Hulk Cancelled!!
Ok. It likely didn’t make headlines in 1964, but, in truth, not all of the Lee/Kirby creations were big wins. The Hulk, for example, was cancelled after only 6 issues. Why? Couldn’t have been the artwork, the first six issues had artwork by both Kirby and Ditko. Lack of sales! If you think about it, the Hulk really didn’t fit with all of the other characters being introduced by Marvel at the time. The Incredible Hulk was much closer to a horror comic than a typical super hero book. The first six issues are amazing, or rather incredible, and pretty uneven. It’s clear they had trouble on deciding if they were heading to a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde path, or focusing on the book from Rick’s perspective, or making the Hulk a simple minded brute being hounded by the military.
From the start, the comic didn’t follow the soon to be “traditional” formula. Unlike Spiderman or the Fantastic Four, where radiation gave the hero great powers, here, radiation was a curse. Now, you could argue that radiation wasn’t a friend everywhere (for example, to the Thing, although that was cosmic rays), and I would agree. But, from the beginning, the Thing was treated more like the victim of an accident that left him scarred, rather than a monster to be feared. Again, people were afraid of him to some extent, but the military didn’t start hounding him right away; he had friends, and kept his intelligence and sense of humor. Radiation as a bad thing seemed to be more prevalent in the Hulk’s comic. I don’t know if I saw it as much in any other book, but interestingly it became a bit of a recurring theme in the Hulk. Think of the villains; the Leader, the Abomination. All of them had radiation exposure, and came out pretty much worse for it. Powers yes, likely to get a date on Friday night? Not so much. In the X-Men, even the brotherhood of evil mutants looked normal. Or, if they didn’t, say for example with the Toad or Mastermind, it didn’t seem like the mutation was the cause. It was more likely that they had ugly parents.
Anyway, the Hulk as a standalone book wasn’t successful. Say what you want about their acumen as businessmen, if an idea wasn’t going, Marvel dropped it and moved on. But, they obviously liked the character, and looked for ways to better integrate the Hulk into the Marvel universe. He appeared in Spider-Man, and then most famously in Avengers #1. Being part of the Avengers gave the Lee and Kirby a way to make him a hero in his own right. But, rather than start up his solo book again – why get burned twice? – they moved the Hulk to Tales to Astonish (TTA).
Tales to Astonish became a hero book with issue #35. At that time, the focus was on the Astonishing Ant Man. He “owned” the book through issue #49 when Hank Pym began to be called Giant Man. The Hulk appeared in issue #59, and started to share the book with Giant Man with issue #60. They were together till issue #70, when the Sub-Mariner replaced Giant Man. And, in typical Hulk fashion, he eventually edged them both out of the book, and took over Tales to Astonish all to himself. Tales to Astonish became The Incredible Hulk with issue #102. So, if you’re really counting, and I think they adjusted the numbering at some point, TTA #60 is really Hulk #7, and The Incredible Hulk #102 is really #49.
When the Hulk moved to TTA, Ditko took over as full time penciller of the book, but lasted only through issue #67. After Steve left, the art chores moved around a bit (Kirby, Heck, Romita, Kane, Powell, Severin, etc.). I was lucky enough to grab a splash to Issue #77. This is early in John Romita’s Marvel superhero work, and (IMHO) is just a great Silver Age splash.
