***

Maybe Marie Severin in print, but it's hard to remember because I'm fairly sure I discovered the Hulk on TV, thus:

I was a fortunate late 1970s kid, so I had the best of all worlds. Sal Buscema and Roger Stern on INCREDIBLE HULK proper, Hulk on television, MARVEL SUPER HEROES reprinted Herb Trimpe classics, and Marvel released the Pocket Books full-color reprints of Kirby Hulk 1-6 and a second volume with Marie Severin, Gil Kane Hulk. Plus the various Fireside Books volumes, especially the giant one reprinting Steve Ditko and Kirby stuff of the 1960s. And not even beginning to mention the MARVEL TREASURY EDITIONS with beautiful Trimpe art blown up to epic size.

There really wasn't a better Hulk era, ever.

Couldn't agree more. Even though I was born in 1977, the joys of retroactive discovery lead me to the same conclusion.

I think JB's version of the Hulk (while certainly influenced by what Sal had been doing) revolutionized the way the character has been portrayed since--to the point that I think Dale Keown was the last Hulk artist to get the character right, visually. 

Michael Golden

Mike Zeck

Not forgetting, Robert B. For whatever reason, I missed the Sal DEFENDERS stuff. I'm not sure why I didn't pick up more Defenders comics. But I seem to recall that, post-Sal, even though the Hulk was featured on the covers of the Defenders mag, he often as not had a walk-on role. This was verified for me recently while reading a "Back Issue" issue about the Defenders, and how most of the writers, including Englehart, DeMatteis, and especially Gerber resented the Hulk's forced presence in their stories. The Hulk was not stylistically sensible for the comic, as I understand it, so he was usually written out as soon as possible, or used for sight gags. 

It's interesting, most of the writers on THE DEFENDERS just didn't understand the Hulk's role, and admitted to changing the Hulk's persona enough to allow him to "sit in" with the team. So it was, the Hulk in his own title was very different from the one in DEFENDERS.

Being a gargantuan Hulk fan growing up, I must have flipped through a Defenders comic expecting Hulk action and getting only a couple panels of a disgruntled Hulk jumping off and out of the book. And probably Don Perlin art, which I love now but didn't thrill me like Jack Kirby. Kirby kind of ruined solid but unspectacular art, such as that found in DEFENDERS. As a kid, anything short of Kirby, John Buscema, Trimpe, Gene Colan or Sal (and Sal was so unobtrusively great that I barely registered Sal as Artist, but Sal's Hulk was my "real" Hulk), and I wasn't interested. Sad to say, but true.

Makes me want to apologize personally to Al Milgrom, Perlin, Heck, Ernie Colon, Jose Delbo, and Ron Wilson. I cannot apologize for detesting 1980s Steve Ditko Marvel output, but I can't blame a genius for being bored I guess.