The Hulk by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1, May 1962. Hulk is combination of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein's monster. Bruce Banner is delicate scientist, but when he gets nervous, he transforms to green monster called Hulk, whose powers increase that angryer he becomes.
In the first issue Hulk was grey, but the printing tecnique in those days made the character mostly green, so Hulk decided to make green. After that, in the first issue reprints Hulk was changed to green, until The Incredible Hulk #302 (Dec. 1984) explained, that Hulk really was first been gray, but turned later green.
The original Incredible Hulk ended with issue #6 in March 1963. Hulk has had keen fans, and character visited frequently to the other comic books of Marvel company. Hulk came permanent character to Tales to Astonish since number 60, October 1964. The Incredible Hulk comic book started again in April 1968 to issue #102. The Incredible Hulk #600 appeared in 2009.
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The story
Ground Zero by Peter David, Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen was published in
The Incredible Hulk #340-346. Hulk has come gray again, and most important: he is not child-like anymore, he is intelligent and nasty. Hulk fights against the Leader, Halflife, and
Wolverine!
Hulk: The Manga started in Japan in 1970 in Weekly Bokura Magazine, and still continues. It is made by writer Kazuo Koike (familiar from his own series Lone Wolf and Cub) and artist Yoshihiro Morifuji.
Enemies of Hulk are General "Thunderbolt" Ross, The Leader (first appeared in Tales to Astonish #62, Dec. 1964), Absorbing Man (Journey into Mystery #114, March 1965), General John Ryker (The Incredible Hulk #12), Kang the Conqueror (The Avengers #8, Sep. 1964), Rhino (The Amazing Spider-Man #41, Oct. 1966), Mogol (The Incredible Hulk #127), Halflife (West Coast Avengers #12, (Sep. 1986) and Lazarus (Incredible Hulk Annual #19, 1993)
Supporting characters: Betty Ross, Rick Jones, She-Hulk, Doc Samson (first appeared in Incredible Hulk #141, July 1971) and Jarella (Incredible Hulk #140, June 1971).
The Incredible Hulk TV series runned between 1977-1982 (82 episodes). Hulk was played Lou Ferrigno. Hulk has also made animated series and 6 TV movies, including The Incredible Hulk: Married (1978).
Two most recently made Hulk movies are the director Ang Lee's Hulk (2003), starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott and Nick Nolte. Director Louis Leterrier made The Incredible Hulk in 2008, starring Edward Norton (Bruce Banner), Liv Tyler (Betty Ross), Tim Roth (Emil Blonsky), William Hurt (General Ross) and Tim Blake Nelson was Samuel Sterns, who becomes The Leader.
Memorable Hulk stories:
- Banner (2001) by Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben
- Hulk: The End, by Peter David, Dale Keown and George Perez
- Planet Hulk (2007) by Greg Pak and Carlo Pagulayan
- World War Hulk (2007) by Greg Pak, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson
- Red Hulk (2009) by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness
