The Incredible Hulk #237, July 1979. "When A City DIES!" Written by Roger Stern, pencilled by Sal Buscema, inked by Jack Abel, lettered by Rick Parker, colored by Bob Sharen, edited by Al Milgrom. Cover by Milgrom.

Firefighters valiantly battle the blaze started in last issue's battle between the Hulk and Machine Man. Miles away from the carnage, Curtis Jackson of the Corportion watches, assuming the two heroes are deceased. Trish Starr, kidnapee, finds the whole thing horrible.

However, the Hulk and Machine Man aren't dead! (Big surprise!) The Hulk has been knocked out, and Machine Man flies the Green Goliath into a wilderness area, where he runs a mind-probe on the Hulk to see why the Hulk thinks MM's involved with Trish's kidnapping. He learns a Corporation agent, disguised as MM kidnapped Trish, and led the Hulk to Central City to do battle. Before X-51 can disengage the probe, he also gets an instant history lesson on what's happened to the Hulk in his life (in a nice full-page panel I'm using as the background for all these Hulk pages).

Amazed at what the Hulk's been through, MM's still able to be distracted when he again picks up the Corporation radio signal, and is able to triangulate the origin of the signal now. Using his precision optics, MM sees Trish Starr is also with Jackson at the Mid-State Tower.

Unfortunately, the Hulk revives at that time, and since the mind-probe hadn't been disengaged, the Hulk gets a clear mental picture of where Trish is, and he slaps MM aside before leaping away. MM follows, calling in to Colonel Kragg.

Meanwhile, Kragg is in contact with Clay Quartermain of S.H.I.E.L.D., who sends a squadron of Hulk-Buster jet interceptors. Kragg gets alerted to MM's call, and X-51 tells the colonel to have the Mid-State Tower evacuated immediately. By this time, the Hulk's patented leaps have taken him through the roof of a different building, and MM has to stop following Jade-Jaws in order to hold the ceiling up while the building is evacuated. At the top of the Mid-State Tower, Jackson realizes the Hulk is after him, leaving a swath of destruction in his wake! Jackson trabs Trish and heads towards the helicopter on the roof to escape, but the Hulk arrives at that time on the copter, destroying it.

Jackson puts a gun to Trish's head, and orders the Hulk to freeze, but Machine Man finally arrives, and disarms the Corporation executive. The Hulk's rage is too far gone to be dissipated, and he tears a good portion of the building apart, sending Jackson falling to the streets below. Fortunately, MM, who has taken Trish Starr with him into the air, catches Jackson before it is too late. The Hulk continues to rampage, destroying the entire building. Jackson is turned over to the police.

MM finds the Hulk in the midst of the destructions, and using the "Mesmer Effect," puts the Hulk into a trance before cancelling gravity's effect on the Green Goliath, flying the Hulk away. Peter, Fred, Kragg, and Trish find MM just before he falls over, his energy reserves virtually drained (he recovers in the next issue of his own comic, which had been revived with the team of Ditko and Wolfman).

I couldn't pick just one ad out of this issue to showcase... there were three worthy of notice! The first one here is yet another Heroes World ad, this one for t-shirts. As you can see, there was quite a variety of them available as HW started branching out into Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica stuff at this time.

The second ad... well... I should just let this ad speak for itself, shouldn't I? I don't believe this shoe manufacturer is still in business, or if the ad agency who did this is still around... but given what O.J. Simpson is known for these days, it's a sure bet he won't be hawking sneakers in comics these days, isn't it?

The final ad I'm sharing from this issue is one I recall being surprised to find in a Marvel Comic, given Superman's from their Distinguished Competition...

But then again, this *is* an ad for Kryptonite, which can be used to kill the Man of Steel... Sure, the ad *claims* they only want to sell the Green K to "friends of Superman," so they can make sure it doesn't get into the hands of Superman's enemies, but do you think this would stop Luthor or Brainiac or the Prankster from ordering some? Well, I suppose Luthor wouldn't be caught dead reading a comic book...

Yes, that line of text towards the bottom says it's "Kryptonastic"... I suppose they were combining "Krypton" and "Fantastic" but the word sounds like a medical condition! "Dr. Greene, the patient is Kryptonastic!"

Anyway, if you bought one of the t-shirts listed above, or some Kryptonite, or even some of the sneakers O.J. was pushing, and you've still got 'em, send me a scan of a photo with you and the items, along with a little story about them if you've got one, and I'll ad it to this page!