Why Marvel's Original Incredible Hulk Series Was Swiftly Canceled

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The Hulk is definitely one of Marvel Comics' most famous characters; before Marvel movies took over the multiplexes, the Hulk was one of the publishers' few characters (along with Spider-Man, Wolverine, and maybe Captain America) who everyday people knew. The Hulk's fame is largely due to the 1970s "Incredible Hulk" TV series, starring Bill Bixby as Dr. Banner and Lou Ferrigno as his green alter ego. Riffing on "The Fugitive," the "Hulk" TV series stripped away the colorful outlandishness of the comic without losing any solemnity of the Hulk's tortured half-man, half-monster self.

Yet while the Hulk was a TV star, he hasn't been so lucky at the movies. Neither the 2003 or 2008 Hulk movies were major successes and, due to disagreements between Universal and Marvel Studios, the cinematic Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is strictly a supporting player. The Hulk's struggles at finding an audience as a lead go back to the earliest Marvel comics. The original "Incredible Hulk" series, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, lasted only six issues. Yes, six, published from July 1962 to March 1963, before cancellation due to low sales.

Due to reader feedback, and apparent unwillingness to throw out a good idea, Lee kept the Hulk around as a guest star in other books. Eventually, Hulk got a second chance in the series "Tales to Astonish," starting with issue #60. Hulk first shared the book, first with Ant-Man & The Wasp and then Namor the Sub-Mariner, but upon issue #102, "Tales to Astonish" was rebranded as "The Incredible Hulk." Why did the book need this second chance? Even with only six issues, the original "Incredible Hulk" run reeks of inconsistency, and a creative team who aren't quite sure what to do with the series.

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Stan Lee's Marvel Universe was a trend-setter, but the man himself was a savvy trend-chaser who cultivated reader feedback. In "Up, Up, and Oy Vey" (about how Jewish people, like Lee and Kirby, shaped the American comics industry), Rabbi Simcha Weinstein described the Hulk as Lee's "encore" to the popularity of the Thing from "Fantastic Four," i.e. another brawny but tragic hero who looks like a monster.

Lee & Kirby were also pulling from classic science-fiction with the Hulk, especially "Frankenstein" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The fourth issue of "Incredible Hulk," where the Hulk saves a family from a burning house and is repaid with screams and gunfire, is right out of "Frankenstein." Lee & Kirby devised an atomic origin for the Hulk, with Doctor Bruce Banner metamorphosed into the monster by his invention, the "gamma bomb." Hulk was Mr. Hyde by way of 20th century monster comics and B-movies.

So what went wrong? In a column published in 1992's "Marvel Age" #118, Lee claimed "The Incredible Hulk" sold well at first, but got crowded out by Marvel's other superhero hits like Spider-Man, Thor, the Avengers, and the X-Men. Stan Lee was a famous self-mythologizer, though, and some of the specifics here don't line up. "X-Men" and "Avengers" debuted later in 1963 after "Hulk" got canned. The stronger explanation is that the earliest "Hulk" comics didn't sell because they weren't up to snuff, and their bimonthly publication likely didn't help pick up consistent readers.

"The Incredible Hulk" often redefined the rules around how the Hulk's transformations work. First Banner changes into the Hulk at night, then the Hulk became a golem controlled by Banner's teen sidekick Rick Jones, then Banner develops a ray that turns him into the Hulk at will. 

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Aside from General Thunderbolt Ross as an overarching antagonist, these six issues have no memorable villains, either, only goofballs like Mongu the Space Gladiator or the Metal Master. As current Marvel editor Tom Brevoort has noted, the Hulk as a concept springs out of Lee and Kirby's experience making monster comics for Marvel (then Timely) in the 1950s. "The Incredible Hulk" combined those comics with a superhero formula and it didn't quite work.

Regardless, Lee claimed in ("Marvel Age" #118) that "Hulkophiles" wrote into the Marvel bullpen demanding more of the Jolly Green Giant. "Up, Up, and Oy Vey!" substantiated that with an anecdote that Kirby received a letter from college students saying the Hulk had been chosen as a dorm mascot. (Incidentally, the letters page of "Tales to Astonish" #61 includes a letter from two college students claiming the Hulk in "Avengers" and "Fantastic Four" had become too mopey.)

Though Lee returned to write the Hulk's adventures in "Tales to Astonish" (now drawn by Steve Ditko), he finally managed to refine the character. The key to Banner's transformations was settled as being stress, later refined into anger. With only 10 pages for the Hulk, "Tales to Astonish" introduced serialization and often ended the Hulk's stories on cliffhangers. Lee also introduced the Leader as an ongoing villain in issue #62, delivering the Hulk an overdue nemesis. "Tales to Astonish" #77-78 mercifully did away with the secret identity; Banner is outed as the Hulk and becomes a hunted man, setting the blueprint for the Bill Bixby show. 

"Influential" is underselling Lee's co-creations at Marvel Comics but, really, only the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man were instant gold. Others like the X-Men, Daredevil, and The Hulk took longer to refine into what we know them as today.