The Boy Who Cried Hulk!

THE HULK! — Issue no. 11, August 1978

Book: The Hulk!

Issue No.: 11

Published: August 15, 1978

Title: “The Boy Who Cried Hulk!”

Cover Price: $1.50

Format: Digital scan

Recently-promoted (as of August 1978) Marvel magazine honcho Rick Marschall begins his editorial for this issue of The Hulk! magazine wondering if text editorials for picture books are a waste of time. He then goes on to cover some of the same ground he covered in text pieces in the recent Kiss Super Special magazine.

I’m tempted to make a snarky comment about how Marschall’s editorials would be less pointless if he had come up with more new material for each one. But if I had bought both of these books as a kid, I probably would have skipped most or all of the text articles, so maybe Marschall just understood his audience.

Of course, now I read all this stuff, because I am an amateur comics historian. So I thought it was interesting that the new color printing process Marschall hyped in this magazine was referred to as Full Spectrum Color, while he called it Marvelcolor in the Kiss magazine.

Not that the name really matters. This is a great-looking book. It’s not just the new-at-the-time printing process and extra-white paper. Ron Wilson (with inks by Fran Matera) draws the heck out of the Hulk. This book would look great in black-and-white. The colors are just icing on the cake.

Marschall also mentions this magazine is inspired by the popular-at-the-time Incredible Hulk TV show, which basically means Hulk will deal with more down-to-earth villains in The Hulk! mag. I was a fan of The Incredible Hulk on TV (along with a bunch of other people — the show was a hit). But in comics (and comics magazines like this one), I’d rather see Hulk fight the Leader or some other super-powered maniac.

That said, the story here, about Hulk (and his alter-ego, Bruce Banner) trying to help a kid with an abusive father, is fine for what it is. And, like I said, it looks great.

There’s also a B-story here starring Moon Knight. I know Moon Knight has evolved over time, but in 1978 he was basically Marvel’s version of Batman. The great Gene Colan provides the art for the Moon Knight story, and it reminds me a bit of Neal Adams’s iconic Batman work from the 1970s. (I am a Marvel guy, but I like a lot of DC stuff, too.) I looked it up, and Colan ended up drawing some Batman in the 1980s. I mean, Colan could draw pretty much anything, but he’s definitely a good fit for Moon Knight/Batman kind of stuff.

Week 33 Wrap-Up

For the third week of August 1978, I read eleven regular 35¢ Marvel comics plus two $1.50 color Marvel magazines. Total cost for all those books at the time would have been $6.85. Adjusted for 2024 inflation, that’s about 33 bucks.

Next time — On to week 34 of 1978!