Yes they did, Hulk. The upside is that those hunters also gave us this, one of the purest moments in the Hulk's history.
Laugh all you want, but this page is kinda brilliant.
There's a basic storytelling mechanism that is used frequently in these superhero yarns that we love: Establish a bad guy doing something we disapprove of, show that our hero also disapproves (so he's like us in a way!), and then the hero kicks the bad guy's ass. The reader/audience gets that nice feeling of schadenfreude at the bad guy getting what he deserved, the hero stops/avenges the bad thing, and the result is an emotionally fulfilling story.
For example, every single Punisher story works that way: we watch terrible people doing reprehensible things, then the Punisher finds and kills the terrible people. The readers are made to tolerate/applaud the Punisher's murders by having the criminals be REALLY vile (And of course, the Punisher's real superpower is the ability to only kill horrible guilty people, no matter how many bullets he sprays). But I digress! The point is, this is the same basic narrative trick that's used to make us cheer when the Thing punches Terrax.
As I was saying, this page is extremely well done. We open with a cute reveal of the Hulk, wearing the most adorkable smile of his life, as he sees a beautiful deer and her baby Bambi. On the very next panel, the deer gets shot, and in the same picture we're informed that this is an animal reserve, where hunting is illegal (CRIMINALS!!). Then we're introduced to the pair of morons who did it, and it's made clear to the reader that these are true assholes: not only is this illegal, but Harry doesn't even LIKE deer meat!
And that's when the Hulk stepped in, to politely express his strongly-held opinions about illegal hunting. The whole page has carefullly prepared the reader to welcome pretty much anything the Hulk does to these guys, who - let's keep in mind - were specifically designed to be hated. Their punishment will give us righteous pleasure, that's their purpose in the story.
This is how a writer makes the readers approve of a hero's excessive violence: give them a deserving target. And this page delivers two of 'em, while having fun with it.
Story by Steve Gerber, Art by Sal Buscema and Jim Mooney.
P.S.: Of course I couldn't finish without showing you what happened to the men who killed Bambi's mother. That would be thoughtless.
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