In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at odd comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.

Today, we're going to look at one of those classic plot points that I like to call Whateverisms. Whateverisms are stuff that occur early in the days of Marvel Comics where Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko clearly weren't putting too much thought into the future of these properties (and rightly so, of course, as who would ever think that people would be still paying attention to these things over 50 years later!) so you got a lot of plot points that just seemed like the creators were saying, "Whatever, who cares?"

So drastically different powers, drastically different personalities, they were all in play in the early days.

In Incredible Hulk #3, during a point where Rick Jones also briefly controlled the Hulk's thoughts (also something that was introduced and dropped pretty quickly), the Hulk gets away by, well, just outright FLYING...

Notice that the dialogue even notes how this is a new development. Plus, of course, the fact that they ADVERTISE this new power on the cover!

However, you can tell that they just decided, "Nah," because the very next issue explicitly points out that the Hulk CANNOT fly...

I love how much freedom they had back then that they could just toss out major new powers and then walk them back the very next issue.

Okay, that's it for this installment! If anyone else has a suggestion of a plot point that was quickly ignored by everyone else, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!