Bring on the bad guys: The Abomination

The Abomination has been my favourite Marvel villain (only just edging out Fing Fang Foom) since I first read #12 of the “Silver Surfer, one of my first US Marvel comics in 1970. The next US Marvel comic that I purchased was "Incredible Hulk" #137 in 1971 which again featured the Abomination, and 10/11-year-old me was hooked on both these big green behemoths. Since this time, I have picked up as many comics as I could find where the Abomination appeared . Like most of my favourite comics these issues were created in the early to mid-1970s.

The character was first introduced in Tales to Astonish # 90(and 91) in 1967 as Emil Blonsky a KBG agent and spy who became the Abomination after deliberately exposing himself to a greater quantity of the same gamma radiation that transformed Bruce Banner into the Hulk. These issues of “Tales to Astonish” were reprinted in "Marvel Super-Heroes" #45 &46 (#45 at header and #46 above). In this story by Stan Lee with art by Gil Kane, Blonsky becomes a large scaly Hulk-like monster that is even stronger than the Hulk (the first appearance of the Abomination is shown above) . In accordance with Stan Lee's wishes, the Abomination was to defeat the Hulk in their first battle but he is captured by the Stranger who interrupts their rematch and teleports the Abomination to his home world in issue 91.

The Abomination is next seen in the pages of "Silver Surfer" #12 after being summoned by witches to fight the Silver Surfer - a comic I have written about previously. In this tale Emil Blonsky is sent back to space, once again a prisoner of the Stranger.

The next appearance of the Abomination is in "Thor" #178 where he tries to convince the other prisoners on the Strangers home world to revolt and join him in conquering the universe, but is stopped by Thor.

In 1971 the Abomination is again paired against the Hulk in issues 136 & 137 of the Incredible Hulk. In this tale the Hulk finds himself allied with various aliens to defeat the gigantic space creature Klaatu, among these aliens is the Abomination. This is another of my all-time favourite comics which I have prattled on about in a previous blog post.

We next see the Abomination in the 1973 issue of Hulk #159 where he wakes from a coma and agrees to kill the Hulk for General Thunderbolt Ross. In this issue an enraged Hulk knocks-out the Abomination when he reveal that Glen Talbot has married Betty Ross.

In Hulk # 171 (1974) the Abomination forms an alliance with the Rhino. In a strange Hulk type battle a bored Hulk leaps away from the Rhino and the Abomination as they both run towards him from different sides, knocking each other out.

Incredible Hulk #194 - 196 (the last issues of the Hulk that I purchased on a regular basis) features a tale where Doc Samson and General Ross implant a monitoring device into the Abominations head in order to control him. During the battle the Hulk dislodges the mind contol device and the 2 behemoths team up before falling out again.

Top Tens: The "incredible" art of Herb Trimpe.

Sometimes an artist does a character so well that they make that version of the character their own; Jack Kirby and the Fantastic Four, Curt Swan and Superman, Neal Adam’s and Batman, Gene Colan and Daredevil, and the wonderful Herb Trimpe and the Incredible Hulk. “Happy Herb” as he was known to fans, began working for Marvel in the mid-'60s in the production department before finding comic book fame as the penciller of “The Incredible Hulk” in an almost unbroken string of issues from #106-193 between 1968 and 1975. My own personal favourite Herb Trimpe Hulk comics featured the inking of John Severin , however with or without John Severin there was no doubting Herbs talent as an amazing cover artist who regularly produced action packed covers. Some of my favourite Hulk covers to accompany "Incredible Hulk" issue 163 above, are shown below:

Incredible Hulk # 141 (July 1971) - I have always coveted this issue and finally received this as an unexpected Christmas present this year.

Incredible Hulk # 171 (January 1974).

Incredible Hulk # 151 (May 1972) - by Trimpe & John Severin. This is an excellent issue and has remained one of my all-time favourite comics since I first read it when it was reprinted in the UK "Mighty World of Marvel" comic

Incredible Hulk # 132 (October 1970) - by Trimpe & John Severin.

Incredible Hulk # 148 (February 1972) - by Trimpe & John Severin. Yet another classic Hulk tale by Archie Goodwin and Trimpe/Severin.

Marvel Super-Heroes #63 (1977) - Originally published in "Incredible Hulk #109 (November 1968) cover by Trimpe & John Severin. "Marvel Super-Heroes" featured classic Hulk reprints from #25 to #105.

Incredible Hulk #110 (December 1968) cover by Trimpe & John Severin. This is one of my earliest Marvel comics which I purchased only a few years ago. Another Hulk classic that I first read in the UK "Mighty World of Marvel" weekly.

