The Hulk/Alpha Flight Crossover That Crossed Over Creators, Too!

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Aug 31, 2018

In their latest spotlight on clever shared comic universe continuity, CSBG shows us a Hulk/Alpha Flight crossover that led to swapped creative teams!

In "Our Lives Together," I spotlight some of the more interesting examples of shared comic book universes. You know, crossovers that aren't exactly crossovers.

Reader cjju72 suggested this one, which is SLIGHTLY more of a real crossover than a typical example of a story in this feature, but generally speaking it still counts for the purposes of this column, especially the aspect of the story that ended up with the creative teams on the two books swapping titles with each other!

Okay, to set the scene, it turned out that Alpah Flight member Walter Langkowski's Sasquatch body was actually that of the Great Beast of the North known as Tanaraq (don't you just hate when that happens?) and since that meant only bad news for Earth, Sasquatch's teammate, Snowbird, was forced to kill his body. Luckily, since this was all sorts of a magical situation, his spirit was able to be rescued. The only problem is that they had no place to put his spirit. Eventually, Roger Bochs, the creator of the powerful armor, Box, came up with a way to scope through different dimensions to find a suitable body for Sasquatch.

In Alpha Flight #28, the final issue of John Byrne's run on the series (inks by Keith Williams), it appears as though they have finally found one. It appears as though there is an almost mindless body out there that would be perfect for Walter to take over. So they set out an energy tendril to bring the body back to Earth and after a notable delay, they brought the body through, with the intention of it now being controlled by Langkowski's spirit.

Instead, it was the Hulk!!

To set things up a bit, Bruce Banner had finally taken full control of the Hulk's body and he was doing great with it. He got a Presidential pardon and even was offered to rejoin the Avengers. He turned them down so that he could spend more time working as a scientist again, as he no longer had to worry about turning into the Hulk and then going off on a rampage. However, sadly, things did not go so well as the evil Nightmare began to mess with Banner's mind. Eventually, he made it so that Banner's mind was almost detached from the Hulk. The Hulk was now practically mindless and went on a devastating rampage that not even the combined might of nearly every superhero on the East Coast could stop him. So Doctor Strange came up with the solution to send him to another dimensional crossroads, where he would be lost forever and no longer a threat to Earth.

Well, Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola and Gerry Talaoc (the creative team of the Incredible Hulk) took the Hulk all over the place on all sorts of dimensional adventures. Things changed, though, when he met the spirit of Walter Langkowski!

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='The%20Hulk%20Comes%20Home!']

In Incredible Hulk #313 (by Mantlo, Mignola and Talaoc), the Hulk finds himself possessed by Langkowski's spirit and Bruce Banner's submerged mind is thrilled - he would love to see Walter take over, but that is not to be...

The energy tendrils come again, dragging the Hulk back to Alpha Flight...

Okay, from this point on, it's more of a traditional crossover between Hulk #313 and Alpah Flight #29, but I think that Hulk #313/Alpha Flight #28 is a better example of this particular thing, where we got two sides of the same story in different titles.

Alpha Flight #29 is its own thing, though, but the big twist, of course, was that Byrne was now the writer/artist on Hulk and Mantlo and Mignola moved over to Alpha Flight as of #29, the final part of this story!