After spending the better part of a year as a regular character in The Avengers, the Hulk was again awarded a series of solo stories, this time as part of the split-book Tales to Astonish. As Marvel was phasing out its sci-fi and monster stories, it converted its anthology titles into superhero double features. Hulk was first paired up with stories featuring Giant-Man and the Wasp and later with the Sub-Mariner. During this period, Hulk seemed to finally hit his stride, and important characters such as Glenn Talbot and the Leader were introduced. The “secret identity” facet of the stories was also abandoned, as the dual nature of Bruce Banner and the Hulk was made public knowledge. The series was distinctive in that, rather than telling self-contained stories, or even two- or three-part story arcs, Stan Lee decided to try more of an ongoing “soap opera” approach, allowing each issue to roll into the next for an extended, rambling narrative.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
We now continue with... The True History of the Incredible Hulk!
January 1963 – Bruce Banner manages not to turn into the Hulk for two or three weeks by focusing on his research and restocking his hidden underground lab. He also tries to distance himself from Betty Ross, now that his transformations are unpredictable. One day, Giant-Man arrives at Desert Base in search of the Hulk. Feeling persecuted, Bruce’s frustration reaches the boiling point and he loses control, changing into the Hulk. The jeep he was driving is wrecked, and he goes off to attack Giant-Man. Hulk goes on a rampage in a nearby town, terrorizing the locals once again. Then, he encounters a strange spinning man, really the criminal known as the Human Top, who tells Hulk he can find Giant-Man in the next town. Sure enough, Giant-Man is there and Hulk attacks. After a battle in the main street of the evacuated town, Hulk and Giant-Man see a missile coming towards them. Giant-Man learns from the Wasp that the missile carries a low-yield atomic warhead, fired by the military after the Human Top told them the Hulk was alone in the deserted town. Cursing himself, Hulk intercepts the missile and hurls it into the hills outside of town. Although the others are saved, Hulk is caught in the ensuing nuclear explosion and blacks out. He crashes to earth and changes back into Bruce Banner. Betty is overjoyed when Bruce comes staggering out of the desert, and after a long rest, he resumes his research.
February–March 1963 – Bruce buries himself in his research for a few months, making tremendous strides forward in a variety of projects, such as the Orion missile and a device he calls the “Absorbatron,” which will protect a city from atomic attack by absorbing all the radiation. Also, perhaps inspired by Iron Man, Bruce develops a heavy-duty suit of robotic armor to be used for close observation of nuclear tests. Having realized that undue stress triggers his transformation, Bruce only turns into the Hulk a few times in this period, and Hulk, increasingly suspicious of humans, keeps a low profile out in the desert.
April 1963 – Bruce turns into the Hulk when a spy tries to steal his suit of robotic armor, but Hulk just leaps off into the desert, letting the spy get away with the armor. The next morning, as the spy is testing the armor, Hulk attacks him, believing he was sent to destroy him. However, Hulk begins changing back into Bruce during the fight, enabling the spy to escape again. Bruce feels guilty for having unleashed another menace on the world and considers resigning, but Betty convinces him of the value of his work. A day or two later, as Bruce is cobbling together a portable electronic scanner to track the robotic armor, Major Glenn Talbot arrives as the new security chief for Desert Base. Talbot has been suspicious of Bruce for some time and was assigned to the base when General Ross finally made a full report of Bruce’s many disappearances over the last year.
Later, while out in the desert tracking the robotic armor, Bruce changes into the Hulk and battles the spy, knocking him into a deep chasm inside a cavern, where he dies. A missile built by the spy has been launched at Desert Base, however, so Hulk intercepts it, but the resulting blast knocks him unconscious. Talbot finds him, and the jade giant is captured by the military once again. Trapped in restraints provided by Stark Industries, Hulk struggles to break free until the Chameleon, disguised as General Ross, unwittingly helps him escape unobserved. Having changed back into Bruce, he easily slips out of the Hulk-sized shackles and finds that Rick Jones has returned to Desert Base, having heard a report of the Hulk’s capture on the radio. Rick helps Bruce avoid the guards, get back to his quarters, and get some fresh clothing. Bruce then turns up at a late-night emergency meeting and confronts General Ross and Major Talbot. Shortly afterward, the Chameleon ambushes Bruce, ties him up, and assumes his identity. Hearing the Chameleon threatening Betty, Bruce turns into the Hulk again and attacks, causing the impostor to flee. Desperate to escape, the Chameleon throws a gamma grenade he took from Bruce’s lab. Hulk shields the blast with his body, but the gamma radiation changes him back into Bruce Banner. Betty tells General Ross and Major Talbot about the Chameleon, but no sign of the master of disguise can be found.
