It's Go for Joe...Fixit in Immortal Hulk #43!

Immortal Hulk written by Al Ewing, art by Joe Bennett, inked by Ruy José and Belardino Brabo. with colors by Paul Mounts, and letters by Cory Petit.

Update 10:00 PM EST: As discussion about the antisemitic content grew, we reached out to Marvel for a comment and they provided the following from artist Joe Bennett.

“I’ve been including references to famous horror directors to pay respects to the genre throughout the series, and in Immortal Hulk #43, I included a nod to David Cronenberg. The misspellings on the window were an honest but terrible mistake – since I was writing backwards, I accidentally spelled both of those words wrong.

“I have no excuse for how I depicted the Star of David. I failed to understand this troubling and offensive stereotype, and after listening to you all, I now understand my mistake. This was wrong, offensive, and hurtful in many ways. This is a mistake I must own, and I am sorry to everyone who I hurt by this. I am working with Marvel to correct this, and I am using this lesson to reflect on how I approach my stories and my work.”

Additionally they stated “Marvel fully acknowledged this mistake was missed on our side as well, and that we’re correcting the art in digital, future printings, and collections.”

Original article

Zach Rabiroff: Hey, you know what would be a fun bit? If we gradually revealed that the writing team on Times Immortal was an elaborate metanarrative reflection of the multi-persona system that makes up the Hulk, and that’s why there’s no way to predict who will be helming this column from month to month. So then, readers could tune in, expecting to find, say, Cori McCreery and Zoe Tunnell and instead get some overly-wordy poindexter like me pontificating about Bill Mantlo for three paragraphs. Anyway, I’m your co-host Zach Rabiroff, and here to discuss the new issue of Immortal Hulk is…uh…who’ve I got with me here?

Robert Secundus: Are we real? Am I real? Am I a brain in the jar, the dream of someone I’ll never know, or a fiction in a greater mind? My name is Robert Secundus and one day of lockdown I did not get out of bed and did just stare at the wall asking myself these questions! Fun! It’s a fun bit! And today I’m here to talk to you about a FUN COMIC!

Citizen Hulk

ZR: Ah, Aristotle. My old friend. My old nemesis. Must we meet again, so long after my freshman year political philosophy class has come and gone? Indeed, it seems we must, for this week’s quote comes courtesy of the Nicomachean Ethics, the preeminent collection of white person conventional wisdom in the Western Canon. (I kid, Aristotle, I kid! Please don’t tell Alexander the Great to invade my country, thanks!) The quote reads:

It is possible that to be a good man is not the same as to be a good citizen.

It’s one of the more straightforward quotes we’ve seen in this series, really, but no less timely for it. Aristotle is reminding us here that while a human being (as he says elsewhere) is a political animal, born to function only in the context of a larger society, the obligations of the individual to their own soul, and the obligations to their city and state, may well be two different things – and those things may not always be as much at peace as we would like.

It’s a theme that rambles through this issue, especially in the story of Joe Fixit, who we find wandering somewhat dissolutely through the streets of Manhattan, pulling a pre-Great-Responsibility Peter Parker by looking out for number one: himself. His own rationale is that he’s not the kind of sucker that Banner would be, looking for the acceptance of the people around him: “He always wanted their approval. I always knew how fast they could take that away.” But of course, that stinger at the end is the real truth that Joe is hiding from himself: the pretense of being above humanity is little more than a defense mechanism; a way for Joe to shield himself from the pain of rejection that he’s felt since childhood. And his recognition of that fact provides the spine of this issue’s story. Or at least that’s how I read it. Did you see things differently, Rob?

RS: No, I think that’s right, but that the attitudes he criticizes in Banner are just as much of a projection. Neither’s stated attitude is really one that cultivates virtue, because both positions, only look out for one’s self, and never hurt anyone else are lacking necessary nuance. Fixit’s wrong about being above all of humanity, and Banner’s wrong to seek acceptance from parts of that humanity. I think the narrative is morally on Fixit’s side, not Banner’s, when he talks about how inconveniencing a jackass landlord and some credit card companies is no great moral ill.

