Once upon a time, in 1984, it was a planned Hulk story called Thanksgiving by Barry Windsor-Smith, which portrayed the Hulk's existence as a result of abuse Bruce Banner suffered as a child. The idea was then used by Bill Mantlo in the ongoing Hulk comic book revealing the Hulk to be an expression of what was then dubbed schizophrenia, now dissociative identity disorder and more commonly multiple personality disorder. Peter David credits Mantlo for inspiring his own work on the character, which became so seminal, defining the character for a generation.

Some state that Mantlo simply stole the idea, and that seems to have been Windsor-Smith's interpretation. But talking to industry figures, the consensus seems to be that Mantlo didn't steal it, but was referring to it. Knowing the story existed, presuming it would be published by the time his issue was out, and referring to it when writing his own. Expanding upon the original idea, with his own concepts of three externalised figures, Guardian, Goblin and Glow, representing Freudian aspects of the Hulk and Banner's mind, conjured up by the Crossroads world around him.

Barry Windsor-Smith pulled his Hulk story in protest and began to rework it for other publication plans. First to Dark Horse Comics where it would have been called Big Red, but he fell out with publisher Mike Richardson over the Storyteller series. He took the projects to DC Comics, where it would have been recreated with new characters as a graphic novel, Monster. However, that project failed as Karen Berger and Paul Levitz refusing to allow Windsor-Smith to use certain vulgarities in the comic, and a now-planned use of the c-word was too far for DC then (though commonplace in Hellblazer now). What was originally a 22-page story was now over 270 pages

features “The Return of the Storyteller,” as we conduct an in-depth discussion with the legendary comic book artist and illustrator Barry Windsor-Smith about his mammoth new graphic novel, Monsters, a tour de force decades in the making! We delve into the epic’s origin as an Incredible Hulk one-shot back in the mid-1980s and its subsequent evolution into perhaps BWS’s magnum opus, a 300+ page saga about rage, revenge, and forgiveness. Also included is a gallery of rare out-takes from Monsters. This issue also contains part two of our scintillating chat with Scott Shaw! about his Oddball Comics obsession, underground and ground-level comics work, Hanna-Barbera licensing material, and his collaboration with Roy Thomas on Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew! Then Ken Meyer, Jr. looks at the great fanzines of 40 years ago, plus we check in with with our usual crew: Rich Arndt, Kendall Whitehouse, Darrick Patrick, as well as revel in the latest Hembeck Dateline installment! Edited by Jon B. Cooke.