The next day, the Absorbatron is moved by train to a base on the west coast, accompanied by Bruce, Talbot, and a contingent of soldiers. En route, the train is boarded by a rubbery android that seems intent on stealing the Absorbatron. The stress causes Bruce to change into the Hulk, and he fights the android off, though the Absorbatron falls off the train. That evening, Talbot finds Bruce with the Absorbatron next to the train tracks and places him under arrest on suspicion of espionage.
May 1963 – Several days later, Bruce is transferred from the military prison to Washington D.C., to stand before a congressional investigation. Having been following the story in the newspapers, Rick arrives and uses his Avengers connections to somehow get the charges against Bruce dropped. Before Bruce can ask Rick how he did it, Talbot whisks him off to Astra Island in the Pacific Ocean to test the Absorbatron. Unfortunately, Talbot’s constant harassment soon triggers Bruce’s transformation, convincing the suspicious major that Bruce and the Hulk are working together to undermine America’s national security. An army of rubbery androids then swarms the island and fights with the Hulk while Talbot secures the Absorbatron inside a bunker. U.S. troops soon move in, and a grenade causes a landslide that knocks the Hulk and his android foes into the ocean. Hulk swims off, changes into Bruce Banner, and as luck would have it, is picked up by a Russian submarine. A week later, Bruce arrives in the Soviet Union and is brought to a work-camp for kidnapped scientists. He soon changes into the Hulk and destroys the camp. The Soviet Army attacks, but the Hulk defeats them. He leaps away, finally coming to rest in Mongolia, where he changes back into Bruce again. He is captured by a group of bandits, who contact the American government with their ransom demands.
After a few days, Glenn Talbot arrives at the bandits’ camp to pay the ransom and pick up Bruce. However, rival bandits attack, allowing Bruce and Talbot to slip away in the confusion. When the pair is caught in an avalanche, Bruce turns into the Hulk and saves Talbot, who’s been knocked out. Leaving the major behind, Hulk makes his own way back to the New Mexico desert. After changing back into Bruce Banner, he is arrested once again as a traitor, since an American reconnaissance plane saw him being picked up by the Russian sub. Rick visits Bruce in prison and admits that even he can’t be sure where Bruce’s true loyalties lie, leaving the disgraced scientist on the brink of despair.
Several days later, Major Talbot makes it home to the United States and escorts Bruce back to Astra Island to complete the Absorbatron test. A seemingly numberless horde of rubbery androids attacks again, but this time the Hulk is gassed into unconsciousness. He soon changes back into Bruce and wakes up to find himself in a secret underground lab in Arizona belonging to a green-skinned freak calling himself the Leader. Seeing that the Leader has stolen the Absorbatron as well, Bruce manages to transmit a message to the Air Force in Morse code. The Leader tries to gas Bruce into unconsciousness, only to change him into the Hulk instead. Hulk goes on a rampage and destroys the Absorbatron, but the Leader escapes. As General Ross and his troops storm the base, one soldier shoots the Hulk in the head just as he is changing back into Bruce Banner. Bruce blacks out and crumples to the floor, the bullet lodged in his brain. When he comes to, he finds himself back in his hidden underground lab near Desert Base. Rick is there, having managed to revive him via gamma-ray bombardment. To their mutual astonishment, Bruce is in the body of the Hulk but, apparently due to the bullet in his brain, retains his normal personality. Bruce realizes grimly that, should he regain his ordinary human form, he will die instantly.
