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Today, we look at how the Hulk and the Rhino somehow joined forces after a brutal fight to…save Christmas?
It’s our yearly Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar! Every day until Christmas Eve, you can click on the current day’s Advent Calendar post and it will show the Advent Calendar with the door for that given day opened and you can see what the “treat” for that day will be! You can click here to see the previous Advent Calendar entries. This year, the theme is a Very Dope 90s Christmas! Each day will be a Christmas comic book story from the 1990s, possibly ones that have a specific 1990s bent to it (depends on whether I can come up with 24 of them).
This year’s Advent Calendar, of Grunge Santa Claus giving out 90s present, like a Tamagotchi, while posing with four superheroes with the most-90s costumes around, is by Nick Perks.
And now, Day 18 will be opened (once opened, the door will feature a panel from the featured story)…
Today, we look at 1991’s “Rhino Plastered” from Incredible Hulk #378 by Peter David (with an assist by Kurt Busiek), Bill Jaaska and Jeff Albrecht.
It’s kind of funny just how much Hulk continuity you need to know to FULLY appreciate this issue, while the issue by itself is a fun read no matter WHAT you know about the Hulk (well, I suppose it helps to know that the Hulk exists as a character). Okay, soon after Peter David took over writing Incredible Hulk, he had Bruce Banner, Rick Jones and Clay Quartermain go on a mission across the country in a stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. van once they discovered that the Leader had a stockpile of Gamma Bombs hidden around the country that he was planning to explode (since they couldn’t officially prove it, Quartermain had to go rogue for the mission). During this period, Banner would turn into the Hulk at night, only it would be the original gray version of the Hulk, who was less powerful and more of a wisecracking Hulk than normal (as his intelligence was a lot higher than the typical green Hulk). Well, the trio was unable to stop one of the bombs from destroying a whole town as part of his plan to see what the survivors would mutate into). The Hulk was at ground zero of the explosion, but he somehow survived and was now seemingly fully in control of his body took on a new identity as Joe Fixit and started a new life as a mob enforcer in Las Vegas. Once there, he started dating the beautiful Marlo Chandler.
Over time, Banner eventually returned and he and the Hulk went on the run again. During this period, he ran into Betty Banner, Bruce’s wife, who he had to leave behind when they went rogue. He and Betty began to travel together, during which time suddenly the Hulk was dramatically shifting from gray to green. Eventually, Bruce and Betty met up with Rick Jones again and they all started traveling together. Things took a dramatic turn when Rick introduced his new girlfriend…Marlo Chandler!
Right in the middle of this was the historic Incredible Hulk #377 (by Peter David, Dale Keown and Bob McLeod), where Doctor Leonard Samson (a psychiatrist who had been given Gamme powers, as well) used hypnosis to finally merge the various Hulks together into one being, with Bruce in control.
While this was going on at the hospital, Rick, Betty and Marlo were all in the waiting room and Rick decided it was way too awkward to hang around with Betty and Marlo…
He later returned to the waiting room and revealed that he had just been kicked in the shins, as an impatient Betty went to go see what was up with her husband’s therapy…
She was interrupted by the merged Hulk, showing that things were going to be a lot different in the future (this era is now referred to as the “Professor Hulk” period and Avengers: Endgame basically adapted it for the Hulk)…
So, how did Rick hurt his shin?
In the next issue, we flashback to when Rick left Marlo and Betty the first time and he helps break up a fight between some kids in the hospital’s children’s ward. He then tells them a story about fighting…
The story was set back in the period that he, Quartermain and Banner were traveling the country in the van. They happened upon a mall where the Rhino was hiding out, dressed as a mall Santa Claus…
The Rhino couldn’t keep his temper under control, though, so he blew up on the kids, which alerted the Hulk to his presence and the two had a brutal, knockdown, drag out fight, only interrupted by a brief cookie break…
However, a little girl, Ginny, couldn’t understand why Santa Claus was pummeling some big gray man and her tearful eyes forced the Hulk and the Rhino to put their differences aside and save Christmas for little Ginny…
Ginny, of course, is short for Virginia, and there is a great bit where someone tries to say, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” but it is interrupted…
As it turns out, though, the kids in the hospital ward didn’t like Rick’s story and so he got a kick to the shins for his efforts…
As an aside, the art for this issue was well-handled by Bill Jaaska, who also did some good Uncanny X-Men fill-in issues around this period. The problem is that when he was given his big break as the new regular artist on the New Titans a couple of years later (his X-Men fill-ins were a big part of the hype for him at the time. “New Titans will now be drawn by a former X-Men artist!” has a nice ring to it), his work was not very appreciated and he didn’t last long on the series. So instead of it being his big break, it sort of sunk his comic book career. His last comic book work was an issue of Turok in 1995. He passed away in 2009 living in a boarding house, surviving off of public assistance while dealing with severe vision problems. Jaaska’s story is one that is far more common than we would like to believe. It makes me proud to support the Hero Initiative, which helps out comic book creators in their time of need. If you’re interested in donating during this Holiday Season, check the Hero Initiative out. I literally just donated some money to them about a half hour ago. I seriously didn’t mean to bring you all down out of nowhere during a Christmas comic book countdown, but what can I say, whenever I see Jaaska’s work I think about his sad story.
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