3 out of 5

Steve’s first comic-writing gig?  Also: wonderful evidence of the wacky, wacky 70s.  So this Hulk ish came at the end of Thomas’ tenure, Gerber helping out with scripting on this ish (Roy doing plotting) before Steve Englehart would take over in the next book.  The story falls in a somewhat wayward spot between ongoing and one-shot – Hulk is hanging onto a spaceship piloted by a Leader-controlled Rhino when the latter snaps outta his trance, just in time to put on some space-breathin’ gear when Hulky tears the roof off the thing and tosses him… to the ground of Counter-Earth, whose orbit they just so happened to synchronize with.  The two beasts then take up opposite sides of a New-Men war, Hulk getting all sortsa alienated and confused when confronted with Counter-Earth Banner and Son, before Greenskin can grab his Earth-mate and hop back on board their ship – reanimated by the Leader – to presumably return to Earth.

The Counter-Earth inclusion definitely makes this not a book for an outsider, but it’s also clearly a stopping point in a story to make way for the writer transition.  In Gerber terms, the young writer’s skills can be sensed in the heavy narration, already setting up his style of having multiples themes going in via what’s narrated, what’s shown, and what’s said, but he’s also very obviously latches to Thomas’ plot, especially when things gear toward a beat-down battle near the book’s conclusion.

Trimpe and Trapani on art make the book look wonderful, of course, the classic “thick” Hulk who maintains his sweetness without slipping into full-on dumb, and those wonderful close-up shots that Trimpe favored that really keep you feeling in-the-moment with all the colorful characters.

Fun, average, crazy.