Hulk 1976 - 1977

Let's continue this overview of the Hulk's 1970s adventures. Set the Way Back Machine for 1976 to 1977.

Gerald Ford! The Bionic Woman! Pol Pot! Star Wars! Antebbe! Roots! Jimmy Carter! And (starting in 1977:)

Writers: David Kraft, Doug Moench, and John Warner.  Art: Alfredo Alcala, Tony DeZuniga, Keith Giffen, Ed Hannigan, Jack Kirby, Al Milgrom, Alex Nino, Keith Pollard, John Romita Jr., Walt Simonson, and Jim Starlin.

One of Marvel's short-lived black and white magazines. (For the record, I support bringing back oversized black and white magazines, as well as digest-sized softcovers in spindle-racks. Everywhere. Please and thank you.) 

I look at my scribbled notes from when I read the first 5 or 6 issues and all I wrote down was "Bereet, Krylorian, Namor." Exactly! Right? Well, Namor's self-explanatory enough. For the record, the others refer to an alien race and an ally the Hulk and Rick Jones pick up along the way. 

More on this in the next few posts in this series, as only a few issues were published in our present window.

As for what was happening over in:

Writer: Len Wein Art: Sal Buscema, Ernie Chan, Tom Palmer, Joe Staton, and Herb Trimpe.

Not a whole lot. Well, plenty, to be sure - two years in the life of the Hulk buys a lot of craziness - but nothing really blew my mind from this run of issues. They're fine, just not earth-shattering. Among them:

- The Hulk is captured for an alien's menagerie of curiosities.

- A Fantastic Voyage homage for the Hulk's 200th, which leaves another run of shrinking adventures in its wake.

- This leads to the return of Jarella. As you likely recall,  Jarella was the Hulk's sub-atomic sweetie originally introduced by Harlan Ellison way back in Hulk #140. She and the Hulk tumble through several dimensions together before landing back on Earth.

Count the homages on this splash page!

Once more for the official record, I'd watch/ read any series that exclusively dealt with the Hulk having Gulliver-type adventures, alternating between giants, people his own size, and leprechauns. All green of course.

Of course, you can't have the Hulk or Bruce Banner become some happily married hero. So:

I'm sure he'll take it in stride.

Oh well.

Len Wein has said he always meant to bring Jarella back, but he left the title before he could do so. She stayed dead a long time for a Marvel character, only coming back (sort of) for Marvels' Chaos War.

There are some fun other plots, including a Conan the Barbarian, "The Gamesters of Triskelion," and Beyond Thunderdome mash-up over several issues with Doctor Druid. 

The splash from # 210. (Sal Buscema looks a little more like Gene Colan when inking his own pencils, eh?)

An attempt is made to shake up Bruce Banner's side of the book, bringing back Jim Wilson. a young teen inexplicably caught up in the Hulk's adventures from time to time, and introducing a flirty landlady who keeps probing into Bruce's past.

Meh.

The Hulk annual from 1976 pits Hulk against the cream of its pre-hero monster catalog, one of whom ("the overlord of all the timber in the galaxy!") enjoyed a surge of renewed popularity with last year's Guardians of the Galaxy.

I liked the idea of that annual more than I enjoyed reading it, if the truth be told, but it's fun enough. I think it was meant as an homage of some kind to Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, but I can find no corroboration of this.

And who the hell is Hannah?

Moving on to:

Writers: Gerry Conway, Steve Gerber, David Kraft, and Roger Slifer.
Art: Sal Buscema, Dave Cockrum, Keith Giffen, Mike Golden, Dan Green, Klaus Jansen, Jim Mooney, Mike Royer and Chic Stone.

Steve Gerber's last year on the title does not disappoint. Things start off with an attack by the Headmen - I won't even try and summarize this. 

#32.

#33.

#35.

The Headmen story is just one of three plotlines that culminate with the 1st Defenders Annual:

The other two: 1) the Hulk forms an attachment with a baby deer whose mother he observes being shot by hunters. 

This being a Steve Gerber story, things then get weird.

#33.

And 2) Nebulon (you remember him from last time? No worries.) returns to Earth from his celestial exile, this time with the intent of helping Earthlings self-actualize.

Pursuant to this task he takes a less imposing form.

#34.

It all seems to me a parody of Scientology and Erhad Seminars Training. And a good one at that.

Also from #34.

In case that thought bubble didn't give it away, that's Doctor Strange in disguise, there.

Ultimately, Nebulon decides that humanity is beyond redemption and leaves Earth. But not before sweeping up a few super-villains in his Consciousness Raising foofaraw.

#37.

Gerber left the book with issue 41. This left new writer Gerry Conway to resolve the long-in-the-running Elf with a Gun mystery.

