Despite being of partial Irish heritage and having been raised Catholic I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I have a specific reason for this that I don’t feel like getting into, but since everything comes up green on March 17^th, I decided that for The Bailey Household this day will be Incredible Hulk Day.

Why Hulk?

Because I love the Incredible Hulk.

It’s really just that simple.

I ran this by my wife and the dogs, and everyone agreed.

I mean, I’m not sure the dogs are one hundred percent on board, but they didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

So, for Incredible Hulk Day 2026 I thought I would take something I previously posted over on Facebook and put it here.

Back in 1998, Marvel Berkley/Byron Preiss Productions published a short story anthology titled Ultimate Hulk. This was part of the line of prose novels and short story collections that the publisher had been putting out since 1994, which is one of the many reasons I sort of miss the nineties. I bought the book shortly after it was published and a few years back I got the audio version through Audible. Last fall I started doing short reviews of the book over on Facebook and I figured it would be fun to revise those reviews and post them here.

And boy did I need to revise them. I wrote those posts on my phone at work. They were rough.

So here we go.

Introduction

There’s an intro by Stan Lee, which is your standard Lee intro mixed with a breakdown of what you’re about to read. Stan’s intros tend to blend together after a fashion. It’s not a bad thing. Just a thing.

This is followed by an intro by Peter David, which has more meat on the bone. The irony of this intro is that when it was written Peter was still working on the character but by the time the anthology was published, he had announced his departure. So, the bit about how he doesn’t know if he could ever leave the title because that would be abandoning the Hulk, which is something everyone seems to do, hits a little weird.

This isn’t a “gotcha” type of comment. When I first read this book (in the backseat of my dad’s car as he, my stepmother, and I headed to her parent’s house for Christmas) I was bummed out by this because I had just started reading David’s Hulk run a year or so before while also collecting the back issues and I was sorry to see Peter leaving the title.

The fact that both Stan and Peter are no longer with us makes me a little sad. Especially Peter. I loved Stan but it was a “this guy is a legend” type of love whereas Peter was one of my favorite writers ever and getting him to sign something was a DragonCon tradition. Was it always the best interaction? No, but that is something that cuts both ways. Still, getting to moderate several panels with him and getting to tell him how much his What Savage Beast novel meant to me will always be warm memories and the things I choose to think about.

Sidekick by Dennis Brabham.

Sidekick is written as if it was the introduction to the book but written by Rick Jones in the Marvel Universe. This is not only a very meta and Marvel way of doing things, but it gives us an origin story without doing a traditional retelling of the origin. You get the gamma bomb test, Rick sneaking on the base, Bruce throwing him into a ditch, and the explosion, but all from Rick’s perspective. It updates the story for a then modern audience but doesn’t lose any of what made that origin cool in 1962.

I realized on this most recent visit with this book that Rick Jones is a weird character. He was a regular in the Hulk strip for years, then he forced his way into becoming Steve Roger’s sidekick, then he’s all up in Mar-Vell’s business, and then he makes his way back to the Hulk’s book in the mid-eighties. He’s all over the place depending on who is writing him  John Byrne brought him back during his first run, but that felt more like it was done to bring the Hulk back to its original paradigm than it was because Rick is a great character  Much like Betty Ross Banner, Rick didn’t really click with me until Peter David wrote the character and Brabham writers a very Peter Davidesque Rick Jones.

More than anything it leads with strength as a story. I get to the end and I’m never disappointed that I’ve read/listened to it again.

In the Line of Banner by Danny Fingeroth

It’s amazing sometimes what a writer can give to a character when he’s walking out the door. Bill Mantlo was the writer on Incredible Hulk right before Byrne took over (they basically traded books with Byrne going to Hulk and Mantlo, along with some little-known artist named Mike Mignola going to Alpha Flight) and in his penultimate issue Mantlo wrote this story that revealed that Bruce Banner’s dad was physically and emotionally abusive. Peter David would take this idea and run with it to amazing effect, and it became a defining aspect to Banner’s background.

In The Line of Banner explores the early marriage of Brian and Rebecca Banner and could very easily have fallen into the trap of humanizing a terrible character but doesn’t. Fingeroth uses the space he has to show that Banner was a man of many faults. He was arrogant. He drank too much. He was also abusive to Rebecca from the moment they were married. We also see that the abuse Brian heaps upon his wife and his eventual son is generational and Fingeroth plays with story beats that the makers of the 2003 film would play with as well. As much as this makes us relate to Brian Banner, it doesn’t excuse his behavior. It doesn’t give him a pass. And that’s sort of the point.

