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testpattern's review
4.0
This is a totally fun collection of non-canonical Hulk stories printed in The Rampaging Hulk magazine, a black-and-white publication intended to cash in on the more adult Hulk fan-base created by the Bill Bixby TV series. Still pretty silly stuff, but Banner is portrayed in the more wandering stranger manner that Bixby made famous. Thankfully, most of the real-estate in this collection in given over to the Incredible Hulk going on rampages and smashing stuff. Along the way, he fights terrorists, rescues children from abuse, and of course, saves the earth from aliens.
The art is largely fantastic, the black-and-white format allowing the artists to play with media in a way that looks very different from the bulk of mainstream 1970s comics art, bringing to bear everything from crayon and expressive ink-washes to the squiggly pen-work of Jim Starlin. The artists and writers involved seemed to see the non-continuity status of the title as an excuse to take the Hulk to some very strange places. The Hulk as eco-terrorist, in "The Thunder of Dawn," for instance ("Hulk feels...SMALL. TREES are so BIG...and so QUIET here...like Banner's CHURCH...and light here is GOLD..."), or the Hulk as cosmic champion in Starlin's blazingly weird "The Other Side of Night." All in all, a great way to spend 20 bucks (it's a heck of a lot of hulk).
The art is largely fantastic, the black-and-white format allowing the artists to play with media in a way that looks very different from the bulk of mainstream 1970s comics art, bringing to bear everything from crayon and expressive ink-washes to the squiggly pen-work of Jim Starlin. The artists and writers involved seemed to see the non-continuity status of the title as an excuse to take the Hulk to some very strange places. The Hulk as eco-terrorist, in "The Thunder of Dawn," for instance ("Hulk feels...SMALL. TREES are so BIG...and so QUIET here...like Banner's CHURCH...and light here is GOLD..."), or the Hulk as cosmic champion in Starlin's blazingly weird "The Other Side of Night." All in all, a great way to spend 20 bucks (it's a heck of a lot of hulk).
skjam's review
3.0
Doctor Bruce Banner was one of the nation’s top physicists, and an expert in gamma radiation, when he was drafted into creating a new kind of nuclear weapon called a “gamma bomb.” Just before the device was about to go off, Dr. Banner saw a young man (soon to be known as Rick Jones) driving into the danger area. Ordering the test delayed, Banner went out to save the boy. But a Communist agent prevented the order from being received in hopes of killing Banner and crippling America’s bomb research.
Rick Jones was tossed to safety, but Dr. Banner was struck by a massive dose of gamma radiation, which had a bizarre effect. Under certain circumstances (initially nightfall, later anger) Banner would turn into a monstrous green creature of destruction that was codenamed the Hulk. General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross became the Hulk’s mortal enemy, not realizing that the monster was also the romantic interest of his daughter Betty.
Bruce Banner had to evade having his secret revealed, while the Hulk battled the army and various supervillains. And that was the premise of the six-issue The Incredible Hulk series. Sales weren’t that hot, and the Hulk was rotated out for other features, not having a solo outing again until Tales to Astonish put him in the same magazine as Namor.
In 1977, Marvel Comics had started producing black and white magzines as well as their regular comic books. These were primarily aimed at slightly older readers as they evaded the Comics Code, and were sold in stores that no longer bothered with a comics rack. The Rampaging Hulk was a bit of an exception. It was retroactive continuity, revealing what Banner and Jones had been up to during the period in the early 1960s they weren’t being published.
These longer tales involved the Hulk battling the menace of the Krylorians, an alien race bent on conquering the Earth. He was aided by Rick Jones and a renegade Krylorian artist named Bereet. The Krylorians were somewhat comical–they could disguise themselves as humans like the Skrull, but often weren’t very good at it. They were also a squabbling, backbiting lot who barely cooperated at times. The X-Men, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and a pre-Avengers assemblage of the Avengers made guest appearances.
