The Marvel Super Heroes · Season 1 · Episode 8
Terror of the Toadmen / Bruce Banner: Wanted for Treason / Hulk Runs Amok
Synopsis
Bruce Banner and Rick Jones begin the construction of a refuge for the Hulk, a concrete vault in the depths of the Earth. Bruce asks Rick to lock him inside at every twilight. The ritual doesn't even make it one night when a tractor beam seizes them in the cave from below. Captain Torrak and his Toad Men haul Banner and Jones into orbit, hungry for the greatest mind on the planet. Banner will not talk. The invaders fling Rick back to Earth in a space cylinder and keep the scientist.
An American missile base spots the alien ship and fires. The ship crashes down, and the soldiers pull only Bruce Banner from the ruins. General Ross arrests him as a traitor.. naturally. Then, the full armada arrives. Torrak commandeers the world's airwaves and turns his magnetic beams on the Moon, dragging it toward Earth to split the planet open. When night finally reaches Banner's cell, The Hulk tears loose, deaf to the invasion, chasing only the general who caged him. He storms the Ross home and terrifies Betty before dawn drops him where he stands. Banner believes he has the solution as he powers up his own gamma ray gun, turns the Toad Men's magnetism back against them, and sends the armada spinning off into the void for all eternity.
Reality Designation
This story takes place outside the main Marvel continuity: 600026
Reality numbers are Marvel's official designations.
Where a universe has no official number we follow the Marvel Database and use its Temporary Reality Number (TRN-1092). Where there is neither — official or temporary — at the time we watch it, we assign a Snark Industries number of our own (SI-001).
Characters in the Episode
The mild mannered scientist that becomes the Hulking monster when night falls
Banner's loyal friend; jailer at the vault, thrown back to Earth by the aliens, holds off Ross at the climax.
Orders the alien ship destroyed, arrests Banner as a traitor, and clamors at the gun-room door.
Defends Banner to her father; cornered in her own home by the Hulk.
Commander of the Toad Men; broadcasts the surrender ultimatum and drives the Moon toward Earth.
In-Universe Date
Based solely off of the release date and the 'contemporary' setting.
Comic Roots
Where the episode's people and places come from on the page.
The Incredible Hulk #2, "The Terror of the Toad Men!" (cover-dated July 1962, on sale that May), by Stan Lee, penciler Jack Kirby, inker Steve Ditko, colorist Stan Goldberg, and letterer Artie Simek. This is the issue where the Hulk turned green. He debuted gray in #1, but the printer could not hold a consistent gray tone, so Lee moved him to green from #2 forward. The cartoon photocopies these very panels, which is why the giant arrives on screen already green rather than the muddy slate of his first outing.
The change runs on a clock, not a temper. In these earliest issues nightfall makes the Hulk and sunrise restores Banner, full stop, no rage required. That is the whole reason Banner pours a ten-foot vault and hands Rick the key at dusk. The famous gamma machine trigger does not arrive until #4, and the anger switch that everyone remembers is later still, a blood-pressure spike in Tales to Astonish #59 and true rage as the standard by #81. So the calm, calculating "lock me in before dark" logic on display is pure 1962 Hulk, a very different creature from the one who hates being made angry.
Recommended Reading
Where to go next if the episode left you wanting more.
The origin: the gamma bomb, Rick Jones, the gray skin, the nightfall change. The chapter that sets up everything happening now.
The direct source. First green Hulk, first Toad Men, first Captain Torrak, first gamma ray gun.
The Snark File
Easter eggs, callbacks and technical tidbits.
Hulk Carries Grudges From Bruce
It's remarkable how little the Hulk cares that the Moon is falling. He wants General Ross and nothing else. The planet is saved by the mild scientist and his ray gun the next morning, a odd hero structure for a monster show.
