Hulk (Didn't) Smash

 

By the turn of the century, you and I had seen and likely enjoyed any number of stories featuring clashes between the Thing and the Hulk--two classic characters who, despite having long since settled the question of who was the more powerful, still managed to convey the possibility of an upset with each clash or, at the very least, give us our money's worth more often than not with some new twist on the circumstances which brought them into conflict once more. But in late 2004, a four-issue limited series appeared on the racks with a story which some of us might have considered unorthodox, even for this pair.

Right away, you've likely already discerned artist Jae Lee's hand here, whose work you may remember from The Sentry from 2000 as well as 1998's The Inhumans, and who here brings his unconventional style to two men who look distinctly different from the characters who put their stamp on the comics of the '60s, '70s and '80s. In this series, Lee handles full pencils and inks (as he did on the prior works), while this time joining with writer Bruce Jones to craft a tale that frankly takes some patience to get through. That's not to say there's not something here for Hulk/Thing fans--but when you find yourself in full agreement with the Hulk who's all but demanding that the Thing get to the point, already after covering roughly half the series with little progress on that front, you'll either be more determined to see where it's all going, or reach for your back issue of Fantastic Four #112 and better days.

If nothing else, the approach that Jones and Lee take to open "Hard Knocks" is an attention grabber, considering the characters involved aren't exactly known for their congeniality. Or, to paraphrase an old joke, "Stop me if you've heard this one. Two man-monsters end up at a hole in the wall..."

Heh, the "Hard Rocks Cafe"--drawing us in with a double pun. Nicely played, Mr. Lee.

There are two other stories taking place within "Hard Knocks" which are central to its core issue, both of them having occurred in the FF's book early in the team's career--segments from "Prisoners of Doctor Doom!" from 1962, and 1963's "The Incredible Hulk," each of them now revealed as having a profound effect on the Thing's self-esteem (at least in Jones' eye--you don't find a hint of it in the original stories, in either dialog or from the Thing himself). After Ben refreshes the Hulk on the details of the first such tale, the Hulk believes he has enough information to leap to a conclusion as to Ben's motivations for seeking him out.

By now, hostilities have broken out between these men at least twice, due to venting frustration or the Hulk making clear that he is not Bruce Banner as the Thing knows to be otherwise. But after Ben corrects the Hulk on a certain point regarding their battle history and insinuates that he has, indeed, beaten his green-skinned opponent in the past, he's then obliged to move on to the second story, in which the team first met the Hulk when they were called in by General Ross to assist in acts of sabotage against the general's base--which Ross had attributed to the Hulk, but were committed by a spy named Karl Kort, aka "the Wrecker" (not to be confused with the later villain who did his wrecking with a crowbar).

As we've seen, the Hulk and the Thing were on the same page in recalling those events, and the course of their battle up to the point where the team regrouped and went after the Wrecker. But Ben now appears to offer irrefutable proof that the battle between himself and the Hulk ended differently.

And after Ben offers a second picture from the same source which shows Ben bending over his defeated opponent, the Hulk reacts with predictable outrage.

Ben continues, explaining how Kort was caught and handed over to Ross, after which the FF departed but with Ben feeling like a fifth wheel on the team. It's unclear how Jones proceeds on this tangent, considering the Thing not only pulled his weight in the team's brief battle with the Hulk but also played a crucial part in defeating the plans of the Wrecker. Jones and Lee are also of the same mind that the Hulk, after recovering from Kort's ray attack, goes looking to renew his fight with the Thing, which wasn't the case.

At any rate, Ben grows increasingly depressed when the team heads to the south sea islands for a little R&R, with Doom's biting words concerning his monstrous form and uselessness still ringing in his ears--leading us to a scene that we must assume took place fairly soon after, an altercation which was unintentional on Ben's part but triggered by the sight of the one person who would fit the bill as far as releasing his built-up rage.

His sense of self-worth restored (at least for the time being--additional episodes would instead narrow their focus on his being trapped in the form of the Thing), further discussion between these two is violently halted by an altercation with the military, which, it turns out, had been headed off by the Thing and convinced to hold their attack pending Ben giving them the "all clear" if he succeeded in getting the Hulk to stand down. As it turned out, the military jumped the gun, leading to more hostilities between the two powerhouses (though there was also the military for the Hulk to contend with). The final page of the series, however, shows our pair back at the (now mostly wrecked) cafe, sitting on counter stools and shooting the breeze.

I ended up with mixed feelings on this series, coming off as it did feeling like a whim on the part of both writer and artist rather than a well-crafted plot which either new readers or Thing and/or Hulk fans could enjoy flipping the pages through. Had Lee's work been limited to tighter panels with less space needlessly wasted (you would have to read the entire series to understand the full extent of that assertion, particularly in the segments featuring the rest of the FF contending against the Hulk), "Hard Knocks" would likely have consisted of half as many issues. All of that said, I did appreciate the last few pages which provided Ben with the realization that he was, in his words, "still human, still a man... still Ben Grimm" after sparing Banner's life--and I was intrigued at the now-canon fact that, aside from Rick Jones, Ben Grimm was the first person to realize the secret of the Hulk vis-à-vis Bruce Banner. Obviously, unless we hear otherwise, Ben decided to keep that information to himself.