More than anything, this story shows that Bruce was damned before he was born and that he wasn’t the only monster in his family.

Transformations by Will Murray

Full disclosure, one of my least favorite parts of Hulk’s publishing history is the last few issues of his original series. Those six issues are all over the place but by the end things were just getting dumb. The whole “Bruce used a machine to change into the Hulk” things was just rock stupid and took away everything that was great about the character.

Early Marvel was a vibe, yo. Lots of throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck.

My aversion to those stories is one of the reasons I don’t care for this one. It’s not that the writing was bad. It’s just that it takes place right after issue six and feeds into everything I dislike about that era. The idea of Magneto showing up because he thinks the Hulk is a mutant is a great plot to hang a story around but having Bruce induce the change only to have the Hulk not have green skin leading to the Hulk having to take a bath in a vat of dye…I reached my bridge too far when it comes to the Hulk.

Again, this is nothing against Will Murray. I usually like his work.

Assault on Avengers Mansion by Richard C. White and Steven A. Roman

This is one of those stories that has to fit in between issues of a comic because the Hulk was an Avenger for all of two issues. This is also one of the “Banner has to do stuff because he changed back in the middle of the story” stories that are usually good value. There is some good interaction between Banner and the Wasp. White and Roman lean into the “the members of the Avengers are constantly challenging each other to fights because that’s what Stan did a few times so we’re going to run with that” which is fine, but man do I get bored of it quickly.

Seriously. There is a part of me that shouts, “Jesus, just make out already!” when this happens.

The villain is revealed to be…Doctor Doom. Which should make Alan Middleton happy.

This is another story that doesn’t do much for me because I’m not a huge fan of the time period it is set in. The wilderness years of the Hulk between issue six and his stint in Tales to Astonish are all over the place and while the first two issues of the Avengers are fine, they aren’t something I’m clamoring for in terms of further exploration.

Pitfall by Pierce Askegren

And the collection has my attention again because this was a great story.

Set during the Tales to Astonish era (or as I like to call it the “Stan Finally Figures Out a Story Engine For the Hulk to Run On” era) this one has a psychiatrist getting sent to Gamma Base to look into how the people on the base are dealing with all of the weirdness going, so the drama is not only does Banner have to deal with an armored villain wrecking things (which gets blamed on the Hulk) and Major Talbot being all up in his grill 24/7 but now he has a psychiatrist trying to figure him out as well.

The end result is a satisfying and fun story where we get plenty of Hulk action but also some great interaction between Banner and the psychiatrist, who turns out to be a good guy that totally covers for Bruce at the end of the story. Askegren leans into the early Tales era but does so in a (then) modern context. All the fun of that era without some of the Stanisms that make reading Silver Age Marvel a bit much at times.

Out of the Darkness by Glenn Greenberg

One of the introductions promoted this story as feeling like the television series and that is very accurate. I’d describe it more specifically as a Len Wein/Roger Stern era story told during the time period of the series when the comics did a little bit to ape the lonely man on the road feeling of the live action series while still being true to the way the series had been going for the majority of the 70s.

Out of the Darkness is a pretty straightforward story. Bruce is found by another scientist who helps him find a way to block the transformations. Turns out the scientist has a fiancé in suspended animation and after getting “cured” Bruce helps the scientist cure his wife. The problem becomes the fiancé doesn’t remember the scientist and then she falls for Bruce and things get complicated.

It’s a solid story. You could see Bixby in the Banner scenes, and it would track that the woman would fall for him because David Banner got a fair amount of play on the road. But the scientist turning his assistant into a Hulk-like creature at the end moves this story back into comic book territory.

It’s one of the stories I like revisiting.

Truck Stop by Jo Duffy

Another “with a little tweaking this could have been an episode of the television series” story. Banner gets a ride from a trucker and after stopping for a bite to eat at a diner they find out that criminals have been using the town as cover to hijack trucks and steal their cargo. Things get complicated because Hulk.

It’s one of the shorter stories in the collection and Duffy plays with the form by telling it from both Banner and the Hulk’s perspectives. There’s a cute waitress with a little girl that the trucker ends up with and we begin a light motif through some of the stories of describing how much Banner has to eat (loaves of bread, gallons of coffee, it becomes a thing).

There is also a funny scene where the bad guys convince the Hulk to help them, which he does by unloading the truck. Problem is he’s the Hulk, so he just throws the stuff to the ground, breaking the computers in the process. And the bad guys also learn that slapping a kid is not something you do in front of the Hulk.

This was a fun one.