ZR: I agree with that, except that I think the comic ultimately sides with both and neither: Joe’s mistake isn’t to condemn the wrongs of society, but to react to them by, essentially running away. In a sense, it’s the Hulk (as opposed to Joe or Bruce) who offers the solution to Aristotle’s puzzle: the way to be a good man and a good citizen is to right the wrongs of society in the name of the vulnerable and the needy. To be, in other words, a superhero. This all comes to a head during the scene in this issue when Joe witnesses a pair of cops beating up an innocent Black kid, and realizes that he can’t ultimately stand apart from the world that rejected him. I’ll say up front that I had decidedly mixed feelings about this sequence. But what did you think of it?

RS: On a pure narrative level, I’m glad we’re seeing that Teen Hulk Fans return. When last we saw them, Roxxon was trying to recuperate and profit off of the movement. I also have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m glad to see a Marvel comic reaffirm ACAB; it’s in line especially with what this series has been doing throughout. But I don’t know where the line is between “superheroes doing important work to reflect the World Outside Our Window and portray good, progressive values” and “superheroes putting cartoon violence in extremely serious, horrible real world tragedies can be tasteless.”

ZR: I think you make a very good point about that, though I admit that the fantasy violence felt fairly unobjectionable to me: I very much appreciate seeing the Hulk once again playing the role of the rebel against authority, overtly taking a stand against racist and abusive police. And yet, there’s something about this scene that leaves me feeling just a bit put-off. A comparison came to mind with the closing shot of the penultimate issue of Watchmen, when a surly newspaper seller, who has been feuding with a local kid throughout the series, uses his last moments of life to comfort the child during a catastrophic shockwave. But whereas that scene earned its payoff from 11 issues of gradual character development, this one is shoehorned into four pages of action at the end of the story. We’ve never seen the boy in Immortal Hulk before; he has no name; he speaks one line of dialogue in his entire history as a character.

The result is a figure who feels more like a plot device than a living, breathing person with agency in this story. To put it another way, the boy is a means to the end of Joe Fixit’s self-discovery: whether he has any thoughts, desires, or stories of his own are entirely beside the point. I fixate on this more than I might otherwise because, as much as I love seeing the Hulk take on a role of a warrior for racial justice, the writing in this sequence has the likely unintended effect of reducing a Black character to a Very Important Lesson for a white protagonist. To put it bluntly, it tokenizes the kid, even as it feels pretty evidently like a hasty narrative shortcut in this issue. I’m disappointed to write that, because at this point I expect better from Al Ewing, a writer who has demonstrated sensitivity and social awareness throughout this series. But this felt like a real misstep to me.

RS: Ah, I understand the critique now, and I agree. Not just this character, but The Youth Movement too, as a whole, has been fairly underdeveloped narratively and thematically throughout the series.

ZR: That said, I still thought it was a powerful sequence for what it was, albeit one that needed to be taken with a big grain of salt. The Hulk punching racist police has the same visceral thrill as Captain America punching Hitler. I’d read it every month if I could.

U-Foe Real?

ZR: Last issue, we were briefly introduced to the U-Foes, Henry Peter Gyrich’s new recruits to hunt down and destroy the Hulk. This issue they make their proper debut, as Gyrich puts them through a kind of Chris Claremont-esque training sequence to acclimate readers with their names and powers. A discourse on U-Foes history, if I may. Introduced in Incredible Hulk #254 in 1980, the U-Foes are one of writer Bill Mantlo and artist Sal Buscema’s more enduring creations. Their basic schtick is that they were a quartet of scientists who deliberately attempted to replicate the cosmic accident that created the Fantastic Four by taking up their own ship into a cosmic radiation storm – only, in their case, the result were bodies and minds horribly warped by the experience (in that origin, as our Times Immortal colleague Cori McCreery has pointed out to me, they’re early predecessors of Superman villain Hank Henshaw, a similarly dark parody of Marvel’s premier super team). So the U-Foes are the body horror of the Fantastic Four if none of the members of that group had managed to transcend it through heroism: rather than turn a monster story into a superhero tale by harnessing their tragedy for the sake of good, they only fall deeper into rage, panic, and self-pity: the stuff of Atlas nightmares instead of Marvel dreams.

