The Incredible Hulk #5

 "Listen, daddy-o, I know your secret... and still I tremble when I see 'im!"

Two stories this time, both rather silly, but both rather fascinating for various reasons, not least of which is the fact that the basic format of The Incredible Hulk- that stress makes Bruce become the Hulk- is still not quite there yet. 

First up we get the introduction of mildly prolific villain Tyrannus. One the one hand he feels like a more developed version of the Mole Man, similarly living underground... but, of course, this isn't necessarily a problem as there's still no actual hint (the use of unstable molecules in both Fantastic Four and Ant-Man is arguable but rather tenuous) that all this is yet envisaged as a shared universe.

Still, Tyrannus has at once a deeper and sillier backstory, having been banished underground by Merlin (mentioned once before in Fantastic Four #5) in ancient times, but he's still alive because he has the actual Fountain of Youth. Oh, and he's conveniently found some subterranean-dwelling and scientifically knowledgeable willing slaves down there, which is somewhat convenient. So, yeah, let's pause for a moment to marvel at the bonkersness of all that.

Oh, and he fears the USA's "atomic might", because every Marvel issue at this point just has to allude to the fact that this is the atomic age at some point. 

The actual story is... well, a series of silly set pieces, and the Bruce/Betty relationship is as basic and superficial as that of Don Blake/Jane. It'll be interesting to see if and when that ever changes.

The following story is another riff on the oh-so-ubiquitous theme of "hero fights communists", but there's some interest in the fact that Red China is persecuting a thinly veiled Tibet here, just a few years after the historical invasion in 1959. We also have Taiwan being referred to as "Formosa", yet another reminder that 1962 was an awfully long time ago.

Most interestingly, though... this is not the "Hulk smash" version of the character, not remotely so. The Hulk isn't really unambiguously different from Bruce, personality wise, and he defeats General Fang via an idea he researches in a book! Oh, and they're still using that machine to change the Hulk into Bruce and vice versa, but we get hints that perhaps, one day, the Hulk may refuse to change back into Bruce. Ominous, and also fascinating to see them slowly working through how they want the lore to work.

Bonkers stuff, but there's a lot of interest here.