Which he did in issue 46:

Said Gerber in later interviews: "The elf made his first appearance for no other reason than that Sal Buscema was getting sick of drawing guys in snake suits. He asked if I could toss in something else for variety, and I did. (...) I've always said that having (him) run over by a truck with the second-best resolution. I don't know what the best would have been because I was making the story up as I went along."

As per usual, this stretch of Defenders includes a good amount of guest stars, some of whom stick around for awhile, like:

And of course the ubiquitous Luke Cage:

Moon Knight sticks around for awhile, as well.

But the most important (for the Defenders, anyway) character introduced in these issues is:

Hellcat is Patsy Walker, who was one of Marvel's old romance comics superstars.

Prior to the Defenders, she wasn't a part of regular Marvel continuity. But Stan and Jack had her make an appearance at the wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four, so Gerry Conway and David A. Kraft took that as re-establishing her in the Marvel Universe, gave her the Cat's old costume (the Cat - Greer Nelson - having become Tigra, to the delight of cat-lady-fetishists everywhere) sprinkled in supernatural somedamnsuch, and voila: Hellcat.

Plots-wise, the Conway/ David A. Kraft era is pretty fun. There's a great Red Rajah story, an Atlantean insurrection, and a Valkyrie Goes to College arc. Also, the Defenders mix it up with Scorpio and his re-formed Zodiac of Evil.

#50.

"I think I was a little too subtle for... maybe everybody," David A. Kraft later recounted to Back Issue (#65.) "But Scorpio was gay. (...) There was a lot of pressure to conform back then, which is why Scorpio refers to the female android Virgo as his 'last chance to be 'normal.'"

Scorpio commits suicide at the end of the storyline. Times have changed, and a character driven to suicide over his homosexuality carries a different sort of charge in 2014 than it did in 1977. I applaud Kraft's attempt to introduce a sympathetic gay character, but I doubt he'd have received a positive citation from GLAAD for his efforts, had anyone grokked that was what he was doing.

Before I sign off, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this storyline from the end of Gerber's run:

Valkyrie is arrested while busting up a crime with her usual enthusiasm and, unable to explain herself, is sentenced to a stint in the clink. Things quickly become interesting due to the way Valkyrie's powers work: she is unable to use her super-strength or agility against women.

Naturally the story involves a lecherous male warden - how could it not?

Sal's pencils stay on the safer side of women-in-cages-sploitation - which would surely not be the case today. Eventually, Valkyrie has to take down her main lady rival.

She figures out a way around the whole "My hands shall never strike a woman" enchantment.

Okay, so new premise for proposed Valkyrie TV show...  seriously, though. It'd be a cross between Orange is the New Black and Prison Break. The thing writes itself.

~

That's all I've got for you this time around. The Hulk TV show premiered in 1978, so next time around we'll have some added goodies for review along with the usual stuff.

Beverly Hills 90210: Something in the Air

"Something in the Air," the 28th episode of Beverly Hills 90210's 3rd season, aired on May 12, 1993. It's better known as:

It's astonishing the shelf life this episode has had. Even in 2014 if you yell out "Donna Martin Graduates!" at a bar, baseball game, bar mitzvah, or at the microphone, there's a good chance someone is going to answer you with one of these:

What is it about Donna Martin's brief uncertainty over whether or not she's going to get to graduate with her friends that has resonated with audiences so loudly and for so long? I don't think anyone planned for it to have this kind of staying power. Beverly Hills in general, sure - like The Brady Bunch, it's hard to pinpoint why it became a cultural reference point in the first place. But "Donna Martin Graduates" was hardly an original concept for high school TV melodrama. Every series that ever dealt with high school characters had an episode where one of them suddenly might not graduate. What does "Something in the Air" have that others don't?

I mean, she just wants to graduate with her friends! Mom.

Hold up a second.

Let's say you have never watched an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 or that you've an aversion to teeny-bopper TV that precludes your knowing the first thing about Donna Martin, her commencement or otherwise. You've likely still come across "Donna Martin Graduates" just as part of the pop media ether, the same way people use or recognize another idiomatic phrase "Jump the Shark" without necessarily a working knowledge of Happy Days.

Now, by most (but certainly not all) definitions, "Something in the Air" is not a great work of art, and I'm not here to convince you otherwise. I watched 90210 almost all of the ten years it was on, but it wasn't something you watched-watched, it was something you watched with friends. (Weirdly, this did not mean you never watched it by yourself.) No one watched it for authentic drama or lived experience; right down to the haircuts, its distance from reality and from profundity was the whole attraction. 

If none of this makes sense, it simply means you belong to a saner demographic than I.

I saw this when it originally aired - I want to say it was at the old Lambda Chi Alpha house on Old North Road in Kingston, RI, but it might have been in the dorms (at URI.) My circle of friends at the time had a weekly meet-up for Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, a movable feast of smoking and drinking that I recreated with as many different groups of friends as I could until the show went off the air in 2000. (Side-note: I never took to Melrose, then or now, when not-paired with 90210.)

