This collection is the first series with the Hulk, which only ran for six issues. Many things are different here from what most people think of the character, including how Hulk is not as monosyllabic as he would later become or how Banner constructs a gamma ray machine that enables him to change back and forth at will (although how willing the Hulk is to do so is questionable, and the toll it takes on Banner to do so). What this start reveals, however, is how much debt the concept owed to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, with Banner playing the good doctor and the Hulk as the raging monster. Yes, there’s a difference—Hulk never intentionally does bad things, although he destroys enough property. The side characters are there from the very beginning—Hulk/Banner’s military antagonist, General Thunderbolt Ross; the love interest, Betty Ross, the general’s daughter; and the kid sidekick, Rick Jones, ostensibly the one who got Banner in all this trouble in the first place.

There’s very little realism in these comics. How can Banner create a hidden laboratory with machinery that can cage the Hulk when needed, not to mention power his gamma ray transformations. How Rick Jones is able to hang around a military facility—does he not have any school to attend, is there no security in this facility? The fact that Hulk is always letting Jones hang on to him and the fact that Jones is always hanging around Banner never clues either of the Ross kin into revealing that Banner and the Hulk are one and the same?

Recommended only for those interested in the history of the character, as the plot, writing, and even art are fairly basic if not badly done. ( )

Amazing to think that one of Marvel's most iconic characters, making his debut only 6 months after FF #1, bombed in his first run, being pulled after only 6 issues.
Stan Lee's explanation was that the Bullpen was overworked at the time but perhaps the first incarnation of The Incredible Hulk just wasn't thought out enough. They couldn't decide what colour he should be (grey in the first issue, green after that), under what circumstances Bruce Banner turns into The Hulk, whether he retains his intelligence when he changes etc.
In all, these 6 issues are an experiment that didn't come off. Pulling the pin in 1963, the jolly green giant became a support character, an anti-hero, a not-quite-villain until after an 18 month hiatus he returned in his own series again in Tales To Astonish (see the second volume in this series for those). ( )