The Incredible Hulk #6  "The Incredible Hulk vs The Metal Master"

Written by Stan Lee
Art by Steve Ditko
Letters by Art Simek


Cover: This is one of the better early Marvel covers.  The colors are still pretty muted.  And I'm not a big fan of the huge yellow speech bubbles.  But there's decent action and you get a feeling for what is going to happen inside.  

The Story: 

The army is about to test a new gizmo but can't go ahead because Bruce Banner can't be found.  Thuderbolt is grumbling and Betty is worried that maybe the Hulk got him.  Meanwhile The Hulk can't get to his underground lab to change back to Banner because the army is out on maneuvers and he can't get past them.  He tries to take an chance and is about to be discovered when, serendipitously, the army is recalled because of an emergency signal that everyone can hear no matter how far they are from the source or how loud the tanks and planes are.  The Hulk makes it to the lab and grouses about changing back in to Banner, but does anyway.  The pain is much worse every time and the results are unpredictable.  



The army was called back because the experimental gizmo has melted at the mind of the Metal Master.  He's the only criminal from a distant galaxy who has come in a tiny little space pod to conquer Earth.  His brain can control all "metallic atoms."  Which seems like something that natural selection would select for.  He proceeds to melt helmets, a tank and "trap" Ross and others in a metallic cage.  Which leads Ross to determine that he should send some metallic rockets after him.  Metal Master's plan seems as ill-conceived as his ability to trap Thunderbolt Ross.  



Back at the lab Rick comes in as Banner is changing back to The Hulk.  But he ends up with Banner's head on the Hulk's body.  But luckily he has rubber masks of the Hulk's head for research purposes.  No...really.  That's the explanation.  It may be the single dumbest thing we've yet seen in the Marvel Universe.  Enough so that it has to be commented on here instead of in the later "thoughts" portion.  



The Hulk and Metal Master meet and MM offers to work with Hulk to conquer the Earth.  Hulky though decides he can do it without any help if he decides to do so.  So they fight...because that's what superhero funnybooks are all about.  MM manages to knock Hulk out by hitting him in the back of the head with a piece of metal (why did nobody think of that before.  Hulk is then captured by the army who unmask him.  But luckily his face has changed from Banner's to the Hulk's...as they do.  



Hulk is put in a "stone" building that has rivets for some reason to hold him after he's captured.  It also has an opening that is big enough for Hulk to talk to Rick Jones and accuse him of telling the army about the mask and get his hands through.  Because that makes sense with a dangerous prisoner.  Rick asks to join the army but is told he's too young.  At the same time Metal Master is flying around the world at, apparently supersonic speeds on a piece of metal wrecking havoc on metal things.  At this point we get to the most important point of the story historically.  Rick and his buddies form the Teen Brigade so that ham radio enthusiasts world-wide can help the police, the army, everyone.  



Of course the Hulk escapes because if he didn't then the story couldn't continue to happen.  Betty's only concern, as the world is falling apart, is that maybe the Hulk has captured Bruce.  The Hulk goes back to his lab and changes back to Banner for absolutely no apparent reason other than maybe so he can be weakened and make up with Rick after Hulk dissed him.  Luckily Banner concocts a plan to beat MM and Rick is able to put the Teen Brigade to work getting condensers and tubes and circuits from exotic locales like Seattle and Pittsburgh and get them to the desert Southwest in hours.  All the while MM is flying around messing up rockets and planes.  



Banner (presumably) puts together a gun of Liefeldian proportions and then changes in to the Hulk to go and face off with MM.  Hulk, the Teen Brigade and Ross and the army are all able to converge on D.C. as MM is menacing it, no matter where they are coming from.  Because distance has no meaning.  MM finds that he can't effect the gun that Hulk is holding so he just...kinda...gives up.  Because he didn't just knock the guy out not so long ago with a piece of metal upside the back of his noggin.  But no...he just fixes everything and takes off not to be seen again for almost 20 years.  



Rick and the Hulk jump back to the lab (from D.C.) where the transformation machine doesn't seem to work, giving Hulk a chance to rage and pout for a couple pages even though he doesn't really want to be Banner.  They also find out that The Hulk has been pardoned, which just infuriates him even more.  Meanwhile Betty is still worried about Banner, who goes to see her telling her he's been resting in Bermuda.  And they go off into the sunset.  

Thoughts… 

This is the first full-length story for this series since issue #2.  

Steve Ditko does the art on this issue instead of Kirby.  Overall, as weak as the story is (and I'll get in to that) the art here is pretty strong.  The Hulk looks more menacing than he has since the first issue.  Ditko really leans in to the Frankenstein (Karloff version) antecedents of the character.  On the other hand, Rick Jones looks a lot like Peter Parker...or is it Palmer.  

The Hulk continuously complains about Banner...and yet he keeps changing back.  And Banner keeps changing in to the Hulk (though generally for a reason) even though the change keeps making him weaker and more strung out.  And, as we'll see, starts having unpredictable effects.  There is almost a metaphor here for drug addiction, though I'm quite sure that wasn't done purposefully.  

