Issue(s): Hulk #386, Hulk #387
Cover Date: Oct-Nov 90
Title: "Little Hitler" / "Hiding behind mosques"
Credits:
Peter David - Writer
Dale Keown - Penciler
Mark Farmer / Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Chris Cooper - Assistant Editor
Bobbie Chase - Editor

Review/plot:
Peter David gives us a "would you kill baby Hitler?" story by having the Pantheon precog Delphi predict that a little boy will grow up to be a dictator responsible for a new Holocaust. Agamemnon contacts the Hulk while he's at a concert that is being performed by Rick Jones' band (they're singing a tribute to Jack Kirby), and while Betty and Marlo are having fun...

...the Hulk feels like he's "skulking like Emil Blonsky". And he wants to change that and repair his relationship with Betty, so he tells Agamemnon to get another member of the Pantheon to deal with the situation, but Agamemnon says that Achilles has already been sent in but has "gone renegade".

So Hulk signals to Rick, and they leave the bar and are flown to Israel. The boy in question, Max Meer, is the son of diplomats from a country called Draburg. He's convinced by an Israeli girl, Gretta Rabin, to go out on the town.

The Hulk, being a bit obtrusive, remains hidden while Rick trails the kids and keeps an eye out for Achilles. But when the kids are spotted and the Hulk comes out of the shadows, he's seen and attacked by Sabra, Israel's local super-hero.

Note that SHIELD is telling people that the Hulk is more dangerous than ever.

A clever bit in this story is that Sabra's initial quill attack hits Hulk in the mouth and throat, paralyzing his vocal chords. So all he can do is grunt and growl, and Sabra assumes that he's his classic dumb self, albeit bigger than ever.

Sabra also manages to hit the Hulk in the ear, throwing off his sense of balance.

Meanwhile, Max sends a mob after Rick and Achilles. He is at first not aware that he has powers (although he's been getting headaches), and we see that Gretta keeps egging him on.

As Rick and Achilles are fleeing the crowd, we learn that while Achilles looks like a normal human, he is actually extra heavy.

Sabra gets increasingly... political? patriotic? as the fight goes on.

Blaming spousal abuse on scuds seems pretty bizarre to me, but i'm not really interested in a discussion about Israeli politics and i'm glad to see the Hulk just sort of dismiss it all. And he finally gets his voice back and explains the situation to Sabra. We don't actually get to see the explanation, though; i'd like to see how well Sabra takes the fact that this is all coming from a precog that she's never heard of.

The Hulk's mission was to bring Max back to the Pantheon, if that was possible. Otherwise he was to use his discretion. Achilles, on the other hand, wants to kill Max. It turns out that he lived through the Holocaust, and will do anything to prevent another. And while Achilles is explaining this, he notices Max about to be crushed by the crowd that Max sent after Rick, and says nothing. So Max is trampled.

Hulk considers turning Achilles over to the Israeli authorities, but instead returns him to Agamemnon, who says that Achilles will be dealt with severely. However, he turns out to have been lying about that and practically everything else.

We also learn that it was really Gretta, not Max, that had the mind control powers.

The "kill baby Hitler" scenario is a bit cliched, but David really uses that as a springboard for showing that the situations that the Pantheon deals with are much more complex that the standard sort of super-hero things that, say, the Avengers handle. Complex because of the international politics, because you have to take the word of a precog (who, as in this case, can get things wrong), and because the leader of the group has his own hidden agenda. In the meantime, Sabra's disabling of the Hulk's vocals allows David to make the Hulk feel the continued frustration of being judged on sight. So the plot itself may not be that special, but the execution more than makes up for it. Dale Keown's art continues to be great, although i'd say it's enhanced by Mark Farmer moreso than Josef Rubinstein (note that i don't always cover plots in exact sequence, so there are scans from issue #386 mixed in with #387; you can always right click on an image and view the image name to see which issue a scan is from).

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Sabra has a grudge against the Hulk because she stood up for him in her first appearance in Hulk #265 and celebrated his amnesty in Hulk #278, but "barely a month later" her superiors showed her footage of the Hulk on a major rampage (presumably from Hulk #300) and criticized her for supporting him.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A