Hiding by Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden

This is one where the Hulk is a presence in the story without actually being in it. It is also another one that feels like an episode of the television series, but in a more overt way. There’s a woman with a tragic past and guilt over something she feels she failed to do who comes across Bruce after a Hulk rampage in the ruins of her flower shop and takes him to her apartment. The woman, who’s a doctor, deals with the loss of her business and the guilt from her past and Bruce deals with the guilt of being the Hulk.

It is very similar to the Incredible Hulk episode The Psychic.

That isn’t a negative criticism. It’s just something that occurred to me on this go round.

Another solid read/listen.

This is also the first story that has a writer that I would be on a panel with at DragonCon. I forget what year it was, but Van Allen Plexico invited me to be on a sci-fi in comics panel with Christopher Golden and Peter David.

Or, to paraphrase Doctor Doofenshmirtz…if I had a nickel for every time I was on a panel at DragonCon with one of the writers in this book I’d have three nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened three times.

Here There Be Dragons by Sholly Fisch

The happenstance of me re-reading/listening to this story around the time I finally read the first Jarella story in the comics is…I don’t know. Weird. Appropriate. Both?

I’m not a big fan of the fantasy genre so the whole Jarella part of the Hulk’s life is something that I don’t hate but it’s not my preferred story engine when it comes to the character. Having said that this was a fun story that did the whole “Hulk confronts another monster which makes him confront his own existence” thing mixed with “everyone underestimates the Hulk” and “the monster isn’t the real monster” things.

There’s also an element involving Hulk having to prove himself worthy of marrying Jarella by killing a monster that trips the weirdest switch in my brain. It was actually a combination of things. I hate the whole “you must prove yourself with this archaic thing in our ancient scrolls even though you…you know…saved the Queen five freaking seconds ago” thing and ancient traditions just bug the crap out of me in general. So, the drama of what the Hulk had to go through hit me harder this time out.

A Quiet, Normal Life by Thomas Deja

So, a quick story about this one.

DragonCon 2010 was a low key one for Rachel and me. We almost didn’t get to go (thanks to Titans Games and Comics for letting us work at the booth for our tickets) and this was before we met the crew we currently hang out with at con. Around this time, I would bring something to read in my bag for the times when we were waiting in line and such.

It’s Monday. We have something we want to do but there’s a bit of a wait and we’re hanging out at the Marriott, and I brought Ultimate Hulk as the thing I wanted to read. I open to this story and see the writing credit.

And I say, aloud, “Hey, I know that guy.”

I met Thomas Deja through the podcasts, and we had done a bunch of stuff together and it was just surreal that a book I had owned for a decade contained a story by someone I was now friends with.

This has happened several more times over the years and I never get tired of it.

Anyway, this is a Defenders story that has a great Cosmic Cube hook. There is a line about Bruce putting bed sheets “in the rotation” that stuck with me since the first time I read it and if you put a gun to my head right now, I could not explain why this happens.

I have fallen in love with the Defenders as a team because they don’t make lick of sense. A few months ago, I joked that they are actually a Dungeons and Dragons campaign played by the heroes of the Marvel Universe, but I think that’s the charm. As much as I love the Avengers and the JLA, I would never be part of those teams (even during the leather jacket and Dan Vado eras, respectively). I tend to gravitate towards the misfits. The weird kids. The loners that find their own family. And that’s the Defenders in a nutshell.

I liked this story before I was friends with Thomas and I like it now.

(By the way, if you listen to the audio book version of this and you have never heard how Deja is pronounced realize they are butchering it. Like big time. Deja is pronounced “dee-jay”.)

A Green Snake in Paradise by Steve Lyons

This one has a lot going against it for me, none of which really has to do with the quality of writing. I am not the biggest fan of the Crossroads part of Mantlo’s run. Which is a shame because the Mignola art is great. I’m not the biggest fan of taking the Hulk to other dimensions or space.

There are exceptions. Planet Hulk springs to mind.

Another thing that put me off is I’m rarely a fan of a writer telling a story set in the but foreshadows events that will happen down the road. The plot of this story is that the Hulk is thrown into a world where his deepest desires are brought to life and towards the end the Gray Hulk shows up and vows at the end of the story that he’ll be back soon.

It’s a small thing and maybe it shouldn’t bug me, but it did when I got to that part of the story.

This is one of the stories that I tend to speed through or zone out during if I’m listening to it.

The Beast With Nine Bands by James A Wolf

This story takes place during the short bit where Clay Quartermain, Rick Jones, Bruce/Hulk are on the run in a stolen Winnebago. This story is…okay. It doesn’t help that the monster of the piece, a giant armadillo, isn’t the most engaging of ideas.

