Random Happenstance

I was supposed to be sorting some books, but of course I stopped to read this one, and it had about the last person I'd expect to be testifying before Congress, so...from 1985, Incredible Hulk #305, "Fancy Meeting You Here!" Written by Bill Mantlo, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Gerry Talaoc.

It's Doctor Stephen Strange, in a sharp but very restrained suit, testifying before a "secret Senate select committee," to explain how he had banished the mindless Hulk from earth. The opinions seem a bit split: sure the Hulk was dangerous, but is it legal or even ethical to banish someone without due process? Strange explains the Hulk had been his friend, and was sent to a Crossroads dimension in the hopes that he could find peace. One senator offers, millions of dollars and man-hours had been spent fighting the Hulk, so good riddance; but I can't help suspect that senator must not have the big military contractors backing him: I still maintain there were probably a lot of defense companies and such raking in the government pork to build Hulkbuster equipment. At the end of his testimony, a Senator Price tries to offer comforting words to Strange, that inadvertently seem super-ominous: "I want an intelligent inquiry into our position with super-beings. Not an inquisition--and certainly not a witch-hunt!"

The rest of this issue is the mindless Hulk fighting his old foes...the U-Foes. Ironclad mentions how Bruce Banner interfered with their attempt to use cosmic rays to gain powers, ala the Fantastic Four, turning them "inta freaks!" There was a pretty good chance of that happening best-case, wasn't there? Still, while they may have ended up freakier than the FF, that seems to have translated into making them tougher to kill, which they need here: with the help of the alien Puffball Collective, the Hulk fights each U-Foe into a world seemingly designed to thwart their powers. Ironclad doesn't have much luck on a quicksand world, for example; and X-Ray is less threatening in a world where monsters eat radioactivity. The Hulk's made a friend, which means it is probably going to die, betray him then die, or be otherwise lost, in the next three issues or so. (Yep!)