Favourite covers: The Hulk - King Size Special issue 1 - by Jim Steranko

The above cover to the “Hulk King-sized Special” issue 1 is one of the most distinctive and iconic covers in the history of comic books showing a custom designed Hulk logo crumbling under its own immense weight as the Hulk strains with every sinew to keep it in place. The cover drawn by the legendary Jim Steranko in 1968 is a brilliantly designed, coloured and immensely powerful illustration of the Hulk, yet despite this Steranko’s original version wasn’t used due to concerns that the Hulks face looked too “brutal”. As a result an editorial decision was made that Marie Severin would redraw the Hulks face so it would appear less “monstrous” the result is still a great piece of work but perhaps not as striking as Steranko’s original vision.

The comic itself contain the story “The Hulk Battles the Inhumans” written by Gary Friedrich and illustrated by Marie Severin and Syd Shores and present the Hulks first encounter with the Inhumans. As the Hulk wanders the Alpes he is attacked by Lockjaw who teleports him to the dimension where the evil Inhumans ( Maximus, Aireo, Falcona, Nebul, Leonus, Stallior and Timberious) have been banished (page below taken from Marvel Wiki).

The first version of Steranko's Hulk cover that I actually bought was when it was reprinted as the cover to “Mighty World Of Marvel” issue 129 (March 1975) however, as was the case with the US edition the cover was still not printed exactly as Jim Steranko had originally drawn it. This version certainly featured Steranko’s original Hulk head, but the Hulk was no longer standing on the crumbling words “Battles the Inhumans” instead this was replaced by the wording “Battles the Inheritor” an albeit minor but necessary change as the UK cover was used for the story that appeared in the “Incredible Hulk” issue 149 (the story with the Inhumans having appeared in the Mighty World of Marvel issue 60-61).

Steranko’s original cover art eventually appeared in the second issue of FOOM magazine in 1973 (which he was editing at this time) along with other version of the Hulk by other artists. The cover to FOOM 2 also included a new Steranko "less brutal" Hulk cover.

And of course Steranko drew a more "monsterous" looking Hulk in his excellent run on Captain America, most notably in issue 110.

Until very recently this has been a comic I have coveted since I first saw it advertised in a US Marvel comic when I was about 13 years old (this was after 1968 - I’m not that old). Last week I found a poor quality copy that had a nice clean cover for only £3. Although the actual comic pages were in poor condition (and 2 pages are missing) I was pretty chuffed to eventually get this issue for the classic cover alone.