The next day, the Leader sends a 500-foot-tall android to attack Desert Base, so Bruce uses the power of the Hulk to fight it off. In the midst of the battle, Rick warns him that the military is about to launch their “Sunday Punch” super-missile at them. Bruce grabs Rick and leaps away as the giant android is destroyed by the missile. However, the soldiers manage to track the Hulk back to his underground lab, where, after Rick is evacuated, they destroy it completely with heavy artillery. During the bombardment, the Leader contacts the Hulk with an offer, whereupon Bruce allows the criminal mastermind to teleport him away, to a hidden base in Italy. That night, the Leader’s rubbery androids, which he refers to as Humanoids, stop Bruce from escaping by knocking him out with a barrage of stun rays. While the Hulk is unconscious, the Leader discovers the bullet in his brain and dissolves it with a special technique. When he regains consciousness, Bruce is relieved to be out of danger but worries that the high dose of gamma rays the Leader exposed him to may have left him trapped in the Hulk’s form permanently.
June 1963 – Over the next few days, the Leader makes a detailed study of the Hulk and puts him through a battery of tests. With the bullet no longer in his brain, Hulk’s personality soon becomes dominant once more. Then, the Leader makes the Hulk honor his part of the bargain and teleports him to a planet inhabited by one of the enigmatic Watchers. Hulk fights off an alien champion and retrieves a globe called “the ultimate machine.” After returning the Hulk to Earth, the Leader puts the globe over his head in order to absorb all the knowledge of the universe. However, it is too much for the villain, and he keels over, apparently dead. Hulk takes the globe and heads into the Alps. He tries it on, whereupon the Watcher allows the Hulk to hear Rick’s thoughts as he sits in military prison. Thus, the Hulk learns that Rick got Bruce out of jail by revealing his secret to President John F. Kennedy. Realizing he owes Rick a debt, Hulk drops the “ultimate machine” and makes his way to Washington, D.C. to seek help at the White House. However, General Ross and his troops are waiting for him by the time he arrives, and they blast the Hulk with a directed-energy weapon of Bruce’s design, code named the “T-gun,” which apparently creates a time displacement wave that transports the Hulk 500 years into the future.
Finding himself in a desolate wasteland, Hulk wanders around the ruins of an extinct civilization. The only recognizable landmark is the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the rubble of the Lincoln Memorial. Suddenly, he is attacked from behind by armored warriors in the service of King Arrkam. They recognize the Hulk as a figure out of legend and hit him with an intense artillery barrage. When the Hulk shrugs off their most powerful weapons, the warriors decide to capture him instead, which they accomplish using a robot that can manipulate gravity. The helpless Hulk is thus transported to a massive stone fortress where he is brought before the king. Hulk is not interested in King Arrkam’s entreaties to aid them against their enemies and fights his way out of the fortress. Suddenly, several robotic tripod fighting machines converge on the fortress, and Hulk realizes that King Arrkam’s enemy is attacking. Wondering if the invaders might have time-travel technology to get him home, Hulk leaps onto the lead tripod. A mighty warrior emerges to confront the Hulk, revealing himself to be an Asgardian known as the Executioner.
Hulk is unimpressed with the Executioner’s boasting and attacks him, their fistfight quickly causing them to tumble off the tripod onto the rocky ground. One of the tripods then fires a stun beam at the Hulk, momentarily giving the Executioner the upper hand. Though he takes a beating, Hulk’s mounting rage makes him stronger and stronger until he is able to drive his foe off. However, seeing the tripods firing on the fortress with devastating heat rays, Hulk realizes he can’t stand idly by and destroys several of the fighting machines, prompting the rest to retreat. King Arrkam’s forces then emerge from the fortress, and Hulk is ready to fight them, too. Instead, he finds himself caught up in a time vortex that returns him to the 20th century. Materializing in the New Mexico desert, Hulk wanders off, lost in his own muddled thoughts.
July–August 1963 – Hulk lurks in his familiar cave systems, nursing his hatred of the human race.
