The Rhino Says No!

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MARVEL SUPER-HEROES — Issue no. 76, August 1978

Book: Marvel Super-Heroes

Issue No.: 76

Published: August 1, 1978

Title: “The Rhino Says No!”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Digital scan

I started working on this issue of Marvel Time Warp over the weekend. I threw out my back (ouch!) on Saturday and I wasn’t feeling great. So I considered doing a fill-in issue of my own. But I got a ways down that road and realized the fill-in issue was going to be more work than a regular Marvel Time Warp post. So I changed gears and took a look at Marvel Super-Heroes no. 76.

The first thing I noticed about this book is it looks great. Herb Trimpe penciled this issue, Sal Buscema inked it, and Sam Rosen lettered it, and that is a rock-solid Hulk team. Plus I was lucky to find a good-quality digital scan of the book, so I got to see Nel Yomtov’s original coloring work (as opposed to a re-colored digital reprint).

As regular Marvel Time Warp readers know, in the late ’70s Marvel Super-Heroes was reprinting Hulk stories from the early ’70s. This story opens with the Leader, Hulk’s big-brained arch-enemy, reading a newspaper story about how Bruce Banner has been “cured” and is the Hulk no more. Which also happened in the Hulk’s current-as-of-1978 comic book, so history repeats itself in the Marvel universe just like it does here in the real world.

Bruce Banner is finally going to marry his long-suffering girlfriend Betty Ross, since Banner isn’t Hulking out anymore. The Leader hates Banner and Hulk and concocts a scheme to ruin Banner’s wedding and possibly kill Betty in the process. But the Leader isn’t going after Banner alone — he’s going to draft the tough-but-not-very-smart Rhino as muscle. This involves the Leader using a giant robot to break Rhino out of prison, which is pretty cool.

Two panels from this issue. One shows Betty Ross wearing a wedding gown and veil. Caption reads, “But, one there is who senses at once what is occurring… with a terrified gasp… !” Betty says, “No!! It can’t happen… not here! Not now!” The second panel shows Bruce Banner turning into Hulk, his shirt ripping. Hulk says, “I’m… changing, somehow… turning into Hulk again! It’s no accident! Someone has deliberately caused the change! But, whatever their purpose… it will do them no good!”

I was somewhat familiar with the Rhino from Spider-Man comics. But I learned reading this issue that Rhino gets his super-strength from gamma radiation, which is where Hulk and the Leader get their super powers.

On Bruce Banner’s wedding day, the Leader implements his plan, and it immediately goes off the rails. The first thing the Leader does is use a big ray gun to turn Banner back into the Hulk. Which does ruin Banner’s wedding. But the Leader can’t control the rampaging Hulk. (The Leader is a super genius and should be smart enough to know that nobody can control Hulk when he’s rampaging.) The Leader can’t even control the rampaging Rhino, who is supposed to be working for him. The story ends with the Leader and Rhino both blowing up. I’m not going to say “both apparently dying in an explosion” because it’s one of those far away explosions that you know the bad guys survived one way or another.

Next time — Maybe I’ll do a fill-in issue next week!

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