According to research firm J.D. Power, a company name I only really know from car commercials and that INXS-picks-a-new-lead-singer reality show, the average American household subscribes to four streaming services. That sounds right, I guess, though keeping it at four has led to a whole new kind of household chore: media strategist. A new season of Ted Lasso means Apple TV+ is back on the docket, which in turn means putting Showtime on ice—at least until Billions returns and we look around all over again to see who’s next in the churn parade. But there’s one on-demand service that never has to prove its relevance to my viewing interest, in large part because it doesn’t require actual viewing.
Marvel Unlimited is exactly what it sounds like: an app that delivers a nearly bottomless archive of Marvel Comics dating back to 1939. (I have no idea what proportion of the company’s entire 82-year history the 28,000-issue inventory represents, but I’ve never run into something I couldn’t find on there.) If you’re wondering why a grown-ass man who didn’t read a lot of comics growing up would find that so attractive, it’s the same reason I have the sneaker problem that I do. Because obsessions cost money and the mid-’80s allowance I got from chores didn’t cover much more than a Village Pantry run for some Alexander the Grape candy and there was no way my parents were about to subsidize that particular jones, let alone a pair of Jordans or Pumps. (I’m happy to inform you that Alexander the Grape is still being made. However, I’m very unhappy to inform you that Alexander the Grape’s current slogan is “make America grape again!” At least Cherry Clan is marginally less racist than it used to be. Marginally.)
There had been exceptions when I was even younger, though—or if not exceptions, then at least superheroes. There was a pair of Superman Underoos, of which photographic evidence exists. There was a small mountain of Richie Rich and Archie digests, a proven palliative when my sister or I was home sick from school. And when I was five, I had a pair of mittens with Incredible Hulk on them. They were green, with a rubbery coating that flaked off over the course of my kindergarten winter. Ever since then, Hulk has been my dude.
Do I know why? I have my theories. Maybe Hulk (and always Hulk, never mild-mannered Bruce Banner) reminded me of the Sesame Street monsters I’d loved: fearsome but misunderstood. Maybe for a kid who lived in his head, the idea of unrestrained id was the exact kind of wish fulfillment that drew so many to superhero comics. Maybe it was just that Hulk looked fucking cool. Of the few non-Archie comics I had as a kid, which were invariably DC rather than Marvel—an issue wherein Superman and the Flash raced to the end of time, a Radio Shack giveaway that teamed up Superman with “the TSR-80 Computer Whiz Kids”— it was never the costumes that got me. But Hulk didn’t even have a costume, just some tattered purple pants and fists the size of wheelbarrows. Didn’t matter. Even the licensed-to-death cheap graphic on the backs of those mittens thrilled me.
So last year, homebound for the forseeable future, I decided to use Marvel Unlimited to go back and start reading about Hulk from the very beginning: 1962’s Incredible Hulk #1. You know the story, even if you don’t know you do. After “Peter Parker bitten by radioactive spider,” “Bruce Banner bombarded by gamma rays” might be the best-known bestowed-powers origin story in superhero comics. And once Banner got the power to jump like a goddamn rocket, he immediately had an outsized impact on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s rapidly expanding and cross-referential comics universe, jumping into other characters’ adventures; within two years, he’d met everyone from the Avengers to the Fantastic Four to Sub-Mariner.
The thing is, aside from the thrill of seeing Hulk and The Thing square off, I found those early stories wanting. Stan Lee might have dreamed up iconic heroes, but his pen game on Incredible Hulk just didn’t move me. Bruce Banner was annoying, the villains were garbage, and the need to orient new readers every couple of issues led to a constant loop of exposition breaking down why and how Banner was turning into the Jade Giant. It took a few dozen issues of following Hulk across his appearances in titles like Tales to Astonish and Journey Into Mystery, but when I finally hit the wall, I hit it hard. Instead of lowering my head and trying to bull through, I made like the Flash and Superman in that well-worn issue I’d once had, and raced ahead to the mid-’80s.
When I was growing up, some comic book writers and artists had name recognition even among casual fans. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, even though they hadn’t worked together in years. Chris Claremont and John Byrne, who made the X-Men a playground name if not a household one. But I didn’t hear the name Peter David until much later—which is odd, considering he revitalized The Incredible Hulk as both a comic book and a character. Starting in 1987, he spent a dozen years bringing new depth to the hypertrophic hellion, exploring Banner’s childhood trauma and even making the Hulk himself a study in duality. But more importantly, you can feel the shift immediately.
Some of that, no doubt, is that the dialogue reflects an era I actually lived through. But more fundamentally, it’s reflective of how comics in the ’80s came into their own in an entirely new way. As a kid, I tended not to like things that were made for kids. I loved Mad Magazine and Bloom County because they let me see the world through a smartass grownup’s eyes. I didn’t get that with Stan Lee’s Hulk. But with Peter David’s Hulk, I did. I might have recognized him from my kindergarten mittens, but there was something deeper happening in there too.
One Thing I Can’t Get Enough of This Week
🎧 Federation Invasion #513
Every few years, there’s a dancehall song that breaks into the relative mainstream; hip-hop radio stations add it to the rotation, and for a few blissful weeks it’s as ubiquitous as any other summer anthem, drifting from cars and beach Bluetooth speakers. And a producer named Dave Kelly has been responsible for a lot of them. Terror Fabulous and Nadine Sutherland’s “Action.” Beenie Man’s “Slam.” Baby Cham’s “Ghetto Story” (which was so massive even Alicia Keys had to get a taste.) This summer might not have anything that comes close, but a couple of weeks ago, dancehall sound system Federation dedicated an episode of their weekly megamix entirely to Kelly’s prodigious catalog; throw it on the next time you’re fresh out of vibes and watch your mood change. (Link)