I actually didn’t know I was going to be leaving The Incredible Hulk when I did go. What if the stories lead to him having a massive mental breakdown, and Doc Samson manages through hypnotic counseling to merge all of the fractured pieces of Bruce Banner’s personality? What we’d have then is Bruce Banner the way he would and should have been, but he’s also huge and green because you can’t really rid him of that.” And that’s what I did, with artist Dale Keown creating the Merged Hulk that was his dominant personality for much of the remainder of my stay on the series. Leonard Samson, as a recurring character in the book. And I thought, “He’s never actually sought psychological counseling, even though we had a psychiatrist, Dr. The realization suggested that even if he’d never been struck by a gamma bomb, he’d still have serious mental issues. I realized during my reading on psychology that Bruce displayed all the symptoms of what was then called Multiple Personality Disorder, even when he was younger. My writing the latter title would not send up any interoffice flares.įor years, Bruce Banner spent his time trying to cure himself of being the Hulk and it never worked for long.

Bob assured me, however, that this was a completely different case. I was still feeling bruised from being tossed off Spider-Man despite the critical acclaim my brief run had garnered. My immediate reaction was a severe lack of interest. So I was astounded when Bob walked into my sales office and pitched my writing the Hulk. The Spidey editor was trying to save his job, you see, and having some nobody from sales writing Marvel’s flagship character was Simply Not Done. I had some writing experience as the scripter for a Spider-Man title for about five minutes (well, a year) until I was fired off the book. I was Marvel’s direct sales manager, in charge of getting comic books to retailers and distributors so they could sell them. At that point in time, I had no other writing jobs.

At least that’s what he told me when he asked me if I’d be interested in taking on the assignment. It was 1986 and Bob Harras, the editor of The Incredible Hulk for Marvel Comics, was desperate.

Peter david hulk run