Incredible Hulk #228 (1978)
by Roger Stern, Peter Gillis & Sal Buscema
cover by Herb Trimpe
Who would’ve thought that the fanservice henchwoman of a terrible Captain America story would show up again to become one of the best Marvel villains?
For complicated reasons, the Hulk is currently staying at Gamma Base. But not as a prisoner as you might expect: psychiatrist superhero Doc Samson is running experiments to test both his strength and his mind.
Obviously General Ross isn’t particularly happy about keeping the Hulk around, especially since Doc Samson’s attempts to cure him are publicly known to be failures.
And that’s when a familiar face shows up, volunteering her services.
This is when we learn her full name. She claims her father is a famous doctor (another psychiatrist?) but future stories will establish he’s a butler.
It would be 100% in-character for her to lie about this.
Having the Hulk in an ordinary environment will always be funny to me.
Dr. Sofen easily gains the trust of the Gamma Base personnel. This is attributed to her skills as a master manipulator, but… she’s a good looking woman in a military base, in an era when only men served… is it really THAT difficult?
She immediately shows she has powers: shooting lasers and flight. And those are FAR from her only powers.
She makes it to her target undetected, but the Hulk trips an alarm by wandering out of his room.
That’s when Dr. Sofen shows off the third power we see: intangibility.
This is first look at The Moonstone, in her AWESOME original costume!
Not only female supervillains were still rare in 1978, but most of them were still either in the “femme fatale” category or had passive powers.
Moonstone, on the other hand, is a real powerhouse right from the start!
Still… IT’S THE HULK, so she can’t win this through brute force alone.
This is where Moonstone REALLY shines: she THE best at manipulating people.
But, again: IT’S THE HULK. Manipulation only gets you so far.
In her defense, she keeps her cool during the fight: her strategy is to constantly switch between showing different emotions, so that the Hulk won’t have any clues on how to deal with her.
However she takes it too far, telling the Hulk that his lost love Jarella hated him.
Jarella was the green-skinned princess of a sub-atomic realm (comics, everybody!) who was dead at the time. I’m not exactly sure HOW Moonstone knows about Jarella: I’m pretty sure her existence wasn’t publicly known.
Well maybe touching the “dead love interest” button on the unstoppable rage monster wasn’t a great idea.
Incredible Hulk #228 (1978)
by Roger Stern & Sal Buscema
cover by Dave Cockrum & Herb Trimpe
Either Moonstone reverted to her human form when she was knocked out by the Hulk, or she did it on purpose to avoid being a target. Knowing her, the second is not entirely out of the question.
The Hulk is surprisingly reasonable in this period. Possibly because he’s been stuck in this form for a while without turning back into Bruce Banner.
She COULD manipulate Doc Samson into believing she’s innocent, but an explosion is a faster distraction.
This is SOMEHOW happening in front of a bunch of journalists, and so we have to deal with something that rarely shows up in Hulk stories: public relations!
This shows another side of Moonstone: for a master manipulator who typically keeps her head straight, she can be surprisingly petty.
The only reason she picks on the Hulk is professional jealousy towards Doc Samson!!!
It doesn’t take much to make the Hulk angry because, well, HE’S THE HULK.
Then something TRULY unexpected happens: Moonstone pretending to be a hero to better manipulate people for her own personal goals!
I’m sure that won’t happen again.
Her ACTUAL goal is to make the Hulk fight Doc Samson…
…while she watches the fight. Not sure why she doesn’t take the opportunity to go back to stealing the military secrets she was originally after.
This is where we learn her story. Not only she used to work for Faustus as we’ve seen, but she’s also related to another Captain America villain: the little known original Moonstone.
I considered reviewing the original Moonstone’s first appearance… but while he appeared in a very well-written run, he’s not particularly interesting on his own. In fact, his ONLY real claim to fame is getting his powers stolen by the second Moonstone.
The original Moonstone supposedly dies when he gives the magic space moon rock to Dr. Sofen. There’ll be a couple of attempts to resurrect him, but he’s so boring when compared to her that it never sticks.
