BACK WHEN I first started reading Marvel Comics, in the mid-1960s, I was aware of The Hulk as a co-star in the Tales to Astonish series. To be honest, I liked the Giant-Man stories a bit better, but as I became more familiar with the Marvel titles, I began to pick up hints that The Hulk had enjoyed a life before Tales to Astonish . I found tantalising references to the nature of these earlier Hulk adventures when the stories started showing up in the reprint books Marvel were putting out in the mid-1960s. The Marvel Tales Annual for 1965 had a reprint of the Ringmaster segment from The Incredible Hulk 3 (Sep 1962). I knew that because Stan had thoughtfully added a caption at the foot of the first page that told me so. The cancelled Incredible Hulk series was reprinted in Marvel Collectors' Item Classics during the 1960s ... this was the first time I became aware of these comics. I can't now recall when I did finally manage to find an issue from the original run of The Incr...
THIS TIME, I've asked my old friend and former 2000AD colleague Kid Robson to contribute a guest entry for this blog. We both share a love of early Marvels, especially those written by Stan Lee, and as The Kid had mentioned Droom in one of his earlier comments on this blog, it seemed natural to ask him to offer a few words about Dr Droom and his spiritual successor Dr Strange. Thank you, Kid ... "Twas Steve's idea..." said Stan Lee about Dr. Strange in a letter to Jerry Bails in 1963. However, it's interesting to ponder just what gave Steve the idea to do a strip about a 'Master of Black Magic' (later changed to 'Mystic Arts') in the first place. The origin of Dr Strange wasn't revealed until the character's fourth appearance, in Strange Tales 115 (Jul 1963) - he hadn't appeared in Strange Tales 112 and 113 . It has been speculated that this episode was drawn much later in the series run - perhaps the ninth story, as it's markedly...