. It doesn't warn him, though, of a back-up system "set to trigger if [the electric eye] was tampered with". Spidey spies a notebook sitting on a desk which he hopes will provide notes on the energy absorber. He leaps down and grabs it... but, by this time, the back-up alarm is ringing.

Unfortunately for the web-slinger, the shock of the alarm triggers his change to the Spider-Hulk. He fights the change and flees the scene, still hanging onto the notebook. Away from the alarm, he calms down and manages to revert to normal but the effort of it all wears him out. He must settle down in an alley and rest.

Moments later, Spidey tries to read the notebook under the bare bulb of an alleyway exit. He reads enough to realize that he has been jolted with a dose of "bio-energy from the Hulk". The only thing that can reverse it is the energy absorber itself. So, by the time 11 PM rolls around, the wall-crawler is back at Grand Central Station to pick up the device.

But it can't be as easy as all that. In the terminal, the two young punks who earlier harassed a pedestrian (and who must have just hung out at Grand Central all day) are busy jimmying the locks on the lockers. The first two lockers are empty but the third one hits the jackpot. One punk thinks the device looks Japanese. The other figures they "can pawn it for a whole case o'Lite". A homeless "bag man" sitting nearby tries to stop the punks but they just run off, taking the energy absorber with them. Seconds later, the bag man is startled by the sudden appearance of Spider-Man. When the wall-crawler discovers that the lock has been broken and the device has been stolen, he starts to get very, very mad.

Taking his rage out on the lockers, Spider-Man starts to change. In moments, he is the Spider-Hulk and he turns on the bag man, accusing him of stealing the machine. The man denies it and tells the S-Hulk that "it was a couple o'kids" who "went down that way". "Spider thank", says the behemoth to the man as he web-slings in pursuit.

Elsewhere in the terminal, the two cops spot the punks and recognize them as the two who tried to "shake down that guy on the sidewalk". The kids take off running, feeling like they're "home free" because their pursuers are old. (The cops are all of about 30.) "They'll never catch us!" But something else has no trouble catching them. With a savage growl, the Spider-Hulk swings down and confronts the punks. "You take away! Now Spider take back!", screams the monster and the kids would be happy to oblige but they don't know what he is talking about. In the time taken by this confrontation, the cops show up. As they see it, the S-Hulk is "tryin' to kill those kids" so they fire their guns at him. The bullets bounce harmlessly off and the behemoth retaliates by smashing the floor with his fists. Stone and people go flying in every direction but three more cops show up from behind the S-Hulk. They, too, fire guns and those bullets also bounce off harmlessly. "Puny men don't learn very good", says our changed hero, "Maybe Spider give them another lesson." And, saying this, he shoots webbing to the top of the giant clock on the wall and uses his great strength to bring it crashing down on the cops. (I can only see two cops leaping to safety but I think we can assume the third one got away as well.) Then, the monster turns to the punks and instructs them to "give Spider thingy!"

This time the kids realize what the S-Hulk is after but before they can make a move, the giant leaps at them. "Take it", yells one punk, and he holds it out, in self-defense, with the pincers pointing out. The S-Hulk comes in contact with the pincers and the machines "automatic sensor programming" kicks in. The "Hulk energy" is drawn back into the device.

Spidey starts to change back to normal but the experience is unpleasant and unsettling to the S-Hulk who responds to the sensation by lashing out. His right fist smashes the absorber into junk, ending the chance of the Hulk's power being fed to anyone else. On his hands and knees, Spidey turns back to his smaller self. One of the punks is so shaken by the experience that he declares, "That does it, man! I'm goin' back to Poughkeepsie!" A shaken Spidey realizes he'd better flee the scene while he still can. He shoots webbing to the roof and rides away on it, smashing through one of the large windows at the top of the terminal. As midnight approaches, Spidey clings to the wall of a nearby building and watches the cops and rescue crews arrive at Grand Central Station. "Another New York institution trashed by a guy in a spider-suit", he thinks. To his left, he spies a billboard put up by the Thomas Fireheart owned Daily Bugle, in its attempt to change the wall-crawler's image. It shows the web-slinger surrounded by a half-dozen bunnies and says, "Spider-Man: New York's cuddliest super-hero!" Spidey thinks this latest fiasco has ruined his "cuddly" image no matter what the Bugle may say in the future. "Ah, well", he thinks, "it was nice while it lasted". And he sighs.

So, I'm sure you all want to know about Mary Jane's encounter with Jason Jerome or what happened to Kristy or how Jonah Jameson got the Daily Bugle back from Thomas Fireheart. Well, forget all that. I'm still trying to figure out why nobody cares that the Hulk murdered Armand Jones!"