TITLE: The Incredible vol. 1, issue #235
YEAR: May 1979
COMPANY: Marvel Comics
Written by Roger Stern
Art by Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito
Lettered by John Costanza
Colored by G. Roussos
Edited by Al Milgrom
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
Back in “The Incredible Hulk” issue #131, the comic introduced Frederick Sloan, a friend of Trish Starr, niece of Dr. Elihas Starr a.k.a. “Egghead”.
Frederick is a friend of the Hulk and word got out that Machine Man had kidnapped Trish Starr and now Frederick Sloan and the Hulk are headed to Central City.
But this has been a ploy of Mr. Jackson, who concocted this plan to get back at the Hulk and Machine Man for interfering with corporate business and he is the one responsible for kidnapping Trish Starr.
The two are headed to a home given to them by Machine Man, meanwhile Machine Man is heading to the same home and sure enough, it leads to a brawl between the Hulk vs. Machine Man.
For the most part, I felt that Machine Man’s appearance was built to promote Machine Man’s presence in the Marvel Universe and his comic book. What best way than to show Machine Man taking on the green goliath.
Granted, I think it’s quite evident how this was going to end up and I don’t think anyone would think Machine Man even had a chance (Machine Man was in pieces but his programming allowed his bodyparts to come back together). But nonetheless, things were set in motion for possibly another confrontation, as Machine Man is worried about his friend Peter and the Hulk is seen going after him.
It was an OK issue, Machine Man was no doubt a favorite growing up but looking back now, his popularity didn’t last all that long. And more or less, he became a forgetful character, which was a shame considering how Marvel really went out to promote the character during the ’70s and ’80s.
But I read that the character made his return several years ago and got into an altercation with Red She-Hulk and worked with Red Hulk.