PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, psychological*
The first "episode" of Kenneth Johnson's INCREDIBLE HULK series was one of the two 80-minute TV-movies airing on CBS prior to the actual series. The regular episodes of the ensuing five seasons were always a must-watch at my house, even if the series' schtick of "bad guys clonk David Banner/ Banner Hulks out and dispatches bad guys" became wearying after a while.
Though no one in television would have agreed back in the days when comics were thought to be trash, the origin for the TV-Hulk is far inferior to the genesis-tale rendered for the Green Goliath back in INCREDIBLE HULK #1. Lee and Kirby, possibly working more on instinct than by any rational process, fashioned a deeply resonant story of a shrimpy little guy whose brain unleashes a cataclysmic nuclear force but who still gets belitted by broad-shouldered bullies. Then an act of altruism on his part unleashes in him his Inner Bully-Boy, a green-skinned malcontent who might be said to embody the power struggle between East and West in the early sixties. This begins Bruce Banner's long ordeal, having his rational mind sloughed off with every transformation to the Hulk, just as Henry Jekyll's innate decency was overpowered by Hyde's utter immorality. The early Hulk is also has a little Hyde in him, occasionally planning to master humanity for his own sake, but the creators dropped this, probably reasoning that such naked power-lust would make the character unsympathetic. Lee and Steve Ditko finally hit upon the ideal persona for the Incredible One: that of a confused, bitter child of ill fortune.
The most interesting thing about Kenneth Johnson's origin of his Hulk is not how little it resembles the origin of the comic-book character, but how much it resembles that of Lee and Ditko's seminal superhero Spider-Man. Peter Parker fails to take an action that would have ultimately saved his beloved Uncle Ben, and for the rest of his life, he must make up for his inaction in performing superhero feats. The course of David Banner (Bill Bixby) is apposite, even though the first viewers of the pilot knows even less about Banner than the first readers of the SPIDER-MAN feature knew about Parker. In the HULK pilot-film, the viewers know only two things: (1) that his mother once told him "anger doesn't solve anything, " and (2) that 11 months previous, Banner went driving with his wife Laura. The car crashed, and though Banner was flung free, Laura is caught in the burning car and killed. Banner tried to pull Laura from the car but was not strong enough. Now, working at an institute alongside colleague Elaina Marks (Susan Sullivan), Banner seeks to expiate his failure with his research. Having heard that some individuals were able to perform impossible feats of strength under extreme pressure, Banner obsessively analyzes the body chemistry of these individuals, trying to discern why they possessed the power he did not. Upon analyzing DNA samples, Banner and Elaina finally determine that sunspot activity was high at the times that the "strong people" exhibited their temporary super-powers, and that although Banner shares the same anomalous DNA as the others, sunspot activity-- including the emission of gamma rays-- was low at the time of Laura's death.
If all Banner wanted was an explanation as to why he was unable to do what the "strong people" did, this revelation should have sufficed. But the essence of Banner's personality is that he's under what Freud called an "repetition-compulsion." He can't forget having been weak at the wrong time, so he experiments on himself to prove that he's capable of manifesting the strength he lacked at a crucial point in time. This time gamma rays are not implicated in a weapon of mass destruction, but originate in one of the machines at the institute just happens to be able to duplicate the effects of the sun by emitting doses of gamma radiation. Banner for some reason fails to notice that said machine has been calibrated to unleash more gamma rays than he intends to dose himself with. That night, after ending the experiment, the scientist connects with his Inner Rage Monster, transforming into the creature that tabloid journalist Jack McGee dubs "the Hulk" (Lou Ferrigno).
As is often the case in comics, the origin is more interesting than the hero's actual exploits. This Hulk starts out in a state of perpetual confusion, and mute as well, while his first exploit feels like a loose rewrite of the famous "child at the lake" scene from the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN. The Karloff Monster encountered a small child at a lakeside and accidentally killed her. Here the Hulk scares a considerably older girl at a lakeside, tries to help her when she's in real danger, gets shot by her father and tosses the man around before running off and reverting to Banner.
Eventually Elaina learns of Banner's problem and they attempt to cure his cursed condition, while trying to avoid the scrutiny of nosy McGee. The next two transformations of Banner to Hulk take place at lab facilities, reason being that the characters must be kept in the same place for the climax, in which both Elaina and Banner appear to die in a catastrophe. Banner then begins his lonely "Fugitive" existence, traveling from place to place, eternally seeking a cure-- at which point the series pretty much abandons any further development of the Banner character. All that's important from then on is to show the Hulk atoning for Banner's "sins" by playing Good Samaritan, just as Spider-Man did for the misdeeds of Peter Parker.
The weakest point of the Johnson concept is the idea that the police are going to be seeking the Hulk, just as Lieutenant Girard and other cops used to pursue Richard Kimble. In Jack McGee's closing speech he claims that the cops have issued a warrant for the Hulk's arrest, which is hard to credence since no one but McGee has seen the titanic green monster. The voice-over for the series re-iterated this lame trope over and over-- "the creature is wanted for a murder he didn't commit"-- this, in spite of the fact that no matter where McGee goes in pursuit of the Hulk, no one ever believes his stories about the big green guy. And this too is a credibility stumbling-block, since in the second-season episode "Killer Instinct," the Mute Muscle-Monster is seen by thousands of spectators, knocking around big football players and presumably being filmed by TV cameras.
I can't make any great claims for the series as a whole. Even the best episodes don't rate more than "fair" in any department.
But I sure did like seeing the Hulk tear stuff up.
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