Cosmo Digital

      This is another one of those comics which I have been desiring to purchase for some time, after hearing about it on the internet. This issue I have specifically been wanting to read through, primarily for my Honors Thesis. Hulk #23 is the infamous Hulk rape issue, where he is almost raped in the YMCA showers by a group of gay men. Having heard about this and having seen a couple scans on the Livejournal Community Scans_Daily, I was determined to track this issue down.

That proved rather easy to do. I did look at my local comic book store, but did not find anything. I did find it at MileHighComics.com, but the listed price was fourteen dollars. I was not about to spend fourteen dollars on a comics, when the scans of the relevant pages were already available online. So I spent the next several months playing the waiting game, keeping my money until the price of the comic dropped into a reasonable range. At one time the cost was lowered to ten dollars, and I agonized for several days whether to buy it or not. Ultimately the choice was taken out of my hands, as the price increased back to fourteen dollars before I could make a decision.

Two weeks ago, however, everything changed. I looked at the issue on MileHighComics.com yet again, and discovered to my utmost shock and suprise that the price had been lowered to four dollars and eighty cents! Now this was a price I was willing to pay! However, I could not buy just this issue. Since I live rather close to Mile High Comics' main warehouse, I refuse on principle to pay the four dollars shipping and handling. However, in order to get around this cost, I would have to buy over forty dollars of comics in order to qualify for the free shipping option. This proved to be beneficial, for I came across a coupon code that would take forty percent off my order, which allowed me to purchase far more comics than I otherwise would have. I ended up buying seventy dollars worth of comics for only forty-three dollars. Thus, factoring in the discount, I only paid two dollars and eighty eight cents for this fourteen dollar comic.

Much like Excalibur: Weird War III, this comic is in the larger "magazine" format. It is too large to fit in any of my boxes, and thus sits on my bookshelves next to Weird War III. It is 64 pages long, and is actually comprised of three separate stories. The story of interest, however, is the main one, titled "A Very Personal Hell", and was written by Jim Shooter, who was also the Editor-In-Chief of Marvel at the time. This story is certainly aimed towards adults, since it deals with a plethora of adult subject matter. Included are homelessness, drug abuse, drug addiction, single parenting, domestic violence, suicide, prostitution, and at least one or two others I can't remember offhand. This comic is certainly not for children. However, the gem of this comic is when Bruce Banner decided to take a shower at the YMCA, and encounter's two other men. Realizing that he is about to be raped, Bruce manages to talk his way out of the situation, and runs outside. His horror and revulsion at these two men makes Bruce change into the Hulk, who immediately goes on a rampage.

While the scene is rather short and other matters take precedence, it is of great importance. This is one of the first portrayals of homosexual characters within superhero comic books. However, instead of showing homosexuality in a positive or neutral light, this scene makes gay men out to be sexual predators. Sadly, this scene is typical of Marvel's callous treatment of gay people. The only other portrayal of a gay person during the 1980s was Alpha Flight's Northstar, who was clearly intended to be gay, even though he did not officially "come out" until the early 1990s. Under writer Bill Mantlo, Northstar was slated to die of AIDS in issue 50, although this plotline was scrapped and he was instead revealed to be afflicted by some type of fairy curse. Even throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Marvel basically ignored the fact that gay people existed, and some of the most recent comics with gay characters (Young Avengers) ignite a storm of controversy. All this can be traced back to this Hulk issue.

Finishing this issue, I noticed that there was a letters page. I am particularly interested in fan letters about this issue, to see if there is any negative fan reaction at all to this scene. However, if I decide to buy the subsequent Hulk issues to search for letters, it will be at a distant time in the future.

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