Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Single Issue Hall of Fame: Incredible Hulk Annual #5

This book is an absolute must-have for fans of pre-Fantastic Four #1 Atlas monsters. For one reason or another, an unseen villain has decided to duplicate a selection of monsters that have been kept secret by the US government. The raison d'etre of these creatures is to take down old Green Skin. A few details are skipped over, like the indentity of the villain and the explanation of why he didn't just have them all attack the Hulk at the same time. It's really just an excuse for Chris Claremont to play around in a circa 1960 sandbox and that's more just fine with me. Of course, Jack Abel's inks don't do much for Sal Buscema's terrific pencils. There's one panel in which Hulk looks as though he was drawn by a 5 year old. It all ends rather abruptly, but so did Stan's old 6 pagers. Good stuff.

2 comments:

Four-Color Kid said...

This looks like a lot of fun.
I have got to get that issue.

Too bad they couldn't get Kirby or Ditko to draw that issue.


With Vince Colletta, Jack Abel is at the top of my list of the worst inkers...

Mark said...

I remember not liking this issue when I was a kid but now it's pretty great.