Schedule Bimonthly Number of issues 27 Genre Superhero | Format Ongoing series Main character Hulk | |
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Publisher Curtis Magazines (Marvel Comics) Publication date January 1977 – June 1981 Writer(s) List
Steve Gerber, Archie Goodwin, Doug Moench, Dennis O'Neil, Jim Starlin, John Warner Similar The Incredible Hulk, Hulk: The Manga, Tales to Astonish, Hulk: The End, Marvel Treasury Edition | ||
The Rampaging Hulk is a black and white magazine published by Curtis Magazines (an imprint of Marvel Comics) from 1977–1978. With issue #10, it changed its format to color, and title to The Hulk!, and ran another 17 issues before it folded in 1981. It was a rare attempt by Marvel to mix their superhero characters with the "mature readers" black-and-white magazine format.
Contents
With the change to color and the title to The Hulk!, the magazine became Marvel's attempt to cash in on the popularity of The Incredible Hulk TV series, starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, both of whom were prominently featured and interviewed over the course of the magazine's run, as was executive producer Kenneth Johnson.
Publication history
The Rampaging Hulk ran for nine issues from January 1977 to June 1978. With issue #10 (Aug. 1978), the bi-monthly magazine changed its title to The Hulk! and became a full-color book utilizing "Marvelcolor".
The magazine featured fully painted covers by such artists as Ken Barr, Earl Norem, and Joe Jusko. Norem's work on the series includes a darkly-lit close-up of the Hulk's face, gritting his teeth with his knuckles raised, done for The Hulk! #17 (Oct. 1979).
Artists such as Walt Simonson, John Buscema, Howard Chaykin, John Romita Sr., John Romita Jr. (doing some of his first professional work), Keith Pollard, Jim Starlin, Joe Jusko, Bill Sienkiewicz, Val Mayerik, Herb Trimpe, Brent Anderson, and Gene Colan provided interior artwork; while writers such as Starlin, Doug Moench, Roger Stern, Dennis O'Neil, and Archie Goodwin took on the scripting chores.
Through its run the magazine published backup features starring Ulysses Bloodstone (issues #1–6, #8) Man-Thing (issue #7) and Shanna the She-Devil (issue #9). Moon Knight was featured in issues #11–15, #17–18, and #20, featuring some of Bill Sienkiewicz' early work (starting in #13), when his style was similar to that of Neal Adams.
The story "A Very Personal Hell" in issue #23 (Oct. 1980) has been criticized for its depiction of an attempted rape of Bruce Banner and the use of anti-gay stereotypes.
With issue #24, the title returned to black-and-white, though it published the last Dominic Fortune backup story in full color. The magazine was retired with issue #27 (June 1981).
Editorial direction
Editorially, the stories in The Rampaging Hulk were stated to be set between the end of his original, short-lived solo title and the beginning of his feature in Tales to Astonish. A problem was pointed out by fans in the letter columns. Despite back-dating the events, the stories depicted the Hulk per se contemporaneously, speaking in his "Hulk smash!" pidgin English, changing to and from Bruce Banner based on his emotions, and wearing tattered purple trousers; whereas in the claimed time frame he spoke fluent if gangsterish English, transformed via a gamma ray machine, and wore neat purple trunks.
With its retitling to The Hulk!, the series turned to using stories set contemporaneously with the majority of Marvel publications (including its sister title The Incredible Hulk). It also adopted the same formula of the popular Incredible Hulk TV series: human interest driven, with no supporting cast, no supervillains, and no guest stars.
Although Rampaging Hulk / The Hulk! was intended to feature stand-alone stories, some characters (such as the extraterrestrial Bereet) crossed over into The Incredible Hulk title. Bereet appeared in issue #269 (March 1982) of the regular series to explain away the Rampaging series as fictions she created for the entertainment of her homeworld's residents. This rendered the Rampaging Hulk stories into metafiction.
Other Marvel mainstays also appeared, with the X-Men making an appearance in issue #2 and the Avengers in issue #9.
Collected editions
Color comic book series
Marvel published a six-issue comic book series in color titled The Rampaging Hulk from August 1998 to January 1999.