Marvel Year One: The Incredible Hulk

After Pym's debut, but before The Ant-Man, we have the Incredible Hulk Bruce "Not Yet With Twenty Middle Names" Banner.  As simple as the basic concept of the most common configuration is (Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk when he's mad), right out of the box Lee is fiddling around with things.

After being zapped by the gamma bomb, Banner turns into the Hulk at night.  This Hulk is grey, not mindless but also not as smart as Banner, and is more actively malign than the "Hulk just wants to be left alone" that we're used to.  Mr. Hyde with a little bit of Frankenstein's Monster.

For an issue we get the Hulk being controlled by Rick Jones.  This doesn't last long before the next version: Banner has to be zapped with a gamma ray gun to change in either direction.  He maintains his consciousness and intelligence as the Hulk, though his personality is more aggressive.

So far, the change from Banner to Hulk is mostly predictable and you'd like him just fine when he's angry.  He doesn't say Smash and hasn't mentioned whether he'd just like to be left alone.

His powers change as well.  He starts off strong, but seems weaker than the Thing, and can be hurt by bullets (and Banner suffers the same wound after changing).  Later we get Hulk's sonic hand-clap and his ability to jump long distances.

When Superman started he couldn't fly, just jump long distances.  I think this gradually turned to flying as time went on as he started changing directions.  My memory is that the Hulk consistently jumped.  This may be true in later years, but within panels of being able to jump long distances, the Hulk is jumping horizontally and achieving lift.

You can tell they want to make Rick Jones a thing.  Maybe historians can make a case that him and Snapper Carr were actually popular, but I refuse to accept it.  Jones is established as an "orphan with an aunt" just one month after the more famous Peter Parker but before Ben Grimm.

Incredible Hulk 1-4

Collected in Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: Man or Monster? in paperback and Kindle.