That storyline ended in issue 9. With the success of the Hulk TV series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, it was decided to make the magazine a tie-in of sorts to that. The name was changed to The Hulk! though the numbering was kept for tax reasons, the setting was moved to the current day, and the series was now in color. The stories focused on Bruce Banner as a wanderer who kept running into problems no matter where he went, and invariably wound up Hulking out. The stories involved such contemporary issues as terrorism, racism and child abuse (one of these stories is apparently the first one to suggest that Bruce Banner was abused as a child, which was later used to explain some of his issues.)
Hulk’s usual supporting cast was absent, although there was a brief crossover with back-up feature Moon Knight.
There were a variety of artists, from Walt Simonson to Bill Sienkiewicz (in his Neal Adams homage period). One issue has a fill-in story by Jim Starlin that is kind of trippy. The character of the Hulk wasn’t really a good fit for Doug Moench, but his writing is serviceable throughout. The switch to color in later issues is lost in this reprint, which makes the art muddy in places.
This volume collects up to issue #15. There are a few pages from Incredible Hulk #269, a story by Bill Mantlo that brought Bereet into the present day by revealing that the events in The Rampaging Hulk #1-9 were in fact her alien fanfilms, with her as a self-insert character. This did explain a lot of the continuity glitches and a couple of other questions, but some readers felt it was a cheat.
This volume is primarily for die-hard Hulk fans; others will want to check their local libraries.
Rick Jones was tossed to safety, but Dr. Banner was struck by a massive dose of gamma radiation, which had a bizarre effect. Under certain circumstances (initially nightfall, later anger) Banner would turn into a monstrous green creature of destruction that was codenamed the Hulk. General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross became the Hulk’s mortal enemy, not realizing that the monster was also the romantic interest of his daughter Betty.
Bruce Banner had to evade having his secret revealed, while the Hulk battled the army and various supervillains. And that was the premise of the six-issue The Incredible Hulk series. Sales weren’t that hot, and the Hulk was rotated out for other features, not having a solo outing again until Tales to Astonish put him in the same magazine as Namor.
In 1977, Marvel Comics had started producing black and white magzines as well as their regular comic books. These were primarily aimed at slightly older readers as they evaded the Comics Code, and were sold in stores that no longer bothered with a comics rack. The Rampaging Hulk was a bit of an exception. It was retroactive continuity, revealing what Banner and Jones had been up to during the period in the early 1960s they weren’t being published.
These longer tales involved the Hulk battling the menace of the Krylorians, an alien race bent on conquering the Earth. He was aided by Rick Jones and a renegade Krylorian artist named Bereet. The Krylorians were somewhat comical–they could disguise themselves as humans like the Skrull, but often weren’t very good at it. They were also a squabbling, backbiting lot who barely cooperated at times. The X-Men, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and a pre-Avengers assemblage of the Avengers made guest appearances.
That storyline ended in issue 9. With the success of the Hulk TV series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, it was decided to make the magazine a tie-in of sorts to that. The name was changed to The Hulk! though the numbering was kept for tax reasons, the setting was moved to the current day, and the series was now in color. The stories focused on Bruce Banner as a wanderer who kept running into problems no matter where he went, and invariably wound up Hulking out. The stories involved such contemporary issues as terrorism, racism and child abuse (one of these stories is apparently the first one to suggest that Bruce Banner was abused as a child, which was later used to explain some of his issues.)
Hulk’s usual supporting cast was absent, although there was a brief crossover with back-up feature Moon Knight.
There were a variety of artists, from Walt Simonson to Bill Sienkiewicz (in his Neal Adams homage period). One issue has a fill-in story by Jim Starlin that is kind of trippy. The character of the Hulk wasn’t really a good fit for Doug Moench, but his writing is serviceable throughout. The switch to color in later issues is lost in this reprint, which makes the art muddy in places.
This volume collects up to issue #15. There are a few pages from Incredible Hulk #269, a story by Bill Mantlo that brought Bereet into the present day by revealing that the events in The Rampaging Hulk #1-9 were in fact her alien fanfilms, with her as a self-insert character. This did explain a lot of the continuity glitches and a couple of other questions, but some readers felt it was a cheat.
This volume is primarily for die-hard Hulk fans; others will want to check their local libraries.
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