Rampaging Hulk Primer
Rampaging Hulk was put out by Marvel Comics in 1977 was one of Marvel’s attempt in the magazine market through their Curtis Magazines imprint. It was an attempt to present Hulk stories for a more mature audience. Although reading most of the Hulk stories you’d be left guessing that this was their intent as the stories weren’t that much more mature than anything in the mainstream Hulk book.
The first 9 issues were originally framed around the early era of the Hulk (aka the first run of Incredible Hulk which ran for six issues between 1962 and 1963). It was a serialized story written by Doug Moench with a rotation of artists including Walt Simosn, Keith Pollard, Herb Trimpe, and Sal Buschema. Moench’s story involved the Hulk trying to stop a complex invasion of Earth with the help of an alien woman named Bereet and his long time friend Rick Jones. This run was interrupted in issue #4 with a one-off story by John Warner and Jim Starlin. The title also featured the Hulk encountering the X-Men, Sub-Mariner, and the pre-Avengers before he met them in primary Marvel continuity.
Although this was intended to take place in the mainstream Marvel Universe (aka Earth-616), Marvel eventually relegated these stories to an alternate reality of Earth-7711. On Earth-616, it was revealed that these Rampaging Hulk stories were works of fiction created by Earth-616’s version of Bereet, as seen in Incredible Hulk #269.
Filling out the rest of each issue were back-up stories featuring other characters. Primarily the adventures of Ulysses Bloodstone (written by Steve Gerber) in issues 1-6 and 8, as well as a Man-Thing story in issue #7 and Shanna the She-Devil in issue #9.
By this time, the Incredible Hulk television series had just come out and was a smash hit. To capitalize on this, the format of Rampaging Hulk magazine was changed. It was retitled “Hulk!” and went from black-and-white to color. These stories are set in the mainstream Marvel Universe, but are in a similar format to the Hulk television show of the era, the stories were centred on human drama, featured a wandering Bruce Banner/Hulk, and had no supporting cast members, guest stars, or supervillains (or at least none that were pre-established.)
Moon Knight became a recurring back-up feature starting with issue #11 appearing in every issue for the rest of the 70s with the exception of Hulk! #16.
