Welcome to the 883rd installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. This time, our first legend is about how close we came to a Mike Wieringo/Todd Dezago Incredible Hulk run.
In 1996, Marvel introduced a new creative team for Sensational Spider-Man, a book that had launched as a Dan Jurgens written/drawn series that also launched Ben Reilly as the new Spider-Man (along with a brand-new costume). There were a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on at the Spider-Man offices at the time and Jurgens obviously didn't last long, so in Sensational Spider-Man #8, a new creative team was named of writer Todd Dezago and artists Mike Wieringo and Richard Case...
One of the things that Dezago would do on the series was to sort of cater the book to whatever Weiringo wanted to draw, as Wieringo was a big pull for Marvel at the time, having just come over from DC, where he had had an acclaimed run on Flash and a run on Robin, one of DC's more popular series. 'Ringo liked to draw the Hulk, and so the Hulk guest-starred in a couple of issues...
and Weiringo drew him well...
As it turned out, he apparently made a strong enough impression that, for a moment, he and Dezago were named the replacement creative team on Incredible Hulk! Read on to see how it all went down!
How did Weiringo and Dezago almost become the creative team on the Hulk?
First, let's set the scene. The Dezago/Weiringo/Case run on Sensational Spider-Man ended with 1998's Sensational Spider-Man #31...
Dezago then wrote two more issues of Sensational that tied in with the crossover event, "The Gathering of the Five" that led to the Spider-Man titles all ending before a reboot where Howard Mackie would be the sole writer on just two ongoing Spider-Man titles, Amazing Spider-Man (with John Byrne) and Peter Parker: Spider-Man (with John Romita Jr.).
So that left Dezago and Weiringo in need of a new assignment, and that new assignment was nearly the Hulk.
Here, from TwoMorrows' Modern Masters Volume 9, is an interview about Wieringo's career conducted by Dezago (and Eric Nolen-Weathington) just a year before Wieringo's tragically untimely death.
Dezago: Should we talk about The Hulk?
Wieringo: Well, we can talk about the end of Sensational and the Hulk fiasco in the context of the tumultuous times at Marvel during those days when they were in the midst of their bankruptcy problems, which really caused havoc at all levels in the company and affected every one of us in some way. So, yeah...let's talk about it.
Dezago: It sucked.
Wieringo: {laughs] Yeah, it did. Very much. But that whole period was pretty chaotic. They canceled Sensational, and in the wake of that, Bob Harras decided that he wanted to install us as the creative team on Hulk. Tou'll have to correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong, but the Hulk editor, Bobbie Chase, didn't take too kindly to having her star writer, Peter David, yanked from her control and having a new creative crew foisted on her. I don't think she cared so much about me being on the book...but I think she had issues with you. And things just didn't work out between the two of you. So I ultimately declined to work on the book as well, because I had no idea who the new writer would ultimately be, and I didn't want to be in the middle of all that political stuff anyways. That led to a whole series of aborted projects.
Dezago: Actually, I was fairly good friends with Bobbie Chase, and we were in constant contact through this whole debacle. As it went, Bob Harras felt that Peter had been on The Hulk too long, solid sales and stories notwithstanding, and ordered Bobbie to give him his walking papers. Bobbie and Peter had had a long and comfortable run - and friendship - on this book and this was the first time that Bob had steamrolled over Bobbie - something he had been doing with more and more frequency over the past few months. Before Bobbie had even talked to Peter, Bob had given the book to us. I suddenly found myself caught in a power struggle between the editor and the editor-in-chief. Bobbie called me, a few times in years, to tell me she really didn't know what to do. She was going to quit. She resented everything about this. I tried to get them on the same page, but Bob would tell me one thing and Bobbie another. I told Bobbie that, to make things easier, I would remove myself from the situation. Out of solidarity, you came with us. Three weeks later, Bobbie was gone and Bob Harras gave the book to somebody else.
Joe Casey and Ed McGuinness ended up taking over the book briefly from Peter David before it relaunched with a new series by John Byrne and Ron Garney.
What is Peter David's side of things?
Just for fun, here's Peter David explaining his side of his firing to Entertainment Weekly ten years ago:
I actually didn’t know I was going to be leaving The Incredible Hulk when I did go. What happened was that my editor at the time, Bobbie Chase (also now at DC, go figure) had suggested — when we were kicking around future plot directions — that I kill off the Hulk’s wife, Betty Banner. Betty had always been my wife’s favorite character and because of that I’d always sworn nothing bad would happen to her. But then my wife left me so that she could go off and do other things like, I dunno, not be married to me. On that basis, Betty’s safety measure was gone. When Bobbie suggested we plug her, I said, “Sure, why not?” So I killed her off. This got Marvel all excited. See, when I’d started on the book and, over years, doubled sales on it, it caused people to suddenly start paying attention. With the death of Betty, this prompted Marvel to have a Brilliant Idea. Mourning the loss of his wife, the Hulk would now go dead silent, stop talking to anyone, and run around the Marvel universe smashing everything in sight.
When I was told the new plan, I objected. I told them it was out of character with the psychologically complex giant I’d created over the years. I said I wouldn’t write that. And the editorial higher-ups (none of whom still work for the company) said that I shouldn’t hesitate to avoid having the door hit me on the way out. And that was that. After twelve years, I was gone.
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