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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Have I shown this cover on its own before? I don't care, I'm showing it again 'cos I love it. I hope MARVEL do a facsimile edition of this issue. In fact, it would be nice if they did all six - the first issue is out in October, and we've already had #6 in the form of a TRUE BELIEVERS comic mag. Hey, Marvel, are you listening? Do all six as individual facsimile issues please. You know it makes sense.
The question is: why was the Hulk's first run a failure? Marvel could have ditched the character as a failed experiment but they had faith in him and so persevered - but Marvel could so easily have been Hulk-less which is an astonishing thought!
ReplyDeleteEasily answered, CJ. Martin Goodman, the publisher, was well-known for cancelling comics before the latest, most up-to-date sales figures were in, and that's probably what happened in this instance. And it wasn't so much 'Marvel' that had faith in the Hulk but Stan Lee - perhaps along with Ditko and Kirby.
ReplyDeleteRemember that Marvel was limited in the amount of titles it could publish in those days.... if I am not mistaken Hulk was taken off the schedules to allow room for....the Amazing Spider-man!
ReplyDeleteYeah, but remember also that Amazing Fantasy got canned before Goodman had even seen the sales figures for Spidey's debut (which was a runaway hit apparently), so he was known for being impetuous. And as he'd cancelled AF, there was surely room for Spidey's own mag without cancelling yet another.
ReplyDeleteAmazing Fantasy #15 was cover dated September 1962, and Amazing Spider-man #1 cover dated March 1963; it looks to me that Amazing was scheduled as soon as the sales figures of AF#15 were available.
ReplyDeleteAmazing Fantasy appears to have been cancelled to make room for the re-launch of the Two-Gun Kid, #61 appearing on the stands cover dated November 1962, the title having been on hiatus since April '61.
Linda Carter, Student Nurse was the title sacrificed for Amazing Spidey, and not the Hulk as I previously thought. Linda Carter's last issue was #9, Jan 1963. The title that the Hulk comic made way for was... Sgt Fury, which debuted cover dated May 1963.
Apart from FF#12, cover dated March 1963 (the same date as Hulk#6), the Hulk disappeared from comics until the launch of the Avengers in September 1963. From then on the Hulk appeared regularly as a co or guest star for most months until his own feature was launched in Tales to Astonish cover dated October 1964.
Hope that I haven't put you to sleep!
There's a rumour (or it may even be confirmed fact, I'm not sure) that Marvel sometimes played fast and loose with the 8 titles a month restriction. Also, some of their titles were bi-monthly, so some titles were probably alternated on a monthly basis. (Like, just as a hypothetical example, Fred Smith one month, and Sam Spud the next.) However, my main point was that Goodman cancelled some mags without waiting for the latest sales figures, and it may have been that a new mag was launched to fill a space in the schedule when one WAS cancelled, but not created with a view TO cancelling another specific title. (If that makes any sense.)
ReplyDeleteUK publishers D.C Thomson and IPC were always preparing comics to keep up their sleeves in the event that one of them released a new mag. Then the other company would rush-release a new mag to put a dent in the sales of their compeitor's new comic. I imagine that Marvel did the same, and Stan probably still had loads of that famous inventory material to use. Is that snoring I hear?