Incredible Hulk vol. 3 #12Incredible Hulk vol. 3 #12
Title: “Snake Eyes part 1”
Writer: Paul Jenkins
Penciller: Ron Garney, Chapter Two by Mike McKone and Mark McKenna
Inker: Sal Buscema
Colors: Steve Buccellato
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Bruce rides along in another bus. He thinks about how lousy his life has been for a while and looks down at this copy of the “American Journal of Science”. He compares it to losing at craps. He thinks about how it seems that the Devil is running the table lately. Bruce thinks back to a few weeks ago when his hands started to twitch. At the time Bruce tried to deny that anything was wrong, but his nose would tingle and his lips would go numb. Bruce dropped his cup of coffee and clutched at his throat as he coughs.
Bruce gets up and says that he has to get off the bus. Bruce starts walking along in the rain. Bruce tries to calm himself down and keeps telling himself that it isn’t what he thinks it is. Bruce thinks that he isn’t allowed to be scared like normal people. He thinks about what happens when he gets scared. Bruce walks up to a building with the sign “Institute of Neuromuscular Psychiatry- Dr. A. Lipscombe”. Bruce walks up to the door and knocks. A voice asks who it is. Bruce says, “It’s me Dr. Lipscombe. It’s Bruce Banner… Do you remember me?” The door opens and Dr. Lipscombe slaps Bruce across the face. She says, “I remember.” Bruce calms himself down. Angela Lipscombe asks what Bruce wants with her. Bruce says that he is there to throw himself on the mercy of the court. Angela walks in and says that she can’t believe that he came here looking for a favor. She says that she is calling the police. Bruce tells her to wait. Angela throws a towel at him and says that she isn’t afraid of him. She says that she doesn’t care what he turns into. After she gets done yelling Angela notices that tears are rolling down Bruce’s face. She asks him what is the matter. Bruce says that he is dying as she holds Bruce.
After everyone has calmed down Bruce tells Angela that he has Lou Gehrig’s disease. He lists all of his symptoms, but because it is so hard to diagnose he came to her, the most pre-eminent neurologist in Virginia, for a second opinion. Angela apologizes for before, but Bruce says that it is understandable.
Back in medical school Bruce was the definition of uncool. Angela was the girl that everyone competed for her attention. They were complete opposites except that Angela was smart just like Bruce. They hung out with the same people and eventually they became friends and then more than friends. They were thought of as the future Professors Banner. In their last semester Angela received grants for her work in neuro-psychiatry, but Bruce was turned down for every one he applied for because “apparently the existence of gamma particles is still ‘just a theory”. Angela says that they should go to the fountain together or something fun to take his mind of it. Angela waited and waited for Bruce at the fountain, but he never showed.
Back in Angela’s kitchen Bruce says that he was reading her stuff in ASJ. He says that he knew she was brilliant, but he had no idea. He says that she identified a connection between a specific cluster of neurons and the workings of the subconscious. Bruce asks if Angela knows Leonard Samson. Angela says that Samson is a hack. She says that she has been working on a way to let someone physically confront their own subconscious. She says that she would like to show him sometime. Angela says that she used to show Bruce’s picture around when he made the FBI’s ten most wanted list and told people that she used to date him. Angela says that she heard that the military took over funding his gamma research. She asks how that went. Bruce says, “It didn’t.”
On the day of the gamma bomb test Bruce is working. Suddenly he realizes that the place is packed. He asks who all these people are. A guard says that they are qualified observers. Banner asks on whose authority they are here. General Ryker says that it is on his authority. Bruce doesn’t pay him any attention, but picks up a pair of binoculars. He sees Rick Jones out on the testing field. Bruce of course runs out after him, but he doesn’t remember the activities because he was wondering why one of the guards wasn’t out doing this instead of him. The gamma bomb explodes.
In Angela’s house, Bruce lies in a bed thinking about dying. The next morning Bruce goes through a battery of tests, but they all pretty much point to the same thing. Later Bruce sits alone on a bench. Angela comes out to tell him that it isn’t over yet. She says that another doctor might disagree with her findings. She also says that there have been great strides in medicine. Bruce says that he isn’t going to die. He says that the Hulk won’t allow that. Bruce says that he has to leave. He says that the last time he changed the rage was like nothing he'd ever felt before. Angela says that Bruce came to her because she is also a shrink and not just because she is a neurologist. She says that she has a “denial” sensor and that Bruce has been setting it off ever since he arrived. Angela guesses that something must have happened to Bruce when he was younger. Bruce stumbles, but she says that Bruce can tell her, She says that the Hulk is another personality and maybe many more personalities. She says that she can help him fight it.
That night Bruce sleeps. His eyes go green and he hulks out. Angela thinks that she hears a noise. She gets up to investigate and a Hulk unlike any seen before rips through the wall. Bruce wakes up screaming with glowing green eyes. He manages to calm down. He says that he guesses that he just ran out of options.
They head to the clinic where Bruce is strapped into the machine that will allow him to face his own subconscious. Angela is explaining the procedure to him when Bruce asks her why she is doing this for him. She says that even though he ditched her she always figured that she owed him one for making school bearable. She says that besides she has been studying Disassociative Identity Disorder for half her life, and in that regard Bruce is the mother lode.
Bruce is pulled into his own subconscious.
He sees a place that looks very much like the Crossroads. Banner
spots the Savage Hulk. He starts sneaking up to him. Hulk is
facing away from Banner but says, “Hulk knows you are here,
Banner.” Bruce says that he needs to talk to him, but Hulk
just tells him to go away. Bruce tells Hulk to listen, but Hulk
just yells that if puny Banner won’t go away then he will.
Hulk leaps off. Bruce chases after him, but a voice says,
“You’re wasting your time, Brainiac.” 
Bruce looks
over and sees the gray Hulk dressed as Mr. Fixit and the Merged
Hulk held by the Crossroads tree. Mr. Fixit is held by a rope,
but the Merged Hulk is gagged by a tree branch hand and his body
is wrapped up in chains. Bruce asks him what was going on here.
Fixit says that Bruce is the genius and tells him to figure it
out himself. Fixit says that he and the Professor were wondering
when he was gonna show. Fixit welcomes him back. Fixit tells
Bruce that he is so screwed up that he has tied up him and the
Professor. Fixit says that instead the Beast is taking over his
whole mind. The ground shakes as the Beast starts to walk. Fixit
says that everytime Bruce thinks about how Betty died or about
mean old daddy and poor old mommy that the Beast gets a little
bit stronger. Bruce tries to free the Professor, but the chains
are too tight. Fixit says that he could get the Professor out,
but first Bruce has to untie him. Bruce says that he would have
to be a moron to release him. Fixit says that it isn’t a
joke and that the Beast will destroy them all. Banner says that
it can’t be Fixit. Fixit says that Bruce doesn’t have a
choice. The Beast arrives. Bruce looks up at what seems like a
thousand foot tall Hulk.
No Excuses Rating: 8 out of 10
I once ate an orange. I was out hiking and had run out of things to drink the night before the last day. So all day long I hiked without anything to drink. I was almost done, but still nowhere near a store when I remembered that I had an orange I was saving. After hours of hiking I sat down and ate the orange. It was the greatest orange I ever ate in my life. Well maybe it wasn’t but it sure felt like it at the time. This issue is that orange. A really good issue true, but after so long without anything recognizing the psychology of the Hulk this was like Heaven. In retrospect some of Paul Jenkins’ notions are a little off, and for a double sized issue not a lot happens.
The art rocks again and we get to see Garney draw Mr. Fixit and the “merged Hulk”. The other artists are fine, but nothing spectacular.
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