Barry Pearl's Guest Post - Steve Ditko (In His Own Words) On The Incredible Hulk...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Steve Ditko from The Complete Four-Page Series, 2020, published by Robin Snyder:

In the case of the Hulk, the creator (Lee/Kirby) had "erred" contradicting the requirements necessary in bringing forth a survivable product.... Some people bought the Lee Kirby Hulk, but not enough to enable Marvel to continue publishing him.  The Lee/Kirby Hulk obviously lacked something the other more successful profitable Marvel characters or titles supplied... Because the first Hulk series failed over a year before, Stan did not want to do the same Lee/Kirby type feature.  So there had to be a noticeable difference between the old and the new Hulk.

There were discussions between us about the second Hulk.  A big part centered on what Stan wanted to discard, what we could keep and why.  Important discussions centered on what new approaches for the Hulk were possible...  Our new approach was to be more of an overhaul, a redesign of a previous model, the exchange of a wrong idea/or formula for an alloy product that had value for buyers.  The pile of old Lee/Kirby Hulks were mined mainly for what ore/ideas should be discarded.

The military context would remain with the supporting cast of General Ross and his daughter.  The aliens, monsters, outsize villains in far-out fantasies, were scrapped as junk material.  The more human-type of villain, meaning the less super-powerful in contrast to the Hulk, were in.  It meant scaling down the potential for dramatic visual hero/villain action... The 2nd Hulk was to appear in an ongoing serial rather than self-contained stories.

So there would be more emphasis on showing the psychological, social problems of Banner and his role as the Hulk and how it affects his relationship with others and with his life and the world.  Physical action would be played down, reduced.  Super villains would be too distracting...  There came the usual Lee plot synopsis, my working out the story pages/panel breakdown, penciling of the art, rough script and then going over the material with Stan.

So the new 2nd Hulk by Lee/Ditko/Bell (George Roussos, inker) was an alloy, a blend of old and new...

Posted in: Cartoons