Incredible Hulk #36

Name: Incredible Hulk #36
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Mar 2002 · Marvel · 2.25 USD; 3.50 CAD

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“The Gang's All Here!”

★ 1st appearance — Sandra Verdugo

About this Issue

Incredible Hulk #36 — titled 'The Gang's All Here!' — is the pivotal third chapter of Bruce Jones's 'Return of the Monster' arc, and the issue where Jones's conspiracy-thriller reinvention of the Hulk mythology fully snaps into gear. It delivers the first appearances of Sandra Verdugo and Jink Slater — two assassins dispatched by the shadowy organization Home Base — as well as the first proper introduction of Home Base itself as an active antagonist force, laying the structural groundwork for a story that would run for another three dozen issues. Jones's approach, which stripped away traditional superhero bombast in favor of a fugitive thriller that kept Banner on the run and morally imperiled, represented one of the more ambitious tonal departures in the character's four-decade history, drawing conscious parallels to the paranoid atmosphere of the 1970s television series. The issue is also notable as the formal debut of Sandra Verdugo, a character whose regenerative biology and connection to Doc Samson would become one of the long arc's most emotionally resonant subplots.

writer Bruce Jones · artist John Romita Jr. · inker Tom Palmer · colorist Studio F · letterer Richard Starkings · letterer Wes Abbott · letterer Comicraft · cover Kaare Andrews

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History

By 2001, the Incredible Hulk title had cycled through several writers since Peter David's celebrated departure in 1998 and was struggling creatively and commercially. Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who had previously worked with Bruce Jones at DC Comics, recruited Jones — a veteran horror-comics writer best known for his work at Warren Publishing's Creepy and Eerie magazines — to take over scripting with issue #34. Jones partnered with penciler John Romita Jr., who had returned to the title after a prior arc, and inker Tom Palmer, with covers supplied by Kaare Andrews throughout the opening run. The resulting 'Return of the Monster' arc was edited by Axel Alonso alongside associate editor John Miesegaes, and the approach — decompressed, thriller-inflected storytelling foregrounding Banner over the Hulk — quickly reversed the book's sales trajectory.

Trivia · 9 facts

First appearance of Sandra Verdugo (also credited as Sandy Verdugo), a former Special Forces agent and Home Base operative with superhuman regenerative powers, whose 15 total appearances across the Jones run make her one of that era's most significant new Hulk supporting characters.
First appearance of mercenary/assassin Jink Slater, recruited by Home Base alongside Verdugo to track and capture Bruce Banner.
First full appearance of Home Base as an active on-panel organization — the shadowy conspiracy that serves as the central antagonist of the entire Jones run (issues #34–76).
Written by Bruce Jones with interior art by John Romita Jr. (pencils) and Tom Palmer (inks); colored by Studio F; lettered by Richard Starkings, Wes Abbott, and Comicraft; cover painted by Kaare Andrews.
Issue title is 'The Gang's All Here!' — the third chapter of the six-issue 'Return of the Monster' story arc (issues #34–39).
The issue was released in January 2002 (cover-dated March 2002) under editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, with Axel Alonso as series editor.
Reprinted in the 'Incredible Hulk: Return of the Monster' trade paperback (July 2002, collecting #34–39), in Marvel Must Haves: Incredible Hulk #34–36 (2003), and later in the 'Hulk: Return of the Monster' premiere hardcover edition (2012) and the full-run omnibus collecting #34–76.
Under the Marvel Legacy renumbering system, this issue corresponds to the legacy number Incredible Hulk #510.
Sandra Verdugo's arc ultimately revealed that Ricky Myers — the boy the Hulk is falsely accused of murdering — is actually her son and Doc Samson's biological child, making her first appearance in this issue the foundational moment for one of the run's key emotional threads.