Issue(s): Hulk #130, Hulk #131, Hulk #132, Hulk #133, Hulk #134
Cover Date: Aug-Dec 70
Title: "If I kill you-- I die!" / "A titan stalks the tenements!" / "In the hands of Hydra!" / "Day of thunder-- night of death!" / "Among us walks... the Golem"
Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Herb Trimpe - Penciler
Herb Trimpe / John Severin / Sal Buscema - Inker

Review/plot:
Banner looks up a colleague of his named Raoul Stoddard, who is also an expert on gamma radiation. Stoddard brings Banner to a secret base where they modify a Gammatron in order to try and cure Banner.

Instead they manage to separate Banner and the Hulk.

The Hulk goes on an unstoppable rampage and Banner realizes he needs to reintegrate with the Hulk, but Stoddard is uncooperative because he is jealous of Banner's "success".

Meanwhile, a 15 year old kid living in Los Angeles resorts to purse snatching due to the fact that he's been living on the street since his parents died.

His name is Jim Wilson. He runs into the Hulk, who is hiding out from the army. The Hulk tells Jim to lure Banner to him and Jim agrees since "What's Whitey ever done for me that I should care if you cream him?".

But when Jim gets to the missile base he sees that Banner is a noble guy and he changes his mind. Then Iron Man shows up. Jim lures the Hulk out of his building and Iron Man attacks.

During the fight the army manage to fire the Gammatron and re-merge the Hulk with Banner.

Thinking that Bruce is trapped within the Hulk forever...

...Betty has a nervous breakdown and is taken to the hospital.

Jim doesn't feel good about betraying the Hulk and he leaves. Jim's semi-street talk and his flip attitude, while clearly based a lot more on what a white guy thinks black people are like than reality, is still endearing. Jim is a welcome addition to a cast that has been stagnant and boooring for way too long.

He gets picked up by Hydra, who claim they want to help the Hulk.

He helps Hydra free the Hulk but then realizes they're up to no good as well (it turns out the footage they showed him of the Hulk being tortured was actually just the army practicing against a Hulk robot, but honestly it could just as easily have been legitimate footage). The Hulk smashes the Hydra unit, but Jim is injured. It's a little interesting to see Hydra playing on Jim's assumed dislike of authority (presumably based on racial tension) and the military's treatment of the Hulk, but Hydra is written in too over-the-top a manner and Jim too much of a goody-goody for it to work properly.

Next Hulk turns the injured Jim over to the army for help but jumps away when a trigger-happy pilot shoots at the Hulk. He winds up in the country of Morvania where a rebel force is resisting a cruel dictator.

Some of the rebels are Jewish and see the Hulk as an analogue to the legend of the Golem (there's also a homage to the Universal's Frankenstein movie; the scene with the girl at the lake).

Hulk smashes the dictator and leaves the country. The Morvania part of this arc was pretty pointless. If the addition of Jim was an attempt at "relevance" from a domestic/social perspective, this 'examination' of dictatorship and revolution was a failure from a foreign policy perspective.

The Golem that appears in flashback here will eventually get his own short-lived series in modern times, although he won't be quite so bulky that he could be mistaken for the Hulk.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - first Jim Wilson

Chronological Placement Considerations: This run begins with the Hulk returning from his battle with Captain Marvel in Captain Marvel #20-21. The MCP has Iron Man's appearance here between Iron Man #30-31.

References:

• The Hulk fought Captain Marvel in Captain Marvel #20-21.
  
• Iron Man says "You seemed less than pleased with the contingent of Avengers who answered your request for aid" in Huk #128, which is why he showed up this time.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Super Heroes #82, Marvel Super Heroes #83, Marvel Super Heroes #84, Marvel Super Heroes #85, Marvel Super Heroes #86

Really, Tony? Dissing the other Avengers from #128? Classsssy.

Between Hydra's depiction here and the "Bulldozer"/Modok plot in Captain America, it seems Marvel was seeing dissent as a logical avenue for subversive groups like Hydra and AIM to exploit, but didn't want to do a longterm story because it would make them seem like they were blaming the (real life) protests on "outside agitators". I have mixed thoughts on it, myself, but it does seem like a missed opportunity.

The only issue with Jim Wilson I read was the one late in Peter David's run so I don't know anything about his relationship with the Hulk. It appears to be an ersatz replacement for how the Hulk interacted with Rick Jones early on.