The Incredible Hulk Annual #6

History

The issue was produced during Len Wein's run as both writer and editor on the Incredible Hulk title, a tenure that stretched from 1974 through 1978, with David Anthony Kraft co-writing the script. Herb Trimpe, the series' long-serving regular penciller through most of the 1970s, handled art duties and the cover, with inks split between Frank Giacoia and Mike Esposito and colors by Janice Cohen. The story was set in continuity between pages 4 and 5 of Incredible Hulk #209, a then-common Marvel practice of slotting annuals precisely into the monthly narrative. The creative team consciously invoked the Enclave's Beehive facility from the Lee-Kirby Fantastic Four era, though the flashback depicting the Invisible Girl at the Beehive contains a noted continuity error — Sue Richards did not accompany the team in the original Fantastic Four #66.

Trivia · 7 facts

• First appearance of Paragon, the being who would later be known successively as Her, Kismet, and Ayesha — created by Len Wein, David Kraft, and Herb Trimpe.
• Paragon is the Enclave's second attempt to engineer a genetically perfect artificial human, the first being 'Him,' who became Adam Warlock; the story is a direct sequel to the Enclave's debut in Fantastic Four #66–67.
• Doctor Strange co-stars as a guest, recruited by the Enclave to perform delicate brain surgery on the being-in-cocoon, making this effectively a Hulk-and-Defenders team-up story as much as a Hulk solo annual.
• Paragon — initially presented as a grey-skinned male humanoid — overrides the Enclave's control after accessing their computer network from within its cocoon, destroys the Beehive, and seals itself in a regenerative cocoon; it later re-emerges as the gold-skinned female Her in Marvel Two-in-One #61.
• The character spawned under this issue went on to appear in the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, portrayed by Elizabeth Debicki as the golden High Priestess Ayesha of the Sovereign.
• The story has been collected in Essential Hulk Vol. 6, Marvel Masterworks: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 13, the Adam Warlock Omnibus (2022), and the Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: The Curing of Dr. Banner (2023), as well as internationally in Scandinavian Hulk albums in the early 1980s.
• Archie Goodwin served as editor-in-chief at the time of publication, with Len Wein as the book's editor — Wein thus held dual creative and editorial responsibility for the issue.

Full credits

Key issues in The Incredible Hulk Annual

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#18 1st appearance — Lucian Aster