Banner has a telescreen in his lab that lets him watch the army base and nobody seems to notice the cameras or wiring or anything.  No wonder the Commies are always able to get spies into and info out of the bases.  

Oh look...another alien from another galaxy who wants to take over the Earth.  We haven't seen that before.  And Earth was the only planet with enough metal to interest him.  I need an eyeroll emoji.  

Does anyone know if this was done Marvel-style or script? Because there is some really weird shit going on in this story. Not least is the bizarro Banner-head/Hulk body followed by the fact that Banner just happens to have plastic Hulk masks for "research." I want to know who to blame for this lunacy, Lee or Ditko.

Steve Ditko does not own a globe.  



The time dilation in this story is almost universally ridiculous.  If someone needs something or needs to go somewhere it happens in what must be a matter of minutes.  Ross can go from the Southwest U.S. to Washington D.C. and raise an army in the time that the Hulk and MM are duking it out.  MM can just fly about the world twisting metal almost instantaneously.  No thought was put in to this.  Which is fine if you recognize that it's silly children's literature.  But if you want to pretend it's something better than what the other funnybook companies were doing, you're kidding yourself.  

Leaving aside that the stuff was coming from Seattle and Pittsburgh...why the HELL was the Teen Brigade needed to get stuff to put together a fake gun made from plastic and cardboard?  Again, either the writer and artist were on completely different pages or the story is just plum damn stupid.  



I'll try not to raise this every time...but we are now very clearly in a shared universe.  So where are the FF, Thor, Iron Man, etc. to deal with Magneto...I mean The Metal Master?  I mean...I know where they are...it's the Hulk's book so they are in their own books.  But this is another reason that shared universes tend to be super silly.  

Banner and Betty are significantly closer than they have been in the first four issues and appear to now be actually dating.  




The plot: Terrible.  I mean...really this is bad.  So much of it is just nonsense.  Again if you accept that this is written for 8-10 year olds it's still kind of bad.  But people pretend this stuff is better than what was on the stands from other companies.  D.  

The art:  As bad as the story is...and it's pretty bad...I rather liked the art on this one.  I feel like Ditko gave us a Hulk that was actually pretty menacing for the first time since the first issue.  B.  

The toll: Hulk is pretty subdued in this one for collateral damage.  It's mostly just putting a hole in the "stone" room he was confined to and damaging some of his own lab equipment.  

Grade for historic importance:  This one is a little hard.  Metal Master won't appear again for almost 20 years and he's a pretty nothing villain.  It's the first appearance of the Teen Brigade...so maybe points off for that.  It is the first Marvel Age book to be cancelled.  I've heard various reasons why; low sales; wanting to try other books but having the bad distribution deal so something had to go.  I dunno.  But it was cancelled and honestly it wasn't much of a loss.  I'll say...D.  

The last word balloon in the last panel has a teenager in 1963 exclaiming, "Reet!", which originated as jazz hepcat slang in the 1930s and was virtually gone by 1960 except for a brief revival in 1957 with Jackie Wilson's hit song Reet Petite. It's not impossible that a 1963 teen would say "Reet!" but it's really unlikely.



I'd bet it was Marvel style. Once you know to look for it, you can see various examples from the Marvel Age where Stan used text to explain or contradict something bizarre that the artist had drawn. The first other examples that come to my mind also involve the Hulk:

- in the story where the Hulk goes to outer space and gets zapped, Kirby clearly draws the Hulk as having the ability to fly when he gets back. He swoops down and back up and changes direction in midair. Stan's text insists that the Hulk is just leaping.

- a few issues later Kirby has the Hulk jump over the Pacific Ocean. Stan's caption explains that he's hitching rides on airplanes.

As I noted in my own review of the first six issues of Hulk earlier this year, when I was a kid reading the pocketbook reprints in the late '70s, my favorites were issues 2 and 6, almost entirely because I liked the art better in those - i.e., Ditko had a hand in both.
As for the story itself, yeah, it was pretty silly, but then again, I didn't think any of those first six issues was a winner. It was really apparent that nobody, not Kirby, not Lee, not Ditko or anyone else, had a clear idea of what the Hulk should be, and the all-over-the-place character of the stories really reflects that.

I just read Spider-Man 14, first Green Goblin and guest starring The Hulk, for some reason, since his book was cancelled and he hadn't started in TtA. Maybe they were hyping him before he started in Tales. Beyond the ludicrous story of luring Spider-Man to Hollywood just to beat him up, the highly improbable meeting with the Hulk (he happened to be in the same cave they ended up fighting in was eye-rolling.
But who was this Hulk? It was obvious Stan had no idea of who was the character was yet. His dialog was way to intelligent, and he sounded like neither Banner or the Hulk.
As I read these issues of ASM I see the appeal is the soap opera of Peter's life and the shear joy of Ditko's art.

I rate the first issue pretty highly, probably the best issue of the MU to this point that isn’t a Fantastic Four or Spider-Man story. It’s a pretty solid origin and overall the story works. The creators simply had no idea where to go with it and having a monster as a protagonist was much harder when the CCA still had teeth.