Doc Samson doesn’t last long against the Hulk because, well HE’S THE HULK, so Moonstone is still in the game. And to her credit, she’s seriously trying!
She has forgotten Rule #2 of fighting the Hulk: DON’T MAKE HIM ANGRY.
For the record, Rule #1 of fighting the Hulk: DON’T.
Another aspect of Moonstone’s personality that shows up for her very first storyline is that she’s incredibly ruthless, immediately jumping to giving General Ross a mental breakdown.
Then again, General Ross had been psychotic for ages.
Just in case the entire theme behind having Moonstone fighting the Hulk wasn’t clear enough: SHE is the monster here.
She DID manage to completely ruin the Hulk’s life. Which usually isn’t very hard, but he was in a good place at the time.
Incredible Hulk #230 (1978)
by Elliot S. Maggin & Jim Mooney
This issue’s main plot has basically nothing to do with the previous storyline. It’s about an alien kidnapping the Hulk to save his planet, because comics.
Dr. Sofen is still hanging around Gamma Base, and her being Moonstone is still a secret.
Incredible Hulk #231 (1979)
by Roger Stern & Sal Buscema
This one ALSO has little to do with the previous plot, being mostly about the Hulk befriending some guy.
But it’s where we meet Senator Stivak, the US Senator who secretly belongs to the criminal organization known as The Corporation that hired Moonstone.
You mean to tell me a US Senator has been *gasp* corrupted!?
Incredible Hulk #232 (1979)
by Roger Stern & Sal Buscema
After a crossover with Captain America… where Moonstone didn’t get to do anything… she’s unceremoniously knocked out by the Hulk in a single blow.
Can you blame Moonstone for getting away as fast as possible?
Historical significance: 4/10
Moonstone is a GREAT villain, but you can mostly skip her appearances before she joins the Masters of Evil and lose very little.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
The idea of curing the Hulk being televised is AMAZING.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
The proper Moonstone storyline is great, although it loses some points for fizzling out. She really didn’t need to be connected to the whole Corporation plot: she doesn’t get to do ANYTHING in that part of the plot, which is why I skipped it.
How close is this to the modern character? 8/10
She’s surprisingly close! It’s incredible to see that her pretending to be a hero for her own goals was there right from the start. And she’s already a great manipulator, although she’s obviously still a rookie and has a long way to go.
Moonstone’s following appearance is a minor one in 1981, in Spectacular Spider-Man #61.
If that sounds random, it’s another Roger Stern story.
Her graduation to be an A-lister villain was her joining the Masters of Evil in the “The trial of Hank Pym” storyline.
That’s when I first saw her, and she definitely left an impression. You rarely see such manipulative but at the same time pragmatic villains.
Her best storyline in her villain phase was unquestionably “Under Siege”, deservedly considered one of the best Avengers storylines EVER.
Moonstone is AWESOME there. She’s constantly fighting Baron Zemo for the leadership role AND for the mental control over the very mentally unstable, and very powerful, Blackout.
She would bounce all over the place (we’ve seen her fight Dazzler and Volcana, respectively between and after the above stories) until her REAL claim to fame: joining the Thunderbolts.
The revelation that the brand new superheroes showing up after Onslaught were actually the Masters of Evil in disguise is regarded as one of the best executed plot twists of the last thirty years. Interestingly, Moonstone already knew several of them from the previous incarnations: Baron Zemon, Beetle and Goliath were her old teammates.
Her time in the Thunderbolts was QUITE a rollercoaster. She alternated between being a villain who fakes being a hero to an anti-hero who fakes being a hero.
She even had a relationship with Hawkeye!
But she’s been part of the Dark Avengers taking both the Miss Marvel AND the Captain Marvel codename…
…in addition to taking her heroic Meteorite identity a couple of times.
So who is Moonstone today? She’s been everything from villain, to anti-villain, to anti-hero to hero and everything inbetween. So nobody really knows.
Which might be her greatest strength as a character.
