Issue(s): Hulk #316
Cover Date: Feb 86
Title: "Battleground"
Credits:
John Byrne - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
John Byrne & Keith Williams - Inker
Denny O'Neil - Editor

Review/plot:
You want #@$#! guest stars, we'll give you #@$#! guest stars. This issue has She-Hulk arriving at Bruce Banner's hospital to, as his next of kin, authorize a risky procedure to bring him back to consciousness...

...while the Avengers' top four heavy hitters from the East and West Coast teams show up to stop the separated Hulk's rampage.

Classic so big, so fast alert:

Diane Bellamy's news report claims that "loss of life may yet mount into the hundred" for the Hulk's rampage before the Avengers show up.

The Avengers are interrupted by Doc Samson, in a new costume (i have to say i generally don't like Byrne's costume designs, and i don't know why you'd take Samson out of his classic lightning bolt t-shirt).

Samson is feeling immense guilt over setting the Hulk free last issue, and he wants to be the one to take the Hulk down. Iron Man reluctantly agrees, telling Samson that if he doesn't take care of business quickly the Avengers will be back in full force.

Awesome!

This issue also has a silly fumetti showing the approval process Byrne has to go through for his plots.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Avengers #264-265 and between West Coast Avengers #6-7 (which means that the rest of the WCA are still in the Cat People dimension at this time).

References:

• She-Hulk recounts her origin from She-Hulk #1.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This was a great fight issue. These four Avengers are some of the most powerful people on Earth, and showing them unable to handle the Hulk really showed what a menace he was.

Responding to Chris's comments, those are four of the most powerful people on Earth so that's why it seems even more forced and inane that they'd let Doc Sampson go after an enraged Hulk (Namor or Iron Man should know that the Hulk is stronger when angrier at this point) by HIMSELF, when he is not on Hercules or Wonder Man's level of strength, and slightly beneath the Sub-Mariners? I guess they had to get those Avengers out of the book, though...

Iron Man didn't give Doc Samson a blank check on the time limit to take down the Hulk.

Is the reveal about the Hulk never killing anyone you talk about the one by Amadeus Cho? Or was there another one? 'Cause in that one Cho says that Banner was subcontiously using his genius to prevent the Hulk from hurting people, or something like that, and if Banner is not part of the Hulk right now, that might actually square that explanation with the death-toll given here.

Yeah, that's what i was referring to. Good point, Berend.

There is another such reference. Late in Avengers vol 3, when Jen Walters was dealing with a savage She-Hulk problem, she thinks something to the affect that the Hulk had never killed anybody, and that Bruce would have killed himself if it had.

In the fumetti, the Hulk using the word "grok" suggests that he is a stand-in for Jim Shooter, and this is another example of Byrne ragging on Shooter and his heavy-handed editorial style. In his blog Jim Shooter used "grok" a lot, so it's apparently something he likes to say.

I hadn't considered the Hulk as Shooter stand-in before, but it does make sense now you say it. It's a fun fumetti though, I love the panel of Don stammering. And it's nice to see some "Marvel Bullpen hijinks" (I imagine they had fun making it) so I don't put it in the same category as the other Byrne shots fired at Shooter.

The Hulk has killed. In the story that ended the Modok/Harpy/Bi-Beast arc he smashed the ground under a group of alien giants, causing them to fall to what were described as agonising deaths in a volcano. Also, Mogol was sentient, and the Hulk's friend, but he killed him for being an android.

Hulk also killed Fialan the assassin in #148.