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Marvel TV Retrospective: The Incredible Hulk (1978-1982)

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So.

This is the spot on The Escapist that youā€™d usually be reading recaps of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Unfortunately, that series is now on Summer hiatus as it prepares to launch its second season in a few months. You might think thatā€™d mean this space would be empty for a while ā€” or, rather, you might have thought that back before I spent a month and a half recapping the season, speculating on the next and then speculating on freshly-announced sister-series Agent Carter. As it turns out, getting me to forego a weekly paycheck is almost as hard as getting Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to definitively end a running subplot.

Fortunately for me, Marvel Comics spawned many, many other television projects prior to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and many of them made important contributions to the pop-cultural landscape that ultimately laid the groundwork for not only Agents but the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. And since my swank 2007 Nissan Versa isnā€™t gonna pay for its own gas, Iā€™ll be spending the Summer bringing you my fresh revisitations of these classic (and not-so-classic) television moments.

Anywayā€¦

By the time I was old enough to know who The Incredible Hulk was (three years-old, I believe, via the 1980s cartoon series)m the live-action television series whereby most of the non-comic reading world had heard of him had left the air. By the time I was old enough to know that it had existed in the first place, my fellow comics-reading peers had relegated it to the same ash-heap of adaptations weā€™d send Adam Westā€™s Batman to a few years down the road.

Sure, the normals had (apparently) enjoyed watching a bodybuilder in green makeup throw paper mache rocks around with nary another monster, alien, cyborg or Thing to give him a real challenge (and no other Marvel heroes to bicker with, period); but we knew him as a gargantuan bruiser who tore whole splash-pages to bits and split mountains with a clap of his hands. Our Hulk ā€” the ā€œrealā€ Hulk ā€” was (by the time I was a regular comics reader in 1987) the most talked-about Marvel book on the shelves thanks to an epic, character-redefining run on the title by Peter David. TVā€™s Hulk was a re-skin (if that term had existed then) of The Fugitive with Lou Ferrigno showing up once or twice an episode to break up sets in slow-motion ā€” hell, Bruce Banner didnā€™t even have the right name! And so we (and just to be clear: By ā€œweā€ I mean tail-end Generation-Xers born after ā€™79 or so) by and large turned up our noses at ā€œthatā€ Hulk and waited for Hollywood etc to figure out how to pull off a ā€œproperā€ one.

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It wasnā€™t until years later, when the Sci-Fi Channel (they used to spell it right, believe it or not) began re-airing it in reruns, that I gave ā€œ70s Hulkā€ a chance and came to recognize what my parents (and older peers) had seen in it. The Incredible Hulk is not a particularly ā€œfaithfulā€ adaptation and, if weā€™re being honest, it probably didnā€™t use even its own scifi premise to the fullest potential ā€” but it was a good show, and its effect on the history of comics and their adaptations canā€™t be overestimated.

For those not immediately familiar: In this version, Doctor David Banner (apparently a TV producer ordered the change because ā€œBruce is a gay nameā€) is a physician conducting experimental research aimed at figuring out the ā€œsecretā€ by which some people have been observed demonstrating superhuman strength in order to aid loved ones in distress ā€” and why he couldnā€™t to prevent his wife from dying in a car wreck. Theorizing that it has something to do with ā€œgamma radiation,ā€ Banner experiments on himself, unwittingly altering his physiology in a manner that causes him to transform into a musclebound, animal-like brute with its own separate personality (and child-level intellect) in moments of extreme emotional or physical stress. A second lab accident leaves the creature the media dubs ā€œThe Incredible Hulkā€ blamed for the murder of a colleague and Banner himself, so he begins to travel the countryside seeking a way to control or cure his conditionā€¦ pursued by a determined news reporter who wants to know who (or what) The Hulk actually is.

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What might be the most important element of the series existence is that itā€™s one of the first times that anybody recognized that a ā€œseriousā€ series aimed mainly at adults could be conjured from a comic book. That may seem like second nature today, but in the late-70s even as Star Wars and Jaws were dominating movie theaters and making genre films the kings of the box-office, the general assumptions were A.) comics were only for superheroes and B.) superheroes were strictly for kids cartoons and winking all-ages comedy a la the 60s Batman. (Superman, as ever, being an American Icon left him exempt from the limitations of his original medium.)