September 1963 – Hulk eventually wanders too close to Desert Base and is captured. That night, though, General Ross’s new chief scientist, Dr. Konrad Zaxon, frees the Hulk in an attempt to use him to conquer the world, but his folly costs him his life. During his escape, Hulk is hit with the Orion missile that Bruce designed, but he recovers quickly and disappears into the darkness. The next morning, the Air Force tracks the Hulk to a remote area. The green behemoth nearly wrecks a train during the confrontation—a train on which Hercules is traveling to Los Angeles. Hercules attacks him, and Hulk finds himself enjoying the battle, glad to be able to let loose on an opponent who gives as good as he gets. Ultimately, the fight is inconclusive, as the Air Force intervenes with a massive artillery barrage. Hulk leaps away, only to be kidnapped that night by Tyrannus, who now needs his old foe’s help in his subterranean war against the Mole Man. Tyrannus reveals that the Mole Man has seized control of the fountain of youth he needs to survive, leaving him a withered old man.
The next day, when the Hulk proves uncooperative, Tyrannus kidnaps Rick, Betty, and Talbot. However, Hulk barely recognizes them and throws a temper tantrum when they badmouth Tyrannus. The Mole Man suddenly attacks, and Hulk leaps into the fray, overcoming the Mole Man’s most advanced weaponry. While fighting a bulky robot called the Octo-Sapien, Hulk tumbles into Tyrannus’s fountain of youth and finally changes back into Bruce Banner for the first time since his encounter with the Leader. With the Octo-Sapien destroyed, Bruce slips away from the war zone and soon comes across the aged Tyrannus, who reports that he’s already returned his three prisoners to the surface. Desperately searching for Tyrannus’s teleportation device, Bruce stumbles upon some of his Subterranean legions, who accuse him of being a spy. Their assault causes Bruce to change into the Hulk again, but he nevertheless manages to transport himself back to the surface, thanks to Bruce’s lingering influence. Hulk materializes in the middle of an artillery test and takes refuge in a cave. He then gets into a fight with a costumed man calling himself Boomerang, who is attempting to kidnap Betty. Hulk manages to rescue Betty, but Boomerang gets away. That night, Hulk brings Rick and General Ross to where Betty is waiting in the desert. Confused by the emotions that Betty stirs in him, Hulk roars at them and leaps off, seeking solitude. His restless wanderings then lead him eastward across the country.
October 1963 – Hulk arrives in New York City, intent on finding the Avengers. Trying to disguise himself with a trenchcoat and flophat, Hulk wanders around the city for a few days, leaving chaos in his wake. At one point, he sees the Sub-Mariner in a crowded movie theater but doesn't quite remember him. Finally, Rick arrives in town while the Hulk is shambling around causing property damage and drives him to an abandoned tenement. To their surprise, a large robot suddenly emerges from the trunk of the car Rick was driving. Hulk destroys the robot, but not before it causes a test of the Orion missile to go awry. The missile changes course and targets New York City. As the missile approaches, Hulk leaps up and grabs it, changing into Bruce Banner just long enough to alter its course so it crash-lands in the ocean. Hulk then swims ashore and meets up with Rick, who finds them a place to lay low inside a closed-down factory. Later, after Rick brings him food, Hulk calms down and changes back into Bruce. Rather sheepishly, Rick admits that he revealed Bruce and the Hulk to be one and the same a few months ago when he believed the Hulk had been vaporized by the “T-gun.” General Ross, Major Talbot, and Betty took some convincing, he explains, but they eventually accepted the truth. Since then, word has gotten out, and now the whole world knows Bruce’s terrible secret. Bruce isn't sure how to feel about this revelation, but he realizes his career as a research scientist is over.
November 1963 – Hulk is still lurking around New York City when Spider-Man comes looking for him one day while Rick is out. Hulk tries to drive the web-slinger away, and their fight takes them into a Gamma Ray Research Center in Manhattan. Hulk destroys an experimental device and is bathed in gamma radiation, which causes him to change back to Bruce Banner for a few minutes. Bruce and Spider-Man have a moment to discuss his situation, and after he changes into the Hulk again, Spider-Man decides to leave him alone.
