Hulk Comic #17
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeHulk Comic #17 marks the debut of Yi Yang, the immortal Dragon Tong crimelord who would become Night-Raven's defining arch-enemy — a character whose later reinvention by Alan Moore transformed her into one of Marvel UK's most psychologically complex villains and set Night-Raven on his long trajectory toward tragic immortality. The issue sits within the historically significant first-twenty-issue run of Hulk Comic, the only phase when the anthology carried a full slate of original British-created material, making it part of a creative experiment that was genuinely unprecedented: a regular, weekly Marvel Comics title populated almost entirely by homegrown UK talent rather than American reprints. It also advances Steve Parkhouse and Paul Neary's ongoing Black Knight fantasy serial — an Arthurian adventure that gave Dane Whitman his longest solo showcase before his 1980s American revival — and together the two original strips in this issue represent the concentrated output of what editor Dez Skinn called an 'adventure anthology' vision distinct from the superhero formula dominant on both sides of the Atlantic.
In "The Hulk - Trapped on the Island of Madness!", the Hulk, still in full possession of his mind, finds himself stranded on a mysterious island where the very landscape seems to twist reality. Written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Herb Trimpe, with inks by Tom Sutton and lettering by Tom Orzechowski, this 1979 Marvel UK issue sees the Hulk join forces with Mr. Fantastic and Professor X in a desperate bid to survive the island’s growing madness. The cover, a striking piece by Paul Neary, captures the eerie isolation of the setting — a 10p comic in 1979 that’s a must for any fan of classic Marvel tales.
In "The Uncanny Time-Master Strikes Again!", a disgraced scientist wields a device that accelerates aging to terrorize the city, leaving even Ant-Man powerless to stop him. When the hero’s own grandson is accidentally caught in the machine’s path, a desperate act of regret leads to a race against time to undo the damage.
In "Part Four: This Monster This Man!", the intelligent Hulk joins forces with Mr. Fantastic and Professor X in a desperate stand against Galactus. As the battle reaches its climax, they lose their powers—leaving the Thing, now dangerously enhanced, a threat as unpredictable as the Hulk once was.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Hulk Comic was conceived and edited by Dez Skinn, who wanted a British anthology grounded in adventure and legend rather than conventional superheroics, and launched on 7 March 1979 as the first British comic title to regularly feature Marvel characters in wholly British-originated stories. The Night-Raven strip — developed by Skinn alongside editor Richard Burton, scripted by Steve Parkhouse, and drawn by David Lloyd — was the series' flagship original character, a 1930s pulp vigilante consciously modelled on The Shadow and The Spider. The Black Knight serial running through the same issues was also scripted by Parkhouse, with linework by Paul Neary and John Stokes, and represented the character's first sustained solo treatment after years on the margins of the Avengers. By issue #17 the anthology was approaching the end of its all-original phase; low sales would push most strips aside in favour of US reprints after issue #20, though the Black Knight strip proved popular enough to survive through to the title's final issue, #63.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Yi Yang — Night-Raven's arch-enemy and the immortal head of the Dragon Tong — makes her first appearance in this issue (Hulk Comic #17, June 1979, Marvel UK), as confirmed by the Marvel Appendix, the Marvel Database, and the Albion British Comics Database.
- Yi Yang was created by Steve Parkhouse and John Bolton; she is credited as an immortal Chinese crime lord claiming to be thousands of years old, whose vendetta against Night-Raven would later become the engine of Alan Moore's acclaimed text-story reinvention of the character.
- The Night-Raven strip in this issue — part of the continuous Hulk Comic #1–20 run written by Steve Parkhouse and drawn by David Lloyd — sets the Yi Yang arc in motion: her Dragon Tong is running an opium smuggling operation in Chinatown when Night-Raven stumbles onto it.
- The Black Knight chapter in #17, written by Parkhouse and drawn by Paul Neary and John Stokes, continues Dane Whitman's Otherworld quest alongside supporting characters Vortigen, Moondog, Valinor, Cormac, Captain Croglin the goblin, and Lupe the wolf — with the standing stones serving as a key story location.
- Hulk Comic was edited by Dez Skinn and was the first British comic title to regularly feature Marvel characters in British-originated adventures; the original strips in issues #1–20 were produced by creators including David Lloyd, Steve Parkhouse, Paul Neary, John Stokes, Steve Dillon, and Dave Gibbons.
- Alongside the original strips, the issue carries American reprint content; the wider run of Hulk Comic drew reprint material from 1960s Ant-Man stories (Stan Lee/Jack Kirby), as well as Nick Fury and Hulk reprints from the US back-catalogue.
- The Night-Raven stories from Hulk Comic #1–20 (the run containing this issue) were later collected in two trade paperbacks: Night Raven: The Collected Stories (Marvel UK, 1990, 64 pages) and the more comprehensive Night Raven: From the Marvel UK Vaults (Marvel, 2017, 280 pages), the latter also reprinting subsequent strips by Alan Moore, Jamie Delano, David Lloyd, John Bolton, and Alan Davis.
- The Black Knight serial that runs through this issue was the longest-lasting original strip in Hulk Comic, continuing through all 63 issues (with one brief reprint hiatus), and represented Dane Whitman's most substantial solo showcase before his return to prominence in 1980s American comics.
Cast · 13 characters
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Tales to Astonish #43 (1963), The Eternals #7 (1977), What If? #2 (1977)
Reprinted in Night Raven: The Collected Stories #[nn] (1990), Captain Britain #2 (2011), Hulk: From the Marvel UK Vaults #[nn] (2013), Night Raven: From the Marvel UK Vaults #[nn] (2017), Captain Britain Omnibus #[nn] (2021)
Key issues in Hulk Comic
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