That an honest-to-God great hook for a serious prime-time TV show ā€” an episodic riff on ā€œThe Wolf-Manā€ or ā€œJekyll & Hydeā€ crossed with the universal fantasy of being able to will oneself into an ubermensch when pushed ā€” could be yanked from a funnybook was the final tug that dragged comics fully into the ā€œgrownupā€ adaptation-fodder discussion alongside books, plays, etc. That it was one of Marvelā€™s heroes, and the character that best exemplified the ā€œweirdo/antiheroā€ vibe of the companyā€™s stable, was the ultimate branding of Marvel as the ā€œhipā€ side of the Big Two. And while multiple attempts to make the lightning strike twice mostly came up short (weā€™ll get to those, donā€™t worry), Iā€™d contend that itā€™s unlikely weā€™d have seen either the production of Tim Burtonā€™s Batman or the multi-studio buyups of Marvel movie-rights in the 90s ā€” the twin phenomenons that led to our superhero-saturated present ā€” without the success and popularity of The Incredible Hulk still fresh in Hollywoodā€™s mind.

Does the show hold up? Well, for the most part. Watching TV from the era when episodic storytelling was the norm and longform story-arcs were rare (because when and how would anyone mass-rewatch a TV show?) is an adjustment now even if you lived through it. Queuing up an episode without research leaves you open to seeing a ā€œfillerā€ installment rather than one of the good ones they actually worked hard onā€¦ And even if you enjoy the majority of hour-long stories in which Banner 1.) arrives in a new town, 2.) picks up an odd job, 3.) witnesses rotten local shenanigans, 4.) tries to stay out of it, 5.) doesnā€™t stay out of it, 6.) becomes The Hulk, 7.) saves the day and 8.)is forced to move onā€¦ watching it happen over and over again instead of once a week can be tiresome.

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BUT! At its best, The Incredible Hulk is a lot of fun. Bill Bixby was an immensely likable screen presence, and comics fans can be understood for wishing the proactive super-scientist of the comics was more present he plays Bannerā€™s hangdog reactions to his circumstances in a believable way. The comics Hulk is mainly consumed with battling military foes and other monsters, but Bixbyā€™s Banner is mostly dogged by how much of a pain in the butt being The Hulk is. In keeping with that, using the reporter (ā€œMr. McGeeā€) as a ticking-clock to keep Banner moving a nice nod to how difficult itā€™d likely be for the real world to accept something like The Hulk even existing ā€” the show is two seasons old before McGee even figures out how Hulk seemingly ā€œvanishesā€ shortly after every appearance.

And yeah ā€” though heā€™s not really allowed to ā€œactā€ much as The Hulk, Ferrigno was always a charismatic presence. In a way, he and Bixbyā€™s double-act was the ultimate solution to both the longtime TV problem of extreme physical specimens ideally suited to over-the-top action not always being a good fit as dramatic actors (and vice-versa). The onetime Mr. Universeā€™s particular problem of being a natural born action hero held back from screen stardom by his speech difficulties (Ferrigno lost 80% of his hearing due to childhood ear-infections, which affects his enunciation): The capable dramatic actor handles the dialogue and character beats, then ā€œtransformsā€ into the athletic superman to handle the action.

Much as Iā€™d like to find some obscurity to champion instead, I tend to agree with what seems to be the majority opinion that the showā€™s ā€œbestā€ episode was ā€œThe First,ā€ a two-parter in which Banner seeks out a man who supposedly became a Hulk-like creature (this one played by the late Dick Durock, a 6ā€™6 stuntman and actor perhaps best remembered for playing Swamp Thing in both the 80s movies and short-lived 90s TV series) 30 years ago ā€” but was cured. It gets a lot of attention, naturally, since itā€™s the only episode where we finally get to see The Hulk fight another super-powered creature, but itā€™s also a terrific encapsulation of the series at its best.

The Incredible Hulk ended with an abbreviated fifth season in 1982, but the story didnā€™t. Six years later, the franchise was revived for a trilogy of made-for-TV movies ā€” two of which were designed to launch other Marvel Comics characters to series of their own. Next week, weā€™ll talk about those.


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Author
Image of Bob Chipman
Bob Chipman
Bob Chipman is a critic and author.