Martinex1: It is time for our $1 Challenge HULK style (it is
HULK WEEK after all)! The green goliath has graced countless covers from the early 1960s through today, and along the way an eclectic group of artists have put their own spin on the character. Today we will see plenty of outstanding work from Herb Trimpe, along with Marie Severin, John Severin, Jack Kirby, Ed Hannigan, George Perez, and even Gene Colan and Walt Simonson, plus many more.
Take a look below for a selection of comics in our ever-rotating Quarter Bin that include Bruce Banner or his alter-ego on the cover. You will find a wide variety of titles;
Avengers, Defenders, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Fanfare, Tales to Astonish, and of course
The Incredible Hulk are all here. This is the one place where we encourage you to judge a book by its cover!
Choose your favorite four and share your thoughts on the art, the artists, the evolution of the Hulk's depiction, and the stories within so that everybody at BITBA can expand their knowledge of the Hulk with a gamma irradiated upload!
A special thanks to the
Mike's Amazing World of Comics site for making the research for today's post easy!
What do you like? And what doesn't get your blood pumping? Did any artists surprise you? I actually enjoyed the work of Ditko, Mignola, and Frenz, who wouldn't have been artists that first jumped to mind when considering the Hulk. There are some classics here and some lesser-known gems, so we welcome all of your "smashing" commentary and "rage-filled" critiques!
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| Kane / Romita |
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| Kane / Sinnott |
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| John Romita |
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| Trimpe / Adkins |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Trimpe / J. Severin |
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| Trimpe / J. Severin |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Herb Trimpe |
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| Hannigan / Giacoia |
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| Buckler / Romita |
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| John Romita |
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| Dale Keown |
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| Kirby / Romita |
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| Jim Steranko |
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| Kane / Giacoia |
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| Hannigan / Giacoia |
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| Ernie Chan |
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| Buckler / Chan |
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| Milgrom / Ditko |
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| Steve Ditko |
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| Michael Golden |
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| Michael Golden |
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| Hannigan / Mitchell |
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| Frank Miller |
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| Bill Sienkiewicz |
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| John Byrne |
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| Mignola / Leialoha |
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| Marie Severin / Giacoia |
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| Allen Milgrom |
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| Todd McFarlane |
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| Geiger / McLeod |
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| Sal Buscema |
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| John Buscema / Giacoia |
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| Kirby / Reinman |
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| George Perez |
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| Keown / McLeod |
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| Mike Deodato, Jr. |
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| Starlin / Milgrom |
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| Dave Cockrum |
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| Kane / Esposito |
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| John Byrne |
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| Joe Jusko |
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| Ken Barr |
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| Gil Kane |
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| Frenz / Milgrom |
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| Kane / Janson |
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| Marie Severin / Trimpe |
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| Gene Colan |
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| Walter Simonson |
21 comments:
Wow. That Incredible Hulk Megazine is the only one I don't have, here.
My name is HumanB, and I have a Hulk-monkey on my back. . .
("Hello HumanB--!")
Giant-size Hulk #1, there, is a reprint of Annual/Special #1-! The former is quite a good cover, the latter is iconic.
I would bet money that Marie Severin (she mentored Herb and was his pal) had an uncredited hand in the cover of #119.
Remember how I was praising Bill Everett's inks? Tales To Astonish #79. I just LOVE his touch on this cover-!
A number of nice covers in your selection here. I've never felt the title was particularly strong with its covers, though. Not a ton of Covers-Made-Me-Buy-This-Book over the years ('course, I'd buy the book anyhow. . . ha.)
Um, Marti, I'm gonna make you slap your forehead in exasperation, and go right off-list for my first two choices:
Hulk #109 (w/ Ka-Zar)
Hulk #118 (vs Sub-Mariner)-- this one pops up a lot-- I think it was in the first Origins of Marvel Comics edition, in fact?
Then back to the list--
Special #1-- that Steranko cover is just great. Doesn't have anything to do w/ content, but such a fine image.
Hulk #379-- that big, clean image of the "Professor's" Face, right?
Oh-! Say Marti! Joe Fixit! Ya got any of him hidin' in your wallet? (I seem to recall some nice covers from that run as well. That big zoot-suit was just MADE for a stylin' cover!)
Wife's chasing me off to the shop--
HB
I loved the Murder Module!
There was a T-shirt iron-on you could get in the '70's (remember those ads?) showing the Leader and his Module chasing the Hulk. It'd be cool to have that on a T-shirt.
M.P.
Such a phenominal showcase of cover artistry.. WOW.
Not a lot to add, but Kane certainly did great Hulk covers, my other immediate favs are Trimpe and Kirby. I've been working on fillin' my TOA and early Hulk floppy collection, especially the early Trimpe covers. Those bold purple-and-green dark covers were really powerful.
NICE!!!! I'd include pretty much EVERY Rampaging Hulk cover as being a painted masterpiece of Hulkitude, especially the superb Jim Starlin effort from issue #4.
