The Hulk

History: The Hulk was a criminal exiled to a prison planet. On day, the Hulk stole the supply spaceship and flew off to his homeworld, but the ship developed engine trouble and crashlanded on Earth in a swamp. The Hulk's unconscious body was discovered by electrician Joe Harper, who took the creature back to his workshop and revived him with electricity. The Hulk overpowered Harper and put the world under his hypnotic domination. The Hulk then had the people build him a gigantic spaceship while Harper watched. Harper sabotaged the control panel of the spaceship to short-circuit, resulting in the Hulk being paralyzed as the ship orbited the sun. The hypnotic spell on Earth's population faded, with only Harper remembering the events that occurred.

Three months later, the Hulk was able to use telekinesis to divert an asteroid into his spaceship, knocking the ship back on course to Earth. When the ship landed, the electric charge ended, allowing the Hulk to move again. The weakend Hulk used his powers to take over the town of Pineville. Joe Harper returned to combat the Hulk. As the Hulk attempted to use his hypnotic energy on Harper to make Harper's atoms fly apart, Harper used a mirror to reflect the energy back, causing the Hulk to dissolve.

In modern times, the Hulk (now with his fur white instead of browish-orange and called “Xemnu the Living Titan”) reformed his body, returned to Earth, and battled the members of the the super-team known as the Defenders.

Xemnu once used his superior technology to manufacture duplicates of Diablo, Groot, Taboo, Goom, and The Blip to battle The Incredible Hulk; all of the duplicates were destroyed by the Hulk.

Xemnu battled the super-heroes Wonder Man and The Thing in an evil plot using TV producer Ted Silverberg.

Xemnu clashed with The She-Hulk twice, then became part of the teddy-bear collection of a gigantic humanoid alien named Big Enilwen (NOTE: “Enilwen” is an anagram for former Marvel staffer “Len Wein”)

Height: 15 ft.
Demonstrated Powers: The Hulk had the power of telepathy and could hypnotize the minds of individuals with his powers of mental domination. The Hulk also demonstrated the powers of telekinesis. The Hulk's mental abilities increased in modern times, with the ability to fire mind-force blasts.

Comment: Speculation - Joe Harper referred to the Hulk as a “metal creature”; this, coupled with the Hulk's revival from electricity, suggests that the Hulk was possibly some form of cyborg (cybernetic organism).

Comment: The Hulk is not to be confused with The Incredible Hulk nor with Albert Poole's robot from “I Made The Hulk Live” by Don Heck in Strange Tales # 75, nor with the criminal Hulk Hogan who fought Clay Harder, The Two-Gun Kid in Gunsmoke Western # 63.

For another entry on Xemnu the Hulk, click HERE.

I do remember seeing this in the Kirby Collector Magazine. The odd thing is that it's a variation on many plots I've seen repeated. All of the concepts we've seen on Monster Blog have been done in the superhero books in one form or another.

After reading a small portion of the unpublished stories I wish we could have seen a few sequels to some them. The Hulk concept must have been in the back of Jack's mind after this story because of it's effectiveness.

Just read the caption… “I was a slave to the living Hulk!” …the furry version of the Hulk replies… “no living thing can defy the Hulk” …sort of a variation of the “puny humans can't hurt Hulk” …without the Frankenstein-like dialogue.

I only wish you could put this story on line. I would like to read it. It's unfortunate that all of them couldn't go up. I wish the younger fans could appreciate the stories of this bygone era where intellegent writing was the norm.

Who would think that a hero of this same name would become a legend among comics fans? This monster did eventually battle the Hulk under a different name in a 1975 annual that I remember his name was “Xemnu The Living Titian” and if it was a reprint, I don't remember. It's one of those issues I have to search for in my collection.

The Hulk of today is just the favorite of the month artist who has a contract for a year and goes on to something else. Gone are the days when you'd see a good Kirby clone artist like Herb Trimpe stay on the title for eight years. To me he redfined the Hulk after my memory of the early Kirby issues. He took the dynamic style of Kirby and put his own interpration of the character.

With comics in competition with video games and movies; the days of seeing a Curt Swan (from Superman) or a Herb Trimpe (70's artist on the Hulk) on a title for a decade… are long gone! The marketing departments have taken over and today the charcters don't have a consistant voice. They characters are all homogenized to sell everything from cereal to toothpaste.

“the days of seeing a Curt Swan (from Superman) or a Herb Trimpe (70's artist on the Hulk) on a title for a decade… are long gone!”

Yeah, I agree. At least we do get the occasional creator-owned book like The Savage Dragon, which has been written, pencilled & inked by Erik Larsen for more than ten years straight. Plus, Larsen is a big fan of Lee & Kirby's work. He has a lot of homages in the series, including to some of the pre-hero monsters. It's lots of fun!

I believe there was at least one other Hulk before Bruce Banner — can anyone confirm this?

Well, besides Albert Poole's robot (mentioned above), there was also “The Hulk” from Tales to Astonish # 21 from the story “It Happened on the Silver Screen” (art by Ditko) (renamed “The Glop” in reprints…”The Hulk”, that is, not Ditko) and for you Wild West fans, the Rawhide Kid once fought a “Hulk Hogan” (an outlaw, not the wrestler) (art by Kirby).

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