Hulk Annual #1 - What I Saved

    As I mentioned in a recent post, a few months back I sold three-fourths of my comic collection.

   But there were comics I saved, either out of sentiment, nostalgia or just because I couldn't bear to part with it.

   As I sort through those comics (once filed alphabetically, they're now jumbled up), I hope to write posts like this one, talking about "What I Saved."

   Up first is a comic I kept because of its cover - Hulk Annual #1.

   This is a comic I bought off the newsstand in 1968, and as a reader of The Incredible one's monthly comic, I couldn't resist this cover.

   I attended a talk by Jim Steranko several years back at a comics convention, and he talked about getting the assignment to do this cover - he was told, "We don't care what it is - we just need it fast." 

   So he turned this amazing work out in very short order and turned it in - but apparently the cover was a bit too intense, because they had Marie Severin redo the Hulk's face.

   Still, it was stunning - and the interiors were impressive too! Marie Severin and Syd Shores (with additional inks by "almost the whole blamed Bullpen") provided 51 pages of story, written by Gary Friedrich. 

   It dropped the Hulk into the Great Refuge where he found himself in a Civil War (of sorts) between the Inhumans (and Black Bolt in particular) and the forces of Maximus. So, lots of action, destruction and general mayhem in view.

   Marie's expressive art is always a treat, and if things get a bit rubbery in places, it was hard to complain since you got so much story for a mere quarter!

   I enjoyed (and read) this comic so much that that beautiful cover became detached from the comic. I'm afraid I spoiled the resale value at some point, as I committed the sin of using two small bits of scotch take to reconnect the cover - and hey, it's still hanging on there!

   How could I let this one go? (Obviously, I couldn't.)

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Grade: A