INCREDIBLE HULK #35

Bruce Banner has a close shave (no pun intended) in this "'Nuff Said" issue

By Tony Whitt     January 06, 2002

A bald and incognito Bruce Banner is on the run from the Shade Men after the Hulk has supposedly killed young Ricky Myers. He stops off in a diner where a young autistic girl's behavior warns him of the imminent arrival of his pursuers. But Banner doesn't have enough time, and he's soon captured-which becomes more of a problem for them than for him.

As I've said in other "'Nuff Said" reviews, these issues only work well if the writer and the artists are in such close communication. Luckily, INCREDIBLE HULK #35 is not an issue that has to be endured-writer Bruce Jones and artists John Romita Jr and Tom Palmer are one of the few creative that have that necessary synchronicity to make the experiment work. The only parts of the story that may not be immediately clear are those having to do with the continuity of the current story arc, and yet somehow those parts don't matter nearly as much as the rest of the story. Jones, Romita, and Palmer make the basics clear: Banner is on the run; Banner gets captured; Banner has a waking dream that triggers his transformation, and so on. Jones has done what very few writers this month have attempted to do: he's pared down the script to the most basic of elements and presented them in a way that they can only be represented to their best potential graphically. Words would be too much for a story like this.

Of course, the story would never be so successful were it not for the efforts of Romita and Palmer. Or rather, it's the seeming effortlessness of the imagery that makes the story work so well. Romita and Palmer scale everything down so that even some of the most complex moments in the story-such as Banner's initial capture in the cornfield-are perfectly clear. That sequence, and the surreal dream sequence in which Banner and the autistic girl try to hold back the whale that symbolizes Banner's alter ego, are the standouts in this issue. There's also an amazing amount of subtlety here, as well-eyes become a leitmotif in this issue, but it's one you may not notice the first time through. All in all, this is an exceptional issue, and apart from the few moments that might require dipping into previous issues to sort out, it's a great example of what a "'Nuff Said" book should look like.

INCREDIBLE HULK

Grade: A-

Issue: No. 35

Author(s): Bruce Jones, John Romita Jr, Tom Palmer

Publisher: Marvel

Price: $2.25