Steve Ditko gave the Hulk a more sinister quality than other artists, and I always found that intriguing.
The Ditko touch amplified the character’s suggestion of ambiguous menace. It’s hard to stop reading about a character when you don’t know exactly what he might do next.
“Given the high esteem people have for Steve Ditko’s work of the era — the praise for Spider-Man and Doctor Strange — I’ve always been surprised that nobody ever seems to talk about his run on the Hulk,” observed comics blogger Snell.
“When the Hulk was cancelled initially after only six issues, he was relegated to some guest-star appearances, mainly in Avengers and Fantastic Four. But when he was given his own strip again, in Tales to Astonish 60, it was Ditko, not Jack Kirby, who had the art honors.
“Ditko’s run only lasted eight issues — then Kirby took over again, mainly just layouts. But it was a pretty significant eight issues! Major Glenn Talbot was introduced, the Leader made his debut as well as his icky humanoids. The Chameleon was around for a while as a villain, making him one of Marvel’s first crossover bad guys.”
“Tales to Astonish 60-74 (Oct. 1964-Dec. 1965), variously illustrated by Ditko, Kirby and Bob Powell, devoted an incredible 15 months to the Hulk’s conflict with the green-skinned Leader,” noted John Wells in the American Comic Book Chronicles. “Mutated by gamma rays like Bruce Banner had been, the Leader was endowed with heightened intelligence (and an enlarged cranium) and hoped to use his brutish counterpart to invade the sanctum of the alien Watcher on the moon.”
Ditko once said that Stan Lee had offered him his choice of several features to draw, but Ditko chose the Hulk because the military angle made it different.
And the point is well illustrated in Tales to Astonish 67 when, in the middle of the long serial, the story opens with the Hulk facing off against a battalion of Russian tanks. The monster spends four ferociously entertaining pages wading through them.
The Hulk then leaps away to the Himalayas, where he pauses, weary and embittered. Lee’s monologue emphasizes the monster’s alienation. “Hulk lost! No food – no friend – no home!” the Green Goliath thinks. “Home? Where is home? This place good as any! No place good for Hulk! No place!”
Reverting to Banner, he is captured by mountain bandits, then by Major Glenn Talbot, who believes him to be a communist agent. Caught in a crossfire between bandit gangs, Talbot and Banner end up in the literal cliffhanger — plunging together off a mountain ledge.
Next issue, we learn that the shock of the fall caused Talbot to black out while transforming Banner into the Hulk, who reflexively catches and saves the Army officer.
The issue’s split-screen cover included what would become one of the most iconic Hulk images — Jack Kirby’s illustration of the monster bounding away from fighter planes, with 20 mm bullets whipping past him. It was reused as the cover for the first Lancer Incredible Hulk paperback in 1966.
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