In this article we're going to cover the history of one of the most changing comic books and characters ever - The Incredible Hulk. The Incredible Hulk was another Marvel creation from the genius mind of Stan Lee. The character debuted in 1962 and thus began a strange evolution of a character that was probably the most tormented in comic book history. The Incredible Hulk was Dr. Bruce Banner. He was a scientist experimenting with gamma rays. Well, one of this experiments went haywire and Banner was exposed to the gamma rays himself. He was close to death and miraculously survived, but not without paying a huge price. It seems that whenever Banner became angry he would transform into this hideous green creature who became known as The Hulk. Unlike most other super heroes, The Hulk was not good. He wasn't entirely bad either. He would come to the aid of the underdog and saved many an innocent person in his day. But he had very little affection for law and order. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they were trying to kill him all the time. The Hulk consequently inflicted as much harm on the upholders of justice as he would do to the criminals. He was an odd bird all right. Oddly, the first comic with the green Hulk lasted only 6 issues when the appearance of the Grey Hulk hit the stands. In this incarnation Banner would transform into the Grey Hulk at night and then back to himself when dawn came. The reason for this was because Banner could not live with what he had become. So he transformed into his darker side at night to let out his ugly side, since Banner was afraid of the dark. This was done without him knowing it. In later issues however, it was done consciously. In 1964, two years after the first appearance of The Hulk, there was an issue of Tales To Astonish featuring Giant Man where he ended up meeting and fighting The Hulk. In the next issue of that book it would split into two sections. The first section would feature Giant Man and the second section would feature the Hulk. Finally in issue number 70, The Sub-Mariner took over Giant-Man's place in the book. It wasn't until 1968 that The Hulk took over the whole book. It was at this time that Tales To Astonish was dropped and the new title for the book was The Incredible Hulk. This is the reason why you never find issues 7 through 101 of the Incredible Hulk, the only comic book hero to suffer this comic numbering fate. The Hulk basically ran this way until 1998 when a book came out called "The Rampaging Hulk" which tells of the early history of The Hulk before anybody knew Bruce Banner was The Hulk. It lasted six issues. Finally, in 1999 The Incredible Hulk ended its run with issue number 474. But it didn't stay dead. After the new comic titled simply "The Hulk" hit the stands, 12 issues in, the word Incredible was added back to the title. The Incredible Hulk had returned. The Hulk was such a popular character it saw its way into cartoons and a feature movie, which unfortunately was not true to the comic and quite awful according to critics. |
