156: Incredible Hulk parody

from “Mad Magazine” January 1979
written by Lou Silverstone, drawn by Angelo Torres

Here we have some pertinent excerpts from a parody of “The Incredible Hulk” TV series. The mild-mannered nebbishy David Banner is the necessary alter-ego of the non-stop rage machine that is The Hulk. “Mad” takes this one step further by running a series of gags making him so un-masculine as to appear possibly gay. However their idea of gay (and this is by the late 70s mind you) is an uninspired representation of a transvestite in an old lady’s clothes. By this time it really can’t be denied the “Mad” crew of writers were a rather middle-aged bunch of old farts.
This strip also highlights the strange belief American have that “Bruce” is an essentially gay name. The TV producers had indeed changed the TV version’s name from “Bruce” to “David”, possibly because of homosexual overtones. Here though, they undercut this assumption with the gag about the athlete Bruce Jenner.