Cover art by Gil Kane
Napalm is a chemically brewed compound consisting of twenty-five percent gasoline, twenty-five percent benzene, and fifty percent polystyrene. When ignited inside a bomb, the jelly-like substance burns at two thousand degrees Fahrenheit, sucking the oxygen out of the air and clinging to its surroundings, including human flesh. Napalm was used extensively during the Vietnam War to help clear jungle terrain, but with devasting repercussions. In 1967, Rampart magazine reported that at least one million Vietnamese children were casualties of the conflict, with napalm being the primary culprit.
The Dow Chemical Company opened its first napalm plant in 1965, and within a year was the sole supplier to the United States military. It also quickly found itself the target of antiwar protesters, especially on college campuses where the company conducted recruitment drives. The first confrontations occurred in October 1966 at the University of California, Berkeley and Wayne State University in Detroit, and within five months, forty-three additional anti-Dow protests had erupted across the country.
According to David Maraniss in his 2003 book They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, representatives from Dow visited the University of Wisconsin in February 1967. Protesters immediately surrounded the building where recruitment interviews were taking place, many of them carrying signs containing photographs featured in Rampart. A new campus policy had just been implemented, banning signs attached to sticks inside university buildings. When protesters tried to enter the facilities where the Dow representatives were located, three of them were arrested for violating the policy.
Another group of students blockaded the offices of University Chancellor Robben Fleming and Dean of Student Affairs Joseph Kauffman, demanding that Dow Chemical be banned from campus as long as it produced napalm. Although the situation was initially tense, both students and administrators retreated to an auditorium for a more civil discourse, with Fleming even writing a blank check as bail for those students arrested earlier in the day.
In August 1970, the Hulk ran into a group of protesting students at Desert State University. Captain Marvel #21 opens with Bruce Banner stumbling upon his teenage friend Rick Jones. After leaving Banner’s side years earlier, Jones briefly teamed with Captain America. When that didn’t work out, he found a pair of golden armbands in a cave. Jones discovered that by slamming the two armbands together, he could trade places with the alien superhero Mar-Vell, better known as Captain Marvel.
Mar-Vell is trapped in the Negative Zone, and although the armbands allow him to return to Earth, Rick Jones is sent the Negative Zone in his place for three hours before the effect wears off. Jones has thus been searching for Bruce Banner, hoping that the scientific genius can find a way to keep both Jones and Captain Marvel on Earth.
Banner decides to contact his old college professor Josiah Weller at Desert State University for assistance. The phone call initially goes unanswered – which worries Banner since Weller is almost always working in his lab – but just before disconnecting, the professor finally picks up. Although Weller remembers Banner, he insists it is not a good time for a visit.
“Well, for one thing, a rock just came hurtling thru my window,” he explains. “Some of the student radicals want an end to research on the campus, whether war-oriented or not. I’m virtually in a state of siege here.”
The Dow Chemical Company was again scheduled to visit the University of Wisconsin on October 17, 1967, and protesters were out early. Chants of “Down with Dow!” erupted at times, and some demonstrators even entered the Commerce Building and circled outside room 104, where interviews were taking place. At no point did they obstruct the entrance or interfere with the proceedings.
The next morning, an initial two hundred students congregated on the University of Wisconsin campus. They then split into two groups – one determined to disrupt the Dow Chemical interviews and the other willing to peacefully support their actions. At 10:50, protesters entered the Commerce Building and began clogging the halls leading to room 104.
In less than forty-five minutes, campus police chief Ralph Hanson found himself trapped inside Commerce. Realizing that the forty officers under his command were not sufficient to contain the crowd, he formally asked the Madison police department for assistance. Thirty officers were dispatched, dressed in full riot gear and equipped with billy clubs. By the time they arrived on campus, the crowd outside the Commerce Building had grown from a few hundred to over a thousand.
Chief Hanson was still hopeful that the situation could be defused without the use of force and asked the protesters to vacate the building in exchange for the Dow Chemical representative being escorted from the premises. Student leader Evan Stark replied that the protest wasn’t solely about that day’s recruitment interviews as the demonstrators also wanted Dow permanently banned from campus. Stark added that if Hanson removed his police officers from the building, student representatives would be willing to meet with university officials.
Hanson immediately agreed to the terms. New Chancellor William Sewell, however, refused to capitulate to Stark’s demands, maintaining that students would not dictate university policy through acts of intimidation. Once Stark left the meeting, Sewell announced that the situation was now a matter for the police to resolve, not the administration.
Hearing about the violent protest at Desert State University enrages Bruce Banner. “Those stupid young fools!” he shouts at Rick Jones. “Dr. Weller’s a prisoner in his own laboratory. The students think he’s engaged in germ warfare, or making death-rays. Don’t they know he has a weak heart, that a thing like this could kill him?” Jones, however, takes the side of the students, arguing that while the protesters may be wrong in targeting Weller, “they’re fightin’ for what they believe, and you gotta respect that!”
The words only further antagonize Banner. “It’s those kids, with their protesting, their rioting,” he keeps repeating to himself. “They’re menacing everything I’ve been slaving for! Bruce Banner can’t reach them, can’t make them pay for what they’re doing. No, Bruce Banner can’t – but the Hulk can!”
At the University of Wisconsin, campus police chief Ralph Hanson made one last plea for everyone to vacate Commerce. When that failed, the police moved in. The halls of the building were packed so tightly with protesting students, however, that none of the officers could gain footing, and when the crowd suddenly surged forward, it was the police who came tumbling out the doors.
After regrouping, the officers charged inside once again, this time with their billy clubs swinging. Others were able to grab the nearest protester and yank them out of the building, allowing more ground to be gained inside the hallway. Once the confrontation turned violent, many of the students found ways to sneak upstairs or out of the building, providing even more space for the police to enter.
The crowd outside the Commerce Building had by now grown close to five thousand. Many of them chanted “Sieg heil!” and a barrage of shoes, textbooks, and rocks were soon flying towards the police. It wasn’t until 4:45 – six hours after the first student protesters entered Commerce – that the crowd finally dispersed, with the police following shortly thereafter. Forty-seven students and nineteen police officers were taken to the hospital.
“Hulk will find them!” the Green Goliath declares regarding the protesting students at Desert State University. “Hulk will make them pay!” Realizing that someone has to stop the Hulk, Rick Jones smashes together his golden armbands and transforms into Captain Marvel. Although Mar-Vell is strong, he is no match for the Hulk, who swats him away and knocks him unconscious. When the superhero awakens, he hears a news report that the Hulk was spotted in the vicinity of the university.
At first, the protesters aren’t worried. “I’m tellin’ you people,” one of the students tells the others. “If the Hulk is headed this way, it’s gotta be to join our protests. That green brother’s as much anti-Establishment as any of us!” When the Hulk superleaps into the crowd, however, the protesters quickly realizes that they are the targets of the Hulk’s wrath, not the Establishment, and immediately scatter.
Captain Marvel arrives on the scene but the Hulk again proves too strong for the superhero to handle. It has now been three hours since Mar-Vell and Rick Jones switched places, and Jones reemerges from the Negative Zone. “It’s just you and me!” he shouts at the Hulk. “Yeah, you can get those kids back there, kids who never hurt you, kids you never even saw before. But, like the man said, it will be over my dead body. Well, c’mon Hulk, get it over with!”
The Hulk slowly moves forward and raises his fist as if to strike Rick Jones but then – deep inside – realizes he could never hurt his former companion, and instead turns around and lumbers away from Desert State University.
Anthony Letizia