The Incredible Hulk #314
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThe Incredible Hulk #314 marks the opening chapter of one of the most discussed — and most abruptly curtailed — creative handoffs in Bronze Age Marvel history: John Byrne's takeover as sole writer and artist on a title that had spent years marooned in inter-dimensional exile. Byrne's deliberate 'back-to-basics' philosophy — anchoring the Hulk in the American Southwest, stripping away the cosmic-fantasy scaffolding of Bill Mantlo's Crossroads era, and substituting Doc Samson for the Army as the Hulk's relentless pursuer — reset the character's emotional register almost overnight. The issue also seeds the plot engine that would drive the entire short-lived run: Doc Samson's clinical obsession with separating Bruce Banner and the Hulk into two distinct physical beings, a concept executed in #315 that briefly gave readers a Banner finally free of his monstrous alter ego. Because Byrne was forced off the title after only six regular issues, #314 functions as the tantalizing first page of an unfinished novel — a 'what might have been' that fans and historians have revisited ever since, and that directly set the table for Peter David's celebrated multi-year reinvention of the character beginning with #331.
In "Call of the Desert," the Hulk returns to Earth after an interdimensional journey, only to find himself met with suspicion and hostility. Tricked by Doc Samson’s illusions of his greatest enemies, the Hulk is forced into a brutal confrontation that tests his strength and resolve. Written and illustrated by John Byrne, with inks by Bob Wiacek and colors by Andy Yanchus, this 1985 issue features a striking cover by Byrne, capturing the tension between the Hulk and his pursuer.
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The creative swap that produced #314 was a piece of deliberate Marvel architecture: Byrne, having exhausted his Alpha Flight ideas after 28 issues, suggested to editor-in-chief Jim Shooter that the Hulk had drifted too far from its core premise and needed a course correction; Shooter liked the pitch enough to facilitate a full creative-team exchange, moving Byrne to Hulk and sending Bill Mantlo and Mike Mignola to Alpha Flight as of that book's #29 — meaning the handoff was literally embedded inside a crossover story. The issue was edited by Denny O'Neil, and the letters page carries a note from Byrne, O'Neil, and editor Don Daley in lieu of the traditional reader letters. Byrne's run ended after just six issues (#314–319) when, according to accounts from multiple parties including Byrne himself and Jim Shooter's later blog posts, a completed Hulk story drawn entirely in full-page splash panels was rejected at the editorial level — Byrne attributed the rejection to Shooter, while Shooter later indicated that O'Neil pulled the issue preemptively out of concern about editorial fallout; that rejected story ultimately appeared in Marvel Fanfare #29.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated December 1985 (on-sale December 10, 1985); published by Marvel Comics under the editorial oversight of Denny O'Neil.
- First issue of John Byrne's run on the series, with Byrne handling both script and pencils — a complete creative handoff from the Mantlo/Mignola era that had held the title since the Crossroads storyline (#301–313).
- Story titled 'Call of the Desert,' structured in three chapters plus an interlude, and picked up directly from the cliffhanger of Alpha Flight #29, the final chapter of the Crossroads crossover that returned the Hulk to Earth.
- The Hulk's hallucination sequence features illusory versions of Juggernaut, M.O.D.O.K., the Rhino, the Abomination, and the Leader — used by Doc Samson to exhaust the Hulk and render him unconscious, setting up the Banner/Hulk separation arc in #315.
- Doc Samson's in-issue recap retells the Hulk's gamma-bomb origin as originally depicted in Incredible Hulk #1, deliberately omitting the Russian spy Igor Drenkov for narrative pacing.
- Betty Ross's new boyfriend Ramon Morales makes his first appearance; an unnamed woman shown reacting to news of the Hulk's return also debuts (identified via the interlude 'Life Among the Fallen'), planting story threads Byrne intended to develop across his run.
- Inked by Bob Wiacek; colored by Andy Yanchus; lettered by Rick Parker. The issue exists in Direct Edition, Newsstand, and Canadian cover-price variants.
- The issue has been reprinted multiple times: in The Incredible Hulk Megazine #1 (1996), a Marvel Legends Reprint edition (2002), Incredible Hulk Visionaries: John Byrne (2008), the Marvel Universe by John Byrne Omnibus (2016), and the Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Vol. 14: Going Gray (2020), as well as several international editions including French, Italian, Norwegian, and Spanish printings.
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Reprints
Reprinted in L'incroyable Hulk #174 (1986), Marvel Super-Heroes Omnibus #[nn] (1987), Marvel Superheltene #3/1988 (1988), Fantastici Quattro #4 (1989), Fantastici Quattro #20 (1990), Fantastici Quattro #21 (1990), Marvel Super-Heroes Megazine #1 (1994), The Incredible Hulk Megazine #1 (1996), Hulk: ¡Libertad! #[nn] (1998), The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 No. 314 [Marvel Legends Reprint] #314 (2002), Incredible Hulk Visionaries: John Byrne #[nn] (2008), Marvel Universe by John Byrne Omnibus #[1] (2016), 100% Marvel HC. El Increíble Hulk de John Byrne #[nn] (2017), Incredible Hulk Epic Collection #14 (2020), Alpha Flight #27, Alpha Flight #28, Coleccionable El Increíble Hulk #1, ComicOrama Jumbo des Super-Heros #282, De verbijsterende Hulk Special #15, Der unglaubliche Hulk #19, Marvels universum #9/1987
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