MUERTOZ

Plot centers around Bruce Banner's childhood. The Hulk relives a particularly harrowing day in his past.This is the story of Banner's working-class, middle American childhood. In a mannered fantasy - Twilight Zone - tradition, The Hulk, when entering an abandoned house in refuge from a pressing military attack, relives the last days in his childhood home.

Thanksgiving Day 1950 was the day when his father, Tom Banner, a recent and embittered W.W. II veteran, turned on his family for the final irrevocable time.

Employing a battered and disconsolate childhood as the springboard for the modern-day Bruce Banner's anti-social and violent attitudes, the story explores the damage caused by mismatched parenthood and effects of the Second World War on the heart and mind of the veteran Tom Banner.
Bruce Banner, an 11 year old in 1950, is represented as the full grown, seven foot Hulk throughout this fantasy. The story is called Thanksgiving and details the tensions the Banner household suffers when it becomes apparent that the family dinner, planned with eight relatives in mind, falls apart as one by one, brothers, sisters and in-laws cancel the visit with feeble excuses.

The truth is that Tom Banner has alienated his family with his explosive, argumentative temper.

It is of considerable importance to point out that this somewhat extraordinary story requires the use of what the comic book publishing world might consider profanity.

The terms I need to use in the script (all spouting from the paranoiac and drunken Tom Banner) are actually mild when paralleled to other - perhaps more sophisticated - media such as film, print and (at this date) television.

To cut to the quick: I need to employ the following terms:
Goddam
Bitch
Hall (as in "Like Hell you will")
Slut

These are comparatively mild terms, in my opinion. I've edited it down from stronger, more believable coinage.
The upshot is that for this story to have IMPACT, it must be published in the standard format (The Incredible Hulk) and without any special fanfare (I brought what could have been a 30-odd page story down to 22 for this very reason). Approval - within Marvel and to the satisfaction of the Comics Code Authority - is paramount and I'm prepared to offer any raison d'etre if it isn't apparent.

This story is about parent abuse and childhood trauma, which is an important issue. I believe that by sliding the topic into a regular comic book involving an established Marvel Comics character, a greater, more significant understanding of the idea can be achieved. This as opposed to (I feel inclined to suggest) the Spider-Man/Drugs issues of a decade ago that, due to their pre-publicity and etc., were ultimately regarded as hype for a medium that needed attention and was asking for recognition as a relevant form of art.