"Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when
I'm angry." – Dr. David Banner.
We continue this glimpse at the deep
and satisfying consolations of junk art with a look at one of Your
Correspondent’s favorite television shows as a boy, The Incredible Hulk (1978-1982).
And yes, I was once a child.
If the criteria for good junk art is
that it provides some of the comforts and consolations found in high art, then,
believe it or not, The Incredible Hulk fills the bill. I had not seen it since its initial run, and
seldom thought of it since. However,
when I spied a boxed set of the entire series for next-to-no money, the nostalgic
impulse was too great and I succumbed.
Let me insert here my feelings, in
general, on films and television shows adapted from comic books: Your Correspondent could happily go to his
grave without seeing another one.
Superhero films seem to support the entire film industry right now, crowding
out films for adults, films of taste and subtlety and films that are, at least,
different. An orgy of CGI-generated
destruction is not an orgy I wish to attend, thank you very much.
However, The Incredible Hulk television
show dates back to a time that did not have the crutch of special effects to
lean upon, and depended instead on story and character. I opened the boxed set with a bit of
trepidation: very often I have returned to boyhood favorites only to find that
the memory was better than the actuality.
Oddly enough, with The Hulk, both were
true. The series is both cheesier than I
remembered, and, in ways, more profound than I could have hoped.
For those of you unfamiliar with
Hulk-dom, let’s recap the opening narration of the series: Dr.
David Banner: physician; scientist. Searching for a way to tap into the hidden
strengths that all humans have. Then an accidental overdose of gamma radiation
alters his body chemistry. And now when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a
startling metamorphosis occurs. The creature is driven by rage and pursued by
an investigative reporter. The creature
is wanted for a murder he didn't commit. David Banner is believed to be dead,
and he must let the world think that he is dead, until he can find a way to
control the raging spirit that dwells within him.
So, what we have is Les Misérables told as an episodic
science fiction television show. There
is no reason in the world for this thing to work, but it does against all
expectations.
Let’s look for a moment at the junk
component. The Hulk was not only a
creation of its time, but a mirror of the obsessions of the 1970s. There were episodes set in discos, amongst
truckers and CB radio enthusiasts, in kung-fu schools and there were even
digressions in ghetto-chick; tropes included bio feedback, ESP and
mind-reading, pop psychology and past-life regression. But even moving away from the preoccupations
of a fairly tacky decade, the writing on The Hulk was too often doughy and
simplistic even by network television standards, the problems too rote and
elementary, and the resolutions too pat and easy.
And yet. And yet…
There is something real and …
emotionally moving going on in The Incredible Hulk. Let’s start with the protagonist, Dr. David
Banner (played with real sympathy and sweetness by Bill Bixby). Banner
experiments with gamma radiation after losing his lover in a car accident. His researches lead him to the conclusion
that some people in moments of extreme stress or anger find remarkable physical
strength … and that those energies start at a cellular level. Racked by guilt – why did he not have these
resources of strength when he needed it? – he tried to duplicate the cellular
variations on himself through exposure to gamma radiation. The tests backfire, and now, in moments of
stress, he mutates into a gigantic, green monster (Lou Ferrigno).
In short, Banner is not a hero in the
conventional sense, but someone haunted by the physical manifestations of his
own shortcomings; he is tormented because
he looked deep inside of himself and found himself wanting.
Every episode, Banner comes into the
worlds of new people in new cities and new states, always seeking that elusive
cure for his condition. Because of his
inherent decency and humanity, he is often with the underclass or downtrodden,
using his considerable medical and scientific gifts to improve the lives of
those around him. And, with clockwork
regularity, he leaves these new-found friends once his secret is out and his
opportunity for a cure evaporates. But the real tragedy of Banner is that he is
a man running away from himself; the one thing no man can ever successfully
do.
McGee (played with conviction by Jack Colvin), his nemesis, is not
cardboard cutout, either. Working for a
cheap, tabloid newspaper (think the National
Enquirer), McGee sees the Hulk as an opportunity out of the minor leagues
and into the bigtime. But, as the series
progresses, the Hulk becomes both an obsession and a beacon. An obsession because McGee will not let-go,
even when in jeopardy of ruining his already shaky career, and a beacon because
the Hulk comes to represent to McGee all that is marvelous and unexplained in
the world.
Every episode ends with poor Banner
once more hitchhiking to the strains of the “Lonely Man” theme by Joseph
Harnell, a piano lament in a minor key.
But next week will be exactly the same, no matter how many people Banner
meets, or how close he comes to finding a cure.
He will never unburden himself of his own weaknesses, his own fears, or
of the monster he carries inside of himself.
It is a perfect existential tragedy.
The Incredible Hulk is junk but it is
glorious junk because of the weight it bears – sometimes successfully, sometimes
not so successfully. It is not a comic
book show, but a tragedy told in comic book tropes. It is impossible to take in the whole series
and not feel a sense of sadness, of sympathy or of empathy for the benighted
Banner.
Yes, I will lose the respect of many of
my readers, but The Incredible Hulk is not junk … and it may even be art. Of a type.
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