What made their satire especially dark, in that first appearance at least, was that the U-Foes’ powers were not only disturbing, but gradually became uncontrollable to the point where they were specifically incompatible with one another. Simon’s vector power pushed Ann away no matter how much she tried to approach him; X-Ray’s contact instantly caused Ironclad to develop debilitatingly painful radiation poisoning. The clever point was that, whereas the Fantastic Four had grown together as a family as a result of their accident, the U-Foes were each made totally and permanently alone – and it was in that forced solitude, that removal from family and society, that the true evil and horror lay.

RS: Marvel’s-foundational-characters-but-evil seem like they should be a bigger deal in the Marvel universe, right? Given that history, I’m surprised they’re not a greater presence. If that forced solitude is still core to their characters, then I understand how they make sense as villains for this final act of Immortal Hulk; Banner is alone, the remaining members of the Hulk System have lost most of their community, both internal and external, Dr. McGowan and Jackie McGee have both lost their professional communities, and The One Below All seeks total isolation in the cosmos. I wonder, Zach what’s their history with the Hulk in particular like?

ZR: Oddly enough, their connection to the Hulk has always been somewhat incidental: they happened to appear in a Hulk comic, so they’ve been Hulk adversaries by default ever since. That’s not to say writers haven’t found ways to make that resonate, especially when they’re allowed to act as a cracked mirror to the Hulk’s own monstrousness and (alleged) desire to be left alone. So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re seeing the U-Foes pop up only a couple of issues after a guest appearance from the Thing, who extended a helping hand to Joe Fixit in his time of need. These two mirror-image teams are like an angel and devil on the Hulk’s shoulder, one encouraging him to find solace in connection to other people, and the other pushing him deeper into solitude and violence. And that takes us back to the theme of citizenship and our mutual obligations that’s been the motif of this issue. The U-Foes, like Homer’s island of cyclopes, are individuals divorced from duty toward, and care from, others. And the monstrousness of that isolation is the fate that Joe Fixit is trying to avoid.

RS: You’re much, much more familiar with them than I (having read their every appearance, given that you’ve read every appearance of every Marvel character), so I just want to pick your brain a little more before we move on. I can see how they fit for this issue’s particular motif, and I can see how they make for interesting foils to this Hulk; are there any other ways they fit into the run as a whole? Again, since we’re nearing the end, I imagine every new entrance has to be doing a lot of work.

ZR: Well, there’s one U-Foe connection in particular that occurs to me: the notion of being trapped in bodies that are somehow wrong. Joe, used to being the gray Hulk, refers to himself as being “stuck in Banner’s body.” A semi-reunited Alpha Flight roster is trying to get Doc Samson swapped out of the body of poor, displaced Sasquatch (a character who, incidentally, has a long history of inadvertent body swaps, including one vintage incident when he ended up trying to steal the Hulk’s body back in the 1980’s – the wheel of Marvel continuity goes ever round.) Now, being a cis man, I don’t have any personal expertise with which to talk about this, but I can’t help but see a connection between these characters and Charlene McGowan, a trans woman whose successful assertion of her own body and identity are tied to her remaining one of the most heroic figures in this series. In Immortal Hulk, affirming yourself as an individual means claiming the body you call your own, and refusing to remain trapped in one that fate or society assigns to you.

And Now for Something More Serious

ZR: There was one small, subtle moment in this issue that I need to call attention to, and I’m sorry to say it isn’t for a happy reason. Early in the issue, Joe stops into a jewelry store to buy a diamond bracelet with some money that he recently pickpocketed. As he does, we get a glimpse of the store’s window display, which bears the name “CRONEMBERG” and, in painted gold relief below it, a prominent Magen David, the Star of David.

