Review by Win Wiacek
A good man, an unobtainable girl, a foolish kid, an unknown enemy and the horrible power of destructive science unchecked sums up the Hulk’s origin. In 1976 a retrospective spin-off series took the controversial tack of telling stories of what Bruce Banner, Rick Jones and the Hulk did next during the further formation of the nascent Marvel Universe. Early issues also featured tales of monster-hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, but you’ll need to look elsewhere for them.
The Hulk stories are set in 1963, and following a terse retelling of the classic origin, scripter Doug Moench and illustrators Walt Simonson and Alfredo Alcala channel primal Jack Kirby via a rather heavy grey-tone wash in a wild yarn of flying saucer sightings over Rome. The portentous sightings herald the Krylorian invasion.
Moench’s scripts and tone are wryly tongue-in-cheek, offering constant visual and verbal comedic touches whilst channelling early Marvel continuity and the tropes of the 1960s, as seen from the distant perspective of ten years after. The opening gambit introduces alien rebel Bereet, a pacifist techno-artist hiding on Earth and seeking to prevent her bellicose shape-shifting people conquering humanity.
A second Krylorian attack attracts the attention of the X-Men in Paris, and the action shifts to the south of France as the Krylorians dupe another alien, the Metal Master. These look slightly different for embellisher Alcala’s switch to a drybrush technique. Sub-Mariner and a pre-Avengers Ant-Man, Wasp, Thor and Iron Man also become embroiled before the Hulk finally rids the Earth of the Krylorians.
After Simonson’s art, it’s fair to say Marvel don’t allocate their top illustrators, but there is the glorious exception of Alex Niño illustrating Jim Starlin’s plot, scripted by John Warner. It’s an interlude revealing how extraterrestrial wizard Chen K’an abducts Banner and places his intellect into the Hulk’s body to make him the ideal comrade in a quest to defeat evil and save his dying, demon-infested world.
Originally released as a newsprint magazine, The Rampaging Hulk abruptly transformed when a hugely successful TV show starring the Green Goliath took off, the colour not apparent in this monochrome collection. The narrative tone adjusted to address the needs of casual curious readers and television converts.
Supposedly a more sophisticated product, Moench shifted the scenario back to present day as a solitary emerald outcast wandered the world looking for a cure, or at least a little peace. It’s competent without being compelling. The most notable outing offers a taste of otherwise absent back-up strip Moon Knight in the form of a notional crossover. A single encounter is told from two perspectives. Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz have Steven Grant visiting an old pal in the countryside on the night of a total lunar occultation. The event brings brutal burglars out of the woodwork and Moon Knight stops them, but, bizarrely, at the height of the eclipse, the Lunar Avenger encounters something huge, monstrous and unbeatable, barely escaping with his life. The companion strip provides the answer as on that same night, fugitive Bruce Banner stumbles into burglars breaking into an isolated house. He transforms into the Hulk just as total night falls, and the monster briefly encounters an unseen foe of uncanny capabilities.
The early continuity implants are still energetic, while the TV public enjoyed more solitary tales of the Hulk wandering from place to place seeking a cure for his gamma-transformative curse whilst constantly pursued by authoritarian forces. You can relive or at last sample that simplistic but satisfying situation just by stopping here for little while before inevitably moving on.