Don't forget FF #12 though, the first ever Marvel crossover story... BEST COVER EVER. Oh, and FF #112. coincidentally 100 issues later.
How could you not include the greatest cover of the Silver Age?
http://assets.dacw.co/itemimages/182187_001.jpg
Tales To Astonish #93
Yoyo
My favorite's the Hulk vs Batman cover by Garcia Lopez: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/dd/aa/ce/ddaace6fea970995d37a1a335ba034e1.jpg
Here I like:
Defenders 10 by Romita, Hulk vs Thor.
Hulk 200, collage of characters by Buckler.
Tales to Astonish 77 by Kirby. Makes me curious what's going on--"Bruce Banner is the Hulk!"
Hmmm, well if we were going by which stories interested me the most, I'd probably have MTU 53 and 54, Defenders 19 with the Wrecking Crew, and Hulk 142 with the "radical feminist" Samantha Parrington version of Valkyrie.
But if we're going just by which covers I like ... the first Kane/Romita one (Defenders 27); Golden's cover with the Gardener; Milgrom's MTU with Power Man and Iron Fist; and that cool Colan one at the end.
Garett-- believe it or not, Bruce had maintained his "secret identity" as the Hulk clear up until Astonish #77-! With only Rick Jones being the wiser. For three or four years Bruce seemed, to all observers, to be getting perpetually swept up (and beaten up) in Hulk attacks, Hulk kidnappings, and Hulk melees-- an astonishing run of hard luck that Betty always accepted w/out question. Ross assumed he was a)just a gutless milksop who couldn't take care of himself in a crisis, or b)was in league w/ the Hulk somehow.
HB
When I was collecting cover examples for this post, I have to say I really started to wonder why Trimpe has less praise than other Silver and Bronze Age artists and stars. His work can be quirky - but I really admire it and included a lot of examples not just because he was so prolific but because I genuinely like the work.
The Sandman, the Maximus the Mad, and the Murder Module are all covers that I've known and enjoyed for years. The Valkyrie cover is a true classic in my opinion. And M.P. That Murder Module is so much crazy fun - I agree. I doubt that device was the "original killing machine" but I feel like it has been imitated often. And ohhhh those paper print iron on t-shirt decals - what a great topic!
HB I always appreciate your input and knowledge around the Hulk. Great insight on the art and Marie Severin's possible input. And you are right about Everett's inks.
In picking covers for these posts, I sometimes pick classics; sometimes I don't pick classics because I figure everybody has seen them and I want to share some lesser known things; and sometimes I have those special covers earmarked for other conversations and don't want to repeat. You may see some of your favorites soon - it is Hulk Week after all! But others I definitely missed. So please shout them out if you have other favorites.
I did miss some good Joe Fixit covers for sure! And that Hulk Batman...wow.... I have to add that down the line!
Even though there can be some variation on the Hulk, I think a lot of these artists handled him extremely well. I am taken aback though by how frequently his size changes. Did they ever explain that off as part of the irradiation? Sometimes he looks relatively short - maybe six feet - and sometimes he is gigantic! I know in the past there were conversations about his digits. Some early examples had him with three toes or four toes or five toes. It was later explained as part of the gamma exposure. - so theoretically his appearance is affected somewhat randomly. I guess that is probably a retcon though.
I do need to read more Hulk as a lot of these covers intrigue me and are probably under appreciated.
Marti, that run in the Defenders that you've pulled from- #10 through maybe #32 or so?- is just some guh-REAT comics. Going from the very traditional (Hulk vs Thor) to the absurdist (Headmen/Bozo arc), including the Sons of the Serpent; GotG and the Badoon in the future; Nebulon & the Squadron Sinister; and the freaky storyline which ends w/ Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants get regressed to baby-hood (!), which has surprising repercussions for the X-verse several years down the road.
And thank ya for the kind words-!
The size-difference issue? I think that it never went beyond the realm of artistic license, as the same thing has always happened with Ben Grimm, who was supposedly in the realm of "normal" height even in his rocky form-- but often drawn as a behemoth himself.
m.p.-- The Murder Module transfer T-shirt! Yeah brother! Got it myself in about 7th grade-- on a purple cotton T. It had a horrifically tough life, and I kept pulling it back out of the rag bag over the years. The tattered, decomposed remains of the front of it (all that's left) are now pinned to the wall in the Hulk Corner of the Comic Book Room. . .
It's kind of an embarrassment, but a faithful testament to my youthful fanhood nonetheless-!
Ahhhh, if we only had a mechanism to post images in our posts, eh? Oh Blogger.com, join us in the 21st Century!
HB (Need I add that I am loving this week? Yeah?)
Oh, I can't choose.
All I'm gonna say is 'aren't comics the most beautiful things?'
