Another of Marvel’s facsimile reprints of the early 1990s. You know the story, scientist Bruce Banner gets caught in a gamma bomb explosion trying to rescue trespassing teen Rick Jones. In the aftermath Banner finds he turns into a large grey monster at nights and is pursued by the army. Later he’s taken prisoner by the Russian scientist the Gargoyle and manages, as Banner, to defeat him.

While there would be much meddling in the exact direction of the Hulk over the years, a surprisingly large amount of the most essential stuff is laid out in this story, “The Coming of the Hulk”.

The sequence below has been repeated, referenced, traced and referred to countless times in the comics since, but never gets old for me. The transition from panel 1 to 2 is great, with Banner racing towards Jones and then dragging him behind. Panel 4 with Banner just at the edge of the trench when the bomb goes off, a true classic. The hours long scream from panel 6 to 7. That’s some storytelling going on here.

This issue also has an ad for FANTASTIC FOUR with an original early image of the team in their uniforms by Kirby.

Paul Reinman inked the 24 page story. There seems to be some disagreement on the cover, as various sources list Reinman, Roussos and Ayers. Hard for me to tell at the best of times, moreso with just a reprint, but I’m leaning to Reinman.

Published 1991

An excellent Fourth World story, “The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin”, as Kalibak runs wild in the streets, attacking the home of Dave Lincoln in his search for Orion. The police respond, led by Dan “Terrible” Turpin, who’s got no time for those “Super Weirdos” taking their war to his streets. I love Turpin in this issue, taking on Kalibak one-on-one.

Eventually Orion and Lightray arrive, having seen the battle on TV, and Orion takes on Kalibak, showing his true face and giving some allusions to their relationship.

The Lightray/Orion interaction is great in this issue, too.

“You saw my face!!”
“I saw scars — both old and new — taken in the cause of New Genesis!”
“You’re a good friend, Lightray.”

Don’t tell me Kirby can’t write.

A 3-page Young Gods story has Fastbak racing the Black Racer trying to rescue Esak from the Para-Demons. Esak has always fascinated me since he has a few odd bits like this in the original comics, and then Kirby brought him in a key role in THE HUNGER DOGS, so I’m sure he had a lot more planned for him if he’d been able to explore it originally.

Reprint backup is “The Stone of Vengeance”, a 9-page S&K Manhunter story from ADVENTURE #77 (1942). Great splash page, with that dark S&K signature inking. The story follows a reportedly cursed stone as it moves from owner to owner, with each new one killing the previous owners, with a great sequence showing that. When it gets to the States, it ends up with a shoeshine boy who is taken prisoner by the Rajah just as Paul Kirk pursues the Rajah’s men from another jewel theft. Of coure it all works out in the end as the bad guys are undone by their own greed.

Mike Royer inks the cover and lead story, Colletta inks the Young Gods story, but it looks pretty good anyway. This issue also has one of the full page ads for KIRBY UNLEASHED.

Published 1972

This is an edited reprint of FF #92 (1969), continuing the Ben Grimm enslaved story. In space, Ben continues to be trained in combat by the faux-gangsters who have captured him. Some of the other slaves are pretty lame (Magno-Man, with a horseshoe magnet for a head, alien species like Rhinogons, Primoids and Cat-Men, which I think you can figure out) so this is clearly at the point where Kirby was saving his better designs for a better outlet. Still a lot of good action with Ben and the aliens, and some of the aliens in the background are kind of cool.

Eventually the training ends, and the games begin, and Ben finds out that the reason the other slaves don’t rebel is that their home planets are threatened if they do.

Meanwhile on Earth, Reed figures out what has happened and sets up the old captured Skrull ship from FF #2, and takes Johnny and Crystal to the rescue (Sue of course being left behind, being a new mother and all).

Two pages edited out, so it’s now an 18-page story. The cover is a modified version of the original, flipped left-to-right and with a few other small changes. Inks by Joe Sinnott.

Published 1977

This reprints the two-part Green Arrow story from ADVENTURE COMICS #252 / #253 (1958), editing out the splash page of the second story.

High goofball fun in this one, as the city is attacked by mysteriously appearing giant arrows. Of course, Green Arrow and Speedy investigate, since someone is taking their gimmick, eventually finding themselves drawn into an alien dimension.

That bit with GA worrying about never seeing his adoring crowds of kids when he goes to flog the Green Arrow Arrow Kit cracks me up. Also, that’s a great alien world.

Anyway, very neat stuff, although of course more readily available in the collection DC did a few years ago.

Published 1975