Even in the best possible interpretation, this is odd. The scene has otherwise no connection to Judaism or the Jewish ownership of the shop; there are no Jewish themes to which the comic is trying to point us. The only conceivable interpretation, to put it frankly, is that this is a visual play on the old and antisemitic trope of Jews running the diamond business: a centuries-old cliché rooted in stereotypes of Jewish merchants as unscrupulous profiteers willing to do business with shady criminals (which, indeed, the shop is doing in this scene) [Ed. Note: One thing we didn’t see when this article was first published was that instead of the store being labelled as a JEWELRY store, the word JEWERY was written instead. It was slightly hard to notice, being written backwards, but is pretty blatant. This makes for an incredibly overt antisemetic dogwhistle in this book.]

This is not an overt moment. I imagine it would be easy for most readers to overlook entirely. But as a Jewish reader coming to this comic, the sight of a Jewish symbol stenciled on the outside of that window was hard to ignore, and hard to justify. Perhaps this was called for in the comic script itself (though that seems unlikely to me), or perhaps it was the addition of the issue’s art team, penciler Joe Bennet or inkers Ruy José and Belardino Brabo. It may be worth noting here that Bennett has, in previous years, expressed some less-than-admirable social viewpoints: in 2019, after controversial journalist Glenn Greenwald was struck by a supporter of far-right Brazilian autocrat Jair Bolsonaro, Bennett posted on facebook that “the slap was mine, too! Should have thrown a punch,” before he deleted the post and publicly apologized. Marvel’s reticence to stop using Bennett on their books has been troubling, and has required, for my part, a certain willingness to hold my nose when analyzing this series. Whether or not this particular instance was at his initiative, I felt it needed to be mentioned.

I realize that this is a small issue for most readers, and I don’t want to make more of it than it deserves. But its presence cast a pall over the rest of the story for me, and at the very least made it impossible to offer any other judgment of the artwork or visual storytelling. It’s a black eye on an otherwise good issue, and I’m disappointed in Marvel’s editors for failing to catch and remove this before it went out the door. This series, and its fans, deserve much better.

RS: And editorial should be actively looking for problems like these after their colossal oversight in X-Men Gold #1 a few years back. I went looking for reference photos, trying to see if I could find something that matched this visual, and I could not. The shop window simply does not look like the shops in the NYC Diamond district. Either Ewing asked for the symbol in the script, or Bennett intentionally chose to add it. It’s a mistake they should apologize for and rectify when the issue is collected in trade, just as Marvel did when collecting X-Men Gold #1.

ZR: I know I’ve been tough on this issue, and more critical than I’ve been toward this series in the past. All told, there’s a lot to like here: Joe’s arc toward self-assertion and heroic humanism is moving, even despite the flaws in the storytelling, and the overall saga of this series continues to be among the best things Marvel is putting out. This issue is also an object lesson in how blind spots around race and religion can mar otherwise solid stories – and how even good creators can make big stumbles that no one manages to catch.

RS: Agreed on all counts. It’s an issue I like a lot, but the severe flaws very much do stand starkly out against the otherwise excellent work.

Marvelous Musings

This issue is filled to the brim with Easter eggs, especially the names emblazoned on the windows of Midtown Manhattan shops. There’s the cleverly-named Starlin’s Coffee (after cosmic comic creator and Hulk graphic novelist Jim Starlin), Milgrom Books (after Starlin collaborator and former Hulk writer/artist Al Milgrom), Kirby King and Lee (which go without saying), and the unfortunate Cronemberg Jewelers, which is likely a misspelled reference to body-horror director par excellence David Cronenberg.
The menu at Starlin’s Coffee is a delight. Be sure to order their trademark drink, “NoNoNoNoNo,” now available for the low price of $NoNoNoNo.
In an extremely Bill Mantlo touch, the U-Foes were apparently given their brilliant-dumb name because Mantlo had been listening to the Graham Parsons song “Waiting for the UFO’s.” And they say comics don’t encourage drug use.