King Size Avengers #2 - Once I saw that beautiful cover, as a young boy, promoted as a full-page spread in some other Marvel comic, I knew I had to get it somehow, someway. Maybe 5 years later it was one of the first comics I bought from a dealer that advertised in comic books (Richard Alf?) I was out of my mind when it arrived in the mail to finally read it! The art was Heck and Roth....
Hulk Special #1 - Like Avengers K.S. # 2, (I think Marvel promoted each of these as full-page spreads in the other's comic) I knew I had to have that and, again, bought it from a dealer. It arrived in the mail, joy of joys, and, well, that beautiful Steranko cover creates a set of expectations that the internal art couldn't match.
Hulk 135 with Kang... nearly the first comic I ever bought. Therefore I must have really, really liked the cover to work for, and part with, the $.15 to buy it! I still think its a great cover!
And if I may suggest Hulk #152 "Who will judge the Hulk?" where he is in the middle and "surrounded" by small depictions of the FF, Nick Fury, Daredevil, Cap America... (He is captured and tried in a court of law.) As I look even now at that cover there is a true depiction of anger and frustration in the Hulk's face... Like "I've had enough!" A masterpiece in its own right.
And for what it's worth, the first comic my little brother (maybe 8 at the time) bought was Hulk 122 where he fights the Glob. Therefore that cover, by definition, really stood out. The cover and story really, really resonated to us little guys.
Cheers and thanks for posting all this.
Thanks for posting all those covers too!
Fantastic cornucopia of covers today, Marti! Something for everyone; for me: all the Defenders issues! HB has me stoked for them after seeing all those stories. Oh, those Headmen...
In particular, that Romita cover for Defenders 10- Hulk vs. Thor- now that's why I love comics.
By the way, at the risk of seeming out of touch: who in the name of the Eternal Vishanti is Joe Fixit?
Oh, and welcome aboard, Rachel Petro! Loved that Avengers special too. Fantastic Buscema cover, insides were pretty good, too!
Oh man, GREAT call on the Glob cover, Rachel! That one displaces the Professor Hulk cover for me, in fact-- can't believe I overlooked it-! A truly superior issue across the board, too. Roy's first one on the title, IIRC. Response was so positive that it led to a return in #129 with another particularly striking cover.
You're tapping into a likely-universal experience for us folks here, I bet, with you associating specific covers with the memories of how/when you acquired them. I'm loving that.
Issue #135? A buddy of mine had it for a long time and had forgotten about it-- it had been rolled up in a closet or something, and he gave it to me in. . . 7th or 8th grade? And I still have it, of course. Spine's hilariously rolled; corners are chipped; whole thing is a touch wrinkly-- please don't ask me to trade it in. My Hulk collection is one of memories, not one of pristine aesthetics.
And how 'bout that Phantom Eagle-!
HB-- lost in Kang's miasma of time-gone-by---
I don't know if it's too early to call HULK WEEK an unqualified success, but I don't recall HB being this excited to get out of bed each morning since that summer he was to date his way through the pig farm......
(Come out, Virginia, don't let me wait
You Catholic girls start much too late
But sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one
They showed you a statue and told you to pray
They built you a temple and locked you away
But they never told you the price that you pay
For things that you might have done...
Only the good die young
You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty, we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
But that never hurt no one
So, come on, Virginia, show me a sign
Send up a signal I'll throw you the line
The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind
Never lets in the sun
Darling, only the good die young).
PS: In a thought for the upcoming holiday, where have all the flowers gone?
DANG IT!!!! "paid to date his way"
Hmm OK here are my picks -
1) The Defenders #10 - classic Hulk vs Thor pose, whenever anyone mentions these two in a duel, this Romita image immediately pops into my head.
2)Hulk #200 - again another classic cover; Hulk as the centrepiece surrounded by his cast of supporting characters; something you might find in Spidey's book but it's effective here too.
3) Tales to Astonish #89 - Hulk vs the Stranger baby! This was one of the earliest Hulk tales I can remember reading, and Gil Kane was one of my favourite Hulk artists!
4) King Size Avengers - beautiful cover by the master John Buscema and Giacoia; T'Challa I luv ya baby but you don't stand a chance against ol' Greenskin here!
- Mike 'HB is our resident professor of Hulkography' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Greetings All - I love the scans! May I add Hulk #144? Hulk has Dr. Doom by the wrist, on the ramparts of a castle, and honest to g*d Hulk truly looks like he is going to smash Doom's face into next week. Not sure who the artist and inker combo were, but they should get a no-prize or two. HB - i think you are right - there is really a strong emotional connection to a lot of these covers.
AH-HAHAHAHAHA! Prowl, the way you wrote it the first time made me LAUGH OUT LOUD! "What on EARTH went on that summer???" It's the perfect ambiguous statement that you're pretty sure you don't ever want to hear an explanation of--!
HB
Bah!!! Hulk week great!!
ALL HAIL KANE!!!
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