Itself a spin-off of 90210. Lest we forget!

Anyway, I've watched with some bemusement how "Donna Martin Graduates" has evolved into one of the "Marcia Marcia Marcia!"s of its era. For those of you who are far too sensible to not have the plot details memorized, here's what happens in this episode:

Donna was caught drinking at Prom and faces suspension, putting her attendance at commencement in jeopardy.

Sure enough, she's suspended. She's not going to be able to walk across the stage in cap and gown with her friends.

Brandon and Andrea are berated by their younger colleagues at the student paper for their selective concern over Donna's fate but not the dress code which oppresses their own (junior) class. "In a sick way, what's happening to Donna Martin is an appropriate epitaph for the dead spirit of the entire class of 1993."

Kelly and Dylan make out.

Soon, the gang's all called to the office. They think Donna's sold them out. After all, they were all drinking at Prom as well. I know! Drinking. At PROM.

Turns out, though, the Vice President (Mrs. Teasley) is just giving them a heads-up that Donna's family is appealing her suspension and that they can write letters on her behalf. "You do want to help Donna, don't you?"

Dylan reminds everyone that Donna would do anything for a friend... Anything.

Brandon's junior colleague's admonishments continue to burn in his ears. When he complains to Andrea about how his generation never does anything, he's taken out into the hall by Mr. X their teacher/ the student paper adviser.

"Donna's being railroaded... this school board is a kangaroo court."

Brandon seeks the advice of his Dad, who fondly recalls marching against Vietnam in Grant Park, Chicago in the '60s. Brandon's heard enough. "Someone's got to stand up for Donna, Dad."

"Just do me one favor, son -"

"don't get arrested." (Implied high five.)

Mr. and Mrs. Walsh's role on the show is to be unreasonably supportive (but benevolently firm) of every whim of their son's. And to a lesser extent, their daughter's. And Dylan's. And later, adopted strays like Tiffani Amber-Thiessen. Jim and Cindy were retired after the 5th season. (Eventually, all the Walshes were off the show, but their home was conveniently enough sold to Steve.) 

When Brandon leads the students of West Beverly to march on Donna's appeal hearing, Mrs. W hears the tumult outside. "What's that?" she asks.

"Sounds like a revolution." Jim Walsh: sage and succinct.

Brandon assembles the gang at the Peach Put and lays out his plan: tomorrow, they ride.

At first Dylan's all, Nah, count me out, bro.

Then he remembers his own dialogue from earlier in the episode and it's all good.

Their gamble works:

DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES.

The End. So I ask again, what is it about the above that separates it from any garden-
variety storyline of any high school show? Is it the absurdity of how seriously everyone takes Donna's "predicament?"

At one juncture, Dylan makes the obvious point that what's at stake here is not all that serious: she's still going to graduate, for fuck's sake, just in August. He is immediately shunned. 

As always, it's a sad day when Dylan McKay is the voice of reason.

As we saw, though, Dylan surrenders and joins the resistance. And it's not just Donna's friends and family (none of which I screencapped, but holy moley the various extended scenes of the parents discussing the issue and apportioning blame and responsibility are so somber) that treat the question of whether or not there is graduation in Donna's future as if it's a nuclear countdown hostage situation. As we saw above, it's the teachers, the advisors, the juniors, the downtrodden,

Mrs. Teasley, the VP, and

and the superintendent and board members.

Donna's pain is theirs; their struggle is hers. There isn't a soul in the 90210 zip code that doesn't carry some of the burden.

Donna struggles heroically throughout, conveying through tear-blotched eyes and body language (and over-the-top dialogue) how sad she is, how much she regrets it, how unfairly she's been targeted, and how badly she just wants to graduate with her friends.

Adolescence and high school are such intense rites of American passage that we can sometimes take for granted the media industry around the subject, especially things like 90210 or its ancestor The Brady Bunch, which so successfully portray an inoffensive, affluent, imaginary American reality. I don't know if it's the truth or just my own projection on things - and of course I'm hardly an unobjective observer - but my generation (say, the graduating classes of 1990 through 1995) seemed to have an easier relationship with ironic appreciation. (As skewered brilliantly in The Simpsons Hullabalooza episode.) Sure, we were slackers and we "Yeah, whatever"ed a lot of things - too many maybe - but it's not like reality has cleaned up its act any since the 90s. Things are snortworthier than ever. Hell, "Donna Martin Graduates" would be taken up as a hashtag campaign slogan nowadays, absolutely without irony, and you'd see people weepy or crazy trains about it all over social media. Perspective and context have been obliterated.

I digress. But maybe that's something this episode actually called correctly. If half the news you heard or read last year was dubbed over with "Donna Martin Graduates," would we even tell the difference?

"Something in the Air" was

and

The TV Tomb of Mystery is an ongoing attempt to stave off  acquisition of any more impulse-buy DVDs by taking better inventory of the ones already in hand.