Issue(s): Doc Samson #1
Cover Date: Jan 96
Title: "Greenness envy"
Credits:
Dan Slott - Writer
Ken Lashley - Penciler
Tom Wegrzyn & Art Nichols - Inker
Chris Cooper - Editor

Review/plot:
I bought this when it first came out, decided it was garbage, and filed it away without buying the rest of the series or ever reading it again until now. Taking it out to read for my project, i saw that it was by Dan Slott. I am not a fan of Slott, but i know that many fans like him, and so i approached by re-read with a little more of an open mind than i would have if it were by, say, Terry Kavanagh or some assistant editor (i.e. the usual sort of people that wrote Marvel Comics Presents type stories). I'm still pretty confident that this is garbage unless something dramatically different happens in a later issue, and nothing in this issue convinces me that getting the rest is a priority.

The one thing that i will say in its favor is that it gets the idea of a Doc Samson story right. It's not a straight super-hero story, like some previous usages of Samson away from the Hulk (like Marvel Team-Up #102 or Marvel Super Heroes #6-8). It at least tries to do something with Samson's psychiatric training. Obviously the gold standard for a Doc Samson story is X-Factor #87, and you could use J.M. DeMatteis' run on Spider-Man a little prior to this as a blueprint for how psychological investigations of various characters could work as an ongoing. But that's not quite what happens here. The basic idea is there: the story starts off with Samson giving a lecture on how gamma radiation has caused repressed feelings to manifest physically (i'd quibble on some of the descriptions here but i'll let it be).

And then it turns out that a new gamma character has emerged, and they're a serial killer, and Samson is recruited to help the police hunt them down ("recruited" includes getting pestered by the detective and also beaten up by the Hulk, who wants the situation resolved but is afraid to deal with it himself because he turns into Banner when he gets angry, and feeling responsible for every gamma-powered character makes him angry).

So "serial killer profiler" for a new (unwanted) gamma character isn't exactly X-Factor #87 material, but it's along the right lines. And to further support Samson in the psychiatrist role, the Hulk also recruits She-Hulk to handle the super-heroics portion.

But, three pages later, an alert goes out and the next thing you know Doc Samson is fighting a gamma monster (having "Psychology!" as a battlecry doesn't make it so).

It's like Samson is wrestling with the plot itself. Samson doesn't want to do super-heroics, Dan Slott doesn't want Samson doing super-heroics, but here we are.

Now, a story isn't bad simply because it isn't the story i want it to be, or even the story that it wants to be. But on top of this failure to avoid the most obvious trope, the design for the villain is uninspired (just a big mess), and the dialogue is atrocious. The interaction between Samson and the Hulk is as stilted and histrionic as Bill Mantlo on a bad day...

...even before we get to the gratuitous violence (panel repeated from above to show how quickly the Hulk gets to swinging, but also compressed to show the unnecessary and unimpressive two-page splash).

This was still pretty early in Slott's career, so i'm not letting his scripting affect my opinion of his later more popular work, but as i said above, i'm happy to stick to having a single issue of this.

In later issues of this series it will become clear that there are actually two new Gamma characters in this issue. One is Patchwork, the real killer. The other is Dee Dee, akak Geiger, who duplicates the abilities and form of gamma-infused characters.

Patchwork doesn't appear outside this mini. Geiger will appear again, years later (mostly in Avengers: Initiate). Maybe more is done with Geiger in this series to make things interesting, but it seems unlikely.

Polaris also appears in this story, but Samson has to put her off for now.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - first Geiger

Chronological Placement Considerations: This takes place in the period where the Hulk turned into Banner when he got angry, so it's earlier than publication date, between Hulk #426-436 (a footnote simply says it takes place before #436). The MCP have it between Hulk #435-436, and they have Polaris' appearance in this issue (and a behind-the-scenes appearance next issue) between X-Factor #118-119. Per the MCP, X-Factor #119 then takes place before Polaris' appearance in Doc Samson #4 (which means that if i had the rest of these issues, they'd be split into multiple entries, which is the only reason that Patchwork and the cop, Trina Sharp, are tagged).

References:

• Samson worries that if he helps catch the killer, he'll be responsible for another execution like with Crazy Eight in Hulk #380 and with the Punisher. For the Punisher, the footnote says "The Joke's on Doc - see Punisher #1". But the reference is really to Double Edge Alpha when Samson helped SHIELD use mind-altering drugs as part of the Punisher's "therapy".
  
• There are unfootnoted references to the creation of various gamma characters, including:
  • The Hulk in Hulk #1.
    
  • The Leader in Tales To Astonish #63.
    
  • The Abomination in Tales To Astonish #90.
    
  • Halflife in Hulk #334.
    
  • Madman in Hulk #364-367.
    
  • She-Hulk (less explicitly) in She-Hulk #1.
    
  • Doc Samson (least explicitly) in Hulk #141.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A