December 1963 – Shortly after midnight one night, Hulk attacks one of the Leader’s rampaging Humanoids, and their battle rages through the night and into the next morning as General Ross and his troops watch helplessly. After daybreak, Hulk suddenly transforms into Bruce when the Humanoid knocks down Rick with a backhand blow. Bruce quickly devises a plan to stop the android with the full cooperation of the Air Force. Though his plan hinges on him changing back into the Hulk at just the right moment, Bruce pulls it off and the Humanoid is destroyed. Reporters are on the scene, and it seems the Hulk has saved the city a second time. Seeing the coverage on the morning television news, President Lyndon B. Johnson sends a courier to offer the Hulk amnesty, at General Ross’s discretion. However, Boomerang is lurking in the shadows and tricks the Hulk into causing a panic. As the Hulk leaps away, General Ross decides he is still a menace and declines the President’s offer. Boomerang catches up to the Hulk at a dam as the jade giant heads west again. During their fight, Boomerang destroys the dam but is swept away in the ensuing flood. Hulk turns back into Bruce and passes out from exhaustion. Hours later, the enigmatic alien known as the Stranger appears, intending to use the Hulk as his instrument to destroy the human race. He alters the Hulk’s mind with his unearthly technology and sends him on a rampage. All that night, Hulk heads west, wreaking havoc and destruction in his path, such as demolishing a bridge over the Mississippi River.
Finally, the next morning, Hulk reaches Desert Base, where his transformation into Bruce Banner frees him from the Stranger’s influence. Desperate, Bruce realizes his suicide is the only hope for humanity. He steals into his lab and sets the gamma-ray bombardment machine for a lethal overdose. However, the troops discover him and place him under arrest. When another green-skinned monster starts tearing up the base, Bruce realizes someone else must have activated the machine and exposed himself to its gamma rays. He turns into the Hulk and attacks the creature, who is soon dubbed “the Abomination” by the startled onlookers. However, the Abomination proves to be too tough for the Hulk, knocking him out with a crushing blow to the head. When the Hulk comes to, he tries to leave the base, but Rick begs him to stay and help rescue Betty from the Abomination. Remembering Betty, Hulk calms down and becomes Bruce again. After conferring with Rick and General Ross, Bruce quickly devises a strategy to defeat the Abomination. He lures the monster back to the base and subjects him to a ray that weakens him. However, the excitement is too much for Bruce and he turns back into the Hulk, wrecks the machine, and fights the Abomination to a standstill. Suddenly, the Stranger intervenes, having changed his mind about destroying humanity. He teleports the Abomination to his base somewhere in outer space. The danger passed and Betty safe once more, Hulk wanders off into the desert—alone.
Notes:
January 1963 – There was something of a tradition with these Marvel split-books that a character about to be given his own series would guest-star in the lead feature the issue before it started. Thus comes this story from the Giant-Man series in Tales to Astonish #59.
April 1963 – This marks the commencement of the Hulk’s solo stories, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, in Tales to Astonish #60 and following. Ditko would soon pass the penciling chores on to powerhouse artists such as Jack Kirby, Bill Everett, John Buscema, and Gil Kane. Both the Chameleon and the unnamed spy who steals the suit of robotic armor are working for the Leader.
June 1963 – While it is debatable, I don’t believe the Watcher depicted in Tales to Astonish #73–75 is Uatu, the familiar Watcher who lives on Earth’s moon, despite the listing on the Marvel Chronology Project. The trouble with the Watchers is that they all pretty much look alike. As suggested in Thor #372, Hulk is actually sent to the future by the Time Variance Authority, presumably because the Executioner, as per Hulk #102, is time traveling also.
September–October 1963 – Both Boomerang and the robot that interferes with the Orion missile test are agents of the original incarnation of the Secret Empire. Following the collapse of their plans, the Secret Empire is defeated by S.H.I.E.L.D., and all their surviving members are jailed.
November 1963 – Hulk and Spider-Man fight each other again in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3. Hulk is still hiding out in New York City when President Kennedy is assassinated. This satisfies my initial research question as far as the Hulk is concerned. It is unclear how much of this time he spent as Bruce Banner and how much as the Hulk, for he was in the city with Rick for a few months, keeping a low profile as best he could.
December 1963 – In Tales to Astonish #88, the President of the United States is drawn to actually look like Lyndon Johnson, courtesy of artist Gil Kane. This is one of the few times in the Original Marvel Universe that the President looks like the man who was in office according to the date on the timeline. As usual, it is pure serendipity. The defeat of the Abomination takes us up to Tales to Astonish #91.
Jump To: The Hulk -- Year Three
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