“Hulk smash!” is the war cry of comics’ not-so-jolly green giant, but it took getting him out of the four-color pages to see him really smash. ESSENTIAL RAMPAGING HULK: VOL. 1 collects the first 15 issues of Marvel’s 1970s black-and-white magazine starring The Hulk, and free of the Comics Code Authority, the difference in violence is tangible.
But it took a little time to find its footing. For the initial nine editions, writer Doug Moench enacted an ongoing storyline heavy on sci-fi, with Hulk befriending an alien woman named Bereet who wears a Mohawk-looking thing on her head that allows them to trip dimensions.
These first stories are tiresome, as if stuck in a time loop — different setting, same scenario. Perhaps sensing this, THE RAMPAGING HULK underwent a name change with issue #10, becoming simply THE HULK!, which is more closely sounding to the then-hit CBS show, anyway.
Under this new, improved direction, the stories stood alone issue to issue. Sure, scientist Bruce Banner is still a wandering soul, scouring all corners of the globe in hopes of finding a cure to forever de-rage him, but that’s the “B” story — we know it’s never going to happen, so it’s the situations along the way that make for the fun.
A pair of complementary Moon Knight stories closes out the volume, in which that hero of the night meets The Hulk. Both were reprinted in ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT: VOL. 1, but since they originally appeared in the pages of THE HULK, it’s nice to see them included here as well, if only for the sake of posterity. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL GHOST RIDER: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL GODZILLA: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL IRON FIST: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL KILLRAVEN: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL MAN-THING: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL MARVEL HORROR: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL MARVEL SAGA: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE: VOL. 2
• ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL NOVA: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL SAVAGE SHE-HULK: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL SUPER VILLAIN TEAM-UP: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL TALES OF THE ZOMBIE: VOL. 1
Related posts:
- Essential Savage She-Hulk: Vol. 1
- Essential Defenders: Vol. 1
- Essential Marvel Two-in-One: Vol. 2
- Essential Moon Knight: Vol. 1
- Essential Ghost Rider: Vol. 1
