The Incredible Hulk was always one of the mainstays of Marvel UK having appeared in their first British comic the well remembered Mighty World of Marvel in 1972 which ran for some 329 issues untill the format change when the title was changed to simply Marvel Comic and the Hulk got his own weekly which ran for some 60 odd issues before merging with Spider-Man Weekly.
In addition the Hulk had a number of Annuals of which this was the first from 1978 from World Distributors then Grandreams and finally Marvel UK itself intermittently up until 2009. There was also a Spider-Man/Hulk Omnibus and Pop-Up book.
This particular annual starts off with a three page recap of The Hulk's origin story by Stan lee and Jack Kirby before taking us into the main feature which reprints the Hulks Adventures from Tales To Astonish #62 to #66 from 1964 to 1965.
Captured by General Ross the Hulk is helplessly trapped as a mysterious villain called The Leader sends in one of his agents, the Chameleon to investigate what has happened to his agent. In this story sequence The Leader discovers the existence of the Hulk and seeks either to destroy or use old Greenskin for his own nefarious purposes.
We are also told the gamma ray induced origin of the Leader and the President of the United States is told by Rick Jones the secret that Bruce banner is hiding. Of course th jealous Major Talbot is determined to prove Banner is an agent of the "reds" which coincides with Bruce being "rescued" and kidnapped by a commie submarine.
Of course neither the Hulk or Banner are prisoner for very long in this story by Stan Lee with artwork from Steve Ditko. The annual is published in full colour unlike Marvel's own UK output back in the day. Worth picking up and a lot cheaper than collecting the original US editions!
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