In the interest of full disclosure, the Peter David run on Incredible Hulk is my absolute favorite, so I feel like I’m a little harder on the stories set in that era than the others.

So, there’s that.

Leveling Las Vegas by Stan Timmons

Joe Fixit is one of the many things from Peter David’s run that has lived beyond David’s time on the book. And it’s a great era. A real step away from what had come before, and it was a great way for David to get closer to his goal of merging the various Hulks.

It’s been a minute (over two decades really) since I have fully read this part of David’s run, so maybe there are things I’ve forgotten but this story seemed to miss the mark a little when it comes to who Joe was, especially his relationship with Michael Berengetti. The ending in particular bugged me because it doesn’t make any sense for the Hulk to do what he does.

Also, the whole thing with the Rhino bugs me because it goes against that great Christmas issue around the time of the merging.

This is one of the few stories that I actively dislike. Which I guess is going to happen.

The Samson Journals by Ken Grobe

Framed as journal entries, this story relates the days leading up to Samson helping to usher in the Merged Hulk, now called The Professor Hulk, a subject I have many thoughts on, but that is a conversation for another today. This is my favorite story in the book, mainly because of the era it takes place in (the Dale Keown/Gary Frank era is my favorite of the Peter David run) but also because it’s a great take on Doc Samson, a character I love.

Mainly because of Peter David.

There’s a pattern here.

It’s not only a good examination of Bruce, the Green Hulk, and Joe Fixit, but also of Samson as a character. He has to deal with the self-serving head of the facility he’s in and learns about his own savage side.

Good stuff.

Playing it SAFE by Keith R.A. DeCandido

(Fun fact in the audio version of this…the narrator butchered Thomas Deja’s name but got Keith’s name right.)

(Other fun fact, Keith is one of the other people that I’ve done a bunch of panels with at DragonCon. My two goals when I’m on a panel with Keith are to say something that makes him throw his head back in laughter and say something that he COMPLETELY disagrees with. A fun time is had by all.)

This story stands out primarily because it ties into other Hulk novels from this era. References to both What Savage Beast by Peter David and Abominations by Jason Henderson are made as well as, I’m assuming, to Rampage: Doom’s Day, Book One by Danny Fingeroth and Eric Fein. The more direct connection comes in the form of a government agency called S.A.F.E. (Strategic Action For Emergencies).

It is also set during the post Pantheon era where if the Hulk became angry or outraged a startling metamorphosis back into the body of Bruce Banner with the Savage Hulk’s personality would occur.  This is one of my least favorite eras of Peter David’s run, which you would think would mean this story would be one I don’t care for.

This is not the case. Oddly enough the prose versions of that era that I’ve read (I haven’t been able to find a copy of the Doom’s Day book) work for me.

This story has a lot going for it. The main villains are the U-Foes, a team of Fantastic Four wannabes that I’ve always loved. Both Hulk and Betty are written well. Especially Betty. She feels like she stepped right out of Peter David’s run. The S.A.F.E. characters get a lot of real estate, but that isn’t a bad thing. It makes sense to include those characters to give at least one of the stories in the collection a connection to the other prose books that have been released, which, in turn, gives those books a more shared universe feeling.

Which is the essence of Marvel Comics.

The pacing is a little wonky towards the end of the story. The fight with the U-Foes is fantastic and was paced well, but the last third where the Hulk becomes Savage Banner and the SAFE people head to a facility set up by The Leader, happens very fast which gave the ending a slightly rushed feeling.

But that’s a minor thing.

The Last Titan by Peter David

The final days of the Hulk told by my favorite Hulk writer. This is a compelling and sad story set far in the future where Bruce and the Hulk are the only ones left. It’s a torturous existence filled with loneliness and murderous insects. David paints the Hulk final moments with a sadness that I can’t really describe, and the final moments of the story are haunting.

This story has been adapted into a comic by Peter David and Dale Keown. It’s a good comic, but not as good as the prose version.

I don’t have much to say about this one because it is so good. And it has to be read to be truly appreciated.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a fantastic short story collection. I’m kind of curious what stories could be included if they ever did an updated version with further entries stretching into the 2000s. It would be neat to have authors look back on the Paul Jenkins run, or the Bruce Jones era, or the work Greg Pak did with Hulk, or a Red Hulk story.

The book is, sadly, out of print at the moment, though a lot of these books are getting reprinted. It is also available as an audio book.

More to follow…