I loved this series growing up as a kid. The Hulk always appealed to me because I was a little fat kid who wanted to be 8ft tall, made of nuclear muscle and able to smash anything that pissed me off with a single wave of my hand. I was a very angry child for some reason, which is odd considering you'd think I was happy what with all that food I was eating... Anyway, I liked the live action show too, but I watched reruns of this cartoon every week like clockwork, and then I'd go to Victory Video with my parents and I'd rent the VHS tapes and watch them all weekend until they had to go back. Every other weekend was an Incredible Hulk marathon in my home... though I think you need more than just the same four episodes playing in a loop for something to technically be a marathon, but who's nitpicking.
As our narrator Stan Lee informs us, sometimes the sun gets pissed off and showers the Earth with it's golden rays of radiation... yes, feel free to make the usual "golden shower" joke, cuz I did the same. Anyway, on one particularly pissy day, the sun decides to down a bottle of Wild Turkey, put on its favorite soiled wife beater, and go all Tennessee Williams on the planet. The shower of cosmic radiation not only reeks havoc on the latest experiment by Dr. Bruce Banner and his girlfriend/lab assistant Betty Ross (causing Banner to at one point leap through the air and swing around on a ventilation duct like a lemur on crack), but also catches the attention of Spider-Man's arch-nemesis Doctor Octopus!... who sounds like a Scottish version of Starscream after a bag of cough drops.
Meanwhile, the radiation has also fucked up things for a guy named Rio, who looks like an out-of-shape Dr. Strange with a bad Mexican accent. Just as a famous fast food owner is about to tell a reporter the secret of her success, Rio's own food shack ("Rio's Ranchero") loses its power. Meanwhile, Rio's Ranchero employee Rick Jones (who dresses like a country music hack here, complete with cowboy hat and "button up shirt with vest" combination) notices from the restaurant's vantage point that the nearby military installation (which would be an easy target for any terrorists with rocket launchers and a taste for refried beans...) is also on the blink. Concerned for his his pals Bruce and Betty, Rick ditches work and heads down to visit. No sooner does he show up then it looks like Dr. B is on the verge of Hulking out, either because of the solar radiation or because his confused emotions for the be-hatted Rick have sent his heart racing.
While Banner has Rick hit him with knock out gas to avoid any unwanted property damage, Doc Ock makes his big move. While what looks like Aurora Borealis dances in the sky above the base, Ock flies overhead in his big phallic spaceship looking thing (with large metal tentacles to provide what looks like pubic hair around the testicle section), sending down a crew of four minions in parachutes wielding "paralysis beams" to overtake the entire base during the confusion. Of course they succeed, proving that it takes less guys then there are fingers on my hand (or the same amount of guys as there are toes on my foot) to subdue an entire US military base... provided there's also a conveniently placed stray cat to provide a distraction here and there.
Afraid that he'll turn into the Hulk again while at the base, Banner and Rick flee the scene. An army truck gives chase, bringing about the Hulk who sends the leathernecks packing. Meanwhile, after Ock conquers the base with his four goons (a feat which Betty's dad General Ross chalks up to no doubt being Banner's fault, going so far as to call the good doctor a spy), Rick goes back to Rio's to pick up some food for Banner, who secludes himself in a nearby cave so the Hulk can't escape to cause more damage. While there it turns out that Rio's daughter Rita went to the base to find Rick and also wound up Doc Ock's prisoner. Now Rick and Rio need to get into the base to save everyone and stop Doc Ock from unleashing a DNA ray that will turn every human being on Earth into rejects from Quasimodo's family reunion. While Rick jumps two of the goons and saves Rita and General Ross, Rio takes out Doc Ock's kitchen staff with an electric fan and a jar of black pepper, then proceeds to poison the rest of the goons by giving them his shitty Mexican food for breakfast. Wow.
Of course Ock still manages to evade capture and almost succeeds with his plan... if only Banner hadn't been watching via surveillance cameras from his secret cave lair. Banner of course becomes the Hulk, escapes, heads back to the base and proceeds to show Doc 'Pus why he should've stayed over at the Spider-Man cartoon. Big Green then proceeds to stop Ock's launching rocket ship by throwing himself at it. No, he doesn't jump on it, he just throws his body at the ship and bounces off of it, dinging it off course and sending it into the ground... I'm going to just start throwing myself at my problems and hope my girth somehow manages to break whatever's causing them.
Despite the inclusion of an established Marvel villain (seriously, the Hulk had so few that the writers always had to bring in other heroes' enemies to cause him trouble), this episode wasn't as fun to watch as it looked on paper. The Hulk vs. Doc Ock can be interesting, but not when the so-called genius of the two is busy running around with his steel tentacles up his ass while his men are being poisoned by a fat Doctor Strange look alike and shitty Mexican food. Ironically enough, this episode's writer (Michael Reaves) also wrote several episodes of "Monster", though not the episode that I review last week... thus making it somewhat less ironic... hmmmm, that in itself is kinda ironic... right? I'm starting to see why nobody reads this website...
Moral of the Story: I don't know! I still have no idea what the fuck this episode has to do with the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, let alone what kind of moral to attach to it!
