Issue(s): Hulk #276
Cover Date: Oct 82
Title: "The return of the U-Foes!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Joe Sinnott - Inker
Ann Nocenti - Assistant Editor
Al Milgrom - Editor

Review/plot:
Bruce Banner drains the gamma radiation from Rick Jones (in a few years we'll learn this cure doesn't stick and Rick will wind up with cancer)...

...and then he and Betty have a heart-to-heart. She's uncomfortable with the fact that the Hulk is now a permanent part of him.

I guess in the past she always held out hope that he could "cure" himself of the Hulk. Betty doesn't like the idea of Bruce always being a target (there's a near-parody of a domestic scene with Bruce coming home from work to his waving wife and child and being attacked by the Leader).

As if to prove her point (as if their lives were actually being written by some cruel writer without the slightest hint of subtlety) the U-Foes show up.

They beat the Hulk rather easily.

Luckily (again, as if this were all being coordinated by some bad writer that knows he can't kill off his main character) the U-Foes decide not to kill him outright but instead to take him to a TV station and kill him publicly.

Bereet gives Betty a smack when she starts getting hysterical again.

Last time she used one of her weirdo devices to calm Betty down. But i guess after a while her griping requires something stronger. Then Bereet pulls out a bunch more of her stupid toys in order to go and rescue the Hulk.

It's a good thing we've got Sal Buscema to draw us some nice fight scenes.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Takes place a short time after Hulk #275. Bruce, Betty, Bereet, and Rick have been at Gamma Base working on curing Rick's gamma radiation poisoning.

References:

• Banners previous attempts at curing himself, plus his exposure to additional gamma radiation when facing the Galaxy master in Hulk #270 and Uncle Pyko's gamma transport in Hulk #271 are what Bruce speculates allowed his mind to gain control of the Hulk.
  
• The Hulk fought the U-Foes previously in Hulk #254.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

It's funny the splash page in the final Shulkie issue had more confidence in a sane Hulk than Betty does; then again it does feel weird we get that pic earlier in the year and then the culmination with Mantlo's "Bruce in Hulk's body" by the end of '82.

Holy spit! Bruce Banner can take a punch from Ironclad and not be a pulp of bloody bones.

I'll say it: Sinnott on Sal makes this book look even more fantastic.