Hulk Friday
A wave of nostalgia swept over me (I get that alot recently) when I spotted this familiar cover the other day. This issue was an old favourite of mine as a boy, and I had to give it a re-read...
It`s no wonder it appealed to me back then, `No Man Is An Island!` has those elements that I would have relished - Pirates, desert islands, beast-men. The Hulk, between bouts of sleep, tackles these evils and even meets - I kid you not - Robinson Crusoe. Yep, you could get away with inconsistencies like that in `78. It`s a marvelous fantasy and great fun!
Waking up on a European (?) shoreline, Banner gets a job as a deckhand aboard a freighter ship. That very ship is torpedoed and boarded by modern-day pirate, Cap`n Barracuda and his shipmates...
I love this Barracuda guy, eye-patch an` all ,he hollers "Ye lubbers!", "Me hearties" and (my personal favourite) "C`mon ye scurvy swabs!" just needs a peg-leg and parrot...
After a bashing by the Hulk, our green-skinned hero is ditched into the sea, but wades ashore an island with sandy shore and jungle interior. It`s here he meets a fellow claiming to be Crusoe and refers to Hulk as `Friday`. Some of the dialogue between these two tickled me. An attack by apelike Beast-Men follows and then, who should turn up on the final page..?
..."The name be Cap`n Barracuda, ye ugly beastie - The scourge of the Seven Seas, an` soon the First Admiral o` the whole blamed world!" - yep, he actually says that - must be the rum.
Len Wein and Roger Stern must have had fun writing this enjoyable high-seas hokum and the art by Buscema and Chan is, as always, superb - check out that Banner/Hulk transformation panel.
This is the first of a two-part encounter with Captain Barracuda - avast! ye scurvy dogs!!