Incredible Hulk # 142 (August 1971) - by Trimpe & John Severin.

Incredible Hulk # 137 (March 1971) - by Trimpe - I have prattled on before about my affection for this issue (and # 136) which were the first 2 issues of the US Hulk comic that I purchased.

"Mighty World of Marvel" #94 (July 1974) by Trimpe. This story was originally published in Incredible Hulk # 131 (September 1970) and is one of the few Hulk back issues I would still like to pick up.

Despite his amazing run on the Hulk, Herb is probably best known by todays comic book fans as the first artist to draw the Wolverine, a character who debuted in “Incredible Hulk” #180 as a villain and has since gone on to become one of the best-known and most annoyingly successful of Marvel’s character ( only beaten to that title for me by “Deadpool”) . Although Trimpe co-created almost all the Hulks supporting cast, including Jim Wilson (#131), Doc Sampson (#141) and the Hulk Busters military unit, he did not as is so often noted, co-create the Wolverine. That accolade goes to John Romita who designed his costume, and writers Len Wein (and Roy Thomas?). I never owned a copy of #180 (and I am unlikely to ever buy this at the prices being asked) but the excellent "True Believers" issue is a good alternative.

Trimpe’s work at Marvel was not just confined to the Hulk, he also created the World War I flying ace the Phantom Eagle (above) which allowed him to indulge his passion for classic planes. He also worked on numerous other Marvel titles including runs on Ant-Man in Marvel Feature , Ka-Zar, Iron-Man, Fantastic Four, Godzilla, Shogun Warrior, War of the Worlds, the Defenders, G.I Joe and many other books. Sadly, Herb passed away in 2015 while out jogging from a heart attack at the age of age 75. .

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.

My Famous Firsts: Incredible Hulk issue 137

Although I had been aware of the Hulk through the pages of the UK weekly comic “Smash” where his stories had been reprinted since 1966, it wasn’t until 1971 when I saw and purchased my first US Hulk comic, the above issue 137 (cover by Trimpe and Marie Severin). At the time of his appearances in Smash! I wasn’t a fan of the character mostly because his strips seemed poorly produced with pages looking crammed (Smash would print 4 US Hulk pages into 3 UK pages etc) and of course I was only about 6 years old at this time and superhero stories weren’t of that much interest to me then. However, by mid-1971 my fascination with the superhero genre was starting to emerge and those elusive US Marvel comics (DC’s weren’t that hard to find) were starting to be a priority purchase for me.

My first memory of seeing the Hulk was on the cover of my brothers copy of Smash! Issue 17 which featured Jack Kirby’s cover for Incredible Hulk issue 1. Sadly the Hulk was printed in flesh tones as Marvel only supplied Odhams with black and white artwork forgetting to tell them that the Hulk was green (or even grey as he appeared on Kirby’s US cover). Cover from the Grand Comic Database.

It was on a trip to my local newsagent around July 1971 where I spied Incredible Hulk issue 137 which I immediately purchased. I held onto this copy of the Hulk (and issue 136 which I purhased a few weeks later) for decades until I I left a large box of comics containing these issues sometime in the early 1980's, when I moved house. It wasn’t until a holiday visit to Liverpool around 6 years ago that I saw a nice copy of issue 137 (and 136) for sale at the very reasonable price of £3 each.. As soon as I saw the cover of issue 137 my memory went back to the day I first purchased it and remembered (before I opened my copy) the above strange character from that story which must have made a strong impression on my then young mind.

Issue 137 was the final part of a two issue tale called “The Stars, Mine Enemy” that began in issue 136. The story lends heavily from Herman Melville’s novel “ Moby Dick” where the Hulk is forced aboard a ship of aliens who are hunting the alien creature Klaatu. There he meets the Abomination who is First Mate aboard the vessel where as expected the Hulk and Abomination begin fighting. The captain of the space ship Cybor, hires Xeron the Starslayer to help him hunt down and destroy Klaatu who was responsible for destroying half his body. As the hunt progresses Cybor harpoons Klaatu, but gets pulled into the sun killing him and seemingly destroying the monster as well (50 plus year spoiler : Klaatu returns) . As the Hulk and the Abomination continued their fight, their blows bring them closer to Earth's atmosphere where they are pulled in by the planet's gravity sending them into a free fall to the planet's surface. Some of my favourite pages from this issue are noted below:

The above cover (by Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema) to issue 136 was the first part of this tale called “Klatuu! The Behemoth from Beyond Space!” I first purchased this comic a couple of weeks after buying issue 137 in the same newsagents and found it "fun" that I found this and issue 137 together in a market stall in Liverpool some 50 years after I first bought them in Glasgow.