i was heavily into both books when the switch took place that landed john at the hulk book.i'd rather it never happened at all but john's hulk stuff was the usual greatness,the depature was a shock for me-getting issue 120 in my hands,opening it up and seeing no byrne.

i stayed with the hulk,was pretty happy with what milgrom did with it.

anybody see that the current/upcoming issue of the hulks' variant cover is a picture of the guy in the thor costume??

marvel editors am drink while working time again?!?

I get the feeling the return of the KirbyHulk could have revitalized the character. For one thing, just about every artist type I've ever heard about is nutso for the Frankenstein Monster. They love drawing him, they love buying stuff with him on it.

The Hulk shared a unique bond with Mary Shelley's creation. Even though Kirby started out with a romantic, handsome Hulk in ish 1, by ish 3 he had established the cro-magnon standard. It's a look that isn't shared by any other character.

From a graphic standpoint, you could take a square with a little patch of hair on top, put two brow humps on it with a snarl mouth, with no other features, and have an instantly-recognizable symbol. The Hulk's "S"-shield, for want of better phrasing.

Anyway, Bruce Timm and Steve Rude have long expressed their love of this look.

What David's run did was turn Banner the everyman into Banner the nutjob, and the Hulk from a mutant creature of rage into one of that nutjob's many personalities.

In the first version, Banner is a character we can relate to. He's a normal man who, through extraordinary circumstances, has had his inner rage released into the world. Essentially, the gamma rays altered his body in such a way as to distort his brain structure/chemistry when he's the Hulk, allowing his inner rage to be given its own life.

The second version turned the Hulk into a symptom of a pre-existing mental problem, one which happened to get unleashed by the gamma rays. So, the transformation serves as a stressor of sorts that causes the switch from one personality to another.

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I would never have called Banner an "everyman".  Someone who is called a "milksop" nerd is by definition an outsider, not an everyman.  But I get the point you're going for.

But I wonder if part of the problem with the change in the Hulk's premise comes from the Leader, the Abomination and Doc Sampson.  If Banner is supposed to be normal man whose rage was unleashed by gamma rays, then why is he unique among gamma mutated individuals?  The other major gamma individuals didn't appear to have radical personality changes nor do they have a Jeckel and Hyde effect.  (I say "Major" gamma individuals, because I know we had one shot storylines that were closer to the Hulk, but those aren't the ones that had lasting impact. ) 

But I wonder if part of the problem with the change in the Hulk's premise comes from the Leader, the Abomination and Doc Sampson.  If Banner is supposed to be normal man whose rage was unleashed by gamma rays, then why is he unique among gamma mutated individuals?

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As Roger Stern established (and JB noted in his 1985 Hulk-era interviews), the gamma rays bring out a person's repressed inner self.

Banner's inner rage made him into the Hulk.

Samson became a superhero, because that's what he secretly wanted to be.

Jen Walters became sexy and uninhibited as the She-Hulk (but not at first).

Blonsky wanted to be a tough guy.

i thought Banner got his power only from the explosion.

For a while in the early-mid 1960s, Banner figured out that he could expose himself to Gamma Rays, trigger his transformation himself, and retain his intelligence albeit with an undercurrent of brutish misanthropy. Banner would "dose" and become the Hulk, in order that he could do some great good in the world.

That was the status quo for a short while. What the original Gamma Bomb had done to Banner's cells prevented him from dying of further exposure to Gamma treatment. This resultant Hulk is the one John Byrne would've used in his Hulk run.

I guess it was very soonafter that Stan Lee started using Banner's wussified panic attacks to trigger his change into an Of Mice And Men-type Hulk.