Featuring: Hulk
Release: July 2, 1964
Cover: October 1964
12 cents
Written by: Incredible Stan Lee
Illustrated by: Incredible Steve Ditko
Inked by: Incredible Geo. Bell
Lettered by: Inedibile S. Rosen
10 pages
Hulk was the first character to ignomiously get his title cancelled; he’s also the first character to get his own title back.
Well, sort of. Originally, he starred in a series called The Incredible Hulk, dedicated entirely to him. That’s a lot of pages to fill for a character whose creators seemed to have no idea what to do with him.
Now he gets 10 pages in the back of Tales to Astonish, a title he will be sharing with Giant-Man and Wasp, taking the place of Wasp’s solo features.
See, for as long as we’ve been reading, Marvel has had distribution issues which have artificially limited the number of titles they can produce in a month. They are ready to start featuring more of their characters, but that will require characters to share titles.
Hulk went about 18 months without his own series, but he never really disappeared. He’s been a frequent guest star and antagonist in many a title. He’s remained a fixture of the Marvel Universe, even without his own comic.
Last issue was a feature-length story featuring both Giant-Man and Hulk. That was the subtle lead-in to the new title-sharing status. Soon we’ll see a feature-length Iron Man story which co-stars Captain America. We’ll see where that will lead.
Continue reading “Tales to Astonish #60, Story B”