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Incredible Hulk Epic Collection

Incredible Hulk Epic Collection, Vol. 19: Ghost of the Past

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As one Leader falls, another rises! An epic clash between the Hulk, the Leader and the U-Foes is going to end very badly for the gamma-brained villain. Rick Jones' girlfriend Marlo won't fare any better: She dies! But thankfully, that's not the end of her story. As for the Hulk, he's about to get an offer he can't refuse - one that puts him in charge of the Pantheon! COLLECTING: Incredible Hulk (1968) 397-406, Incre dible Hulk Annual 18-19; material from Namor the Sub-Mariner Annual 2, Silver Surfer Annual 5, Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme Annual 2, Marvel Holiday Special 2 (Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Vol. 19)

480 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2015

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117 people want to read

About the author

Peter David

3,567 books1,363 followers
aka David Peters

Peter Allen David, often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games. His notable comic book work includes an award-winning 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, SpyBoy, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Marvel, and X-Factor.
His Star Trek work included comic books and novels such as the New Frontier book series. His other novels included film adaptations, media tie-ins, and original works, such as the Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life series. His television work includes series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, Ben 10: Alien Force and Nickelodeon's Space Cases, which he co-created with Bill Mumy.
David often jokingly described his occupation as "Writer of Stuff", and he was noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real-world issues with humor and references to popular culture, as well as elements of metafiction and self-reference.
David earned multiple awards for his work, including a 1992 Eisner Award, a 1993 Wizard Fan Award, a 1996 Haxtur Award, a 2007 Julie Award and a 2011 GLAAD Media Award.

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
Profile Image for Chad.
10.3k reviews1,061 followers
March 28, 2025
Part of Peter David's great run on the Hulk. You get the end of Dale Keown's stunning run and the beginning of Gary Frank's brilliant turn on the book. It's bookended by 2 crummy stories from Hulk annuals.
Profile Image for Gianfranco Mancini.
2,338 reviews1,071 followers
March 10, 2016
3,5 stars

Wow!
The "Ghost of the past", the Hulk/Juggernaut tag-team vs Avengers and Marlo's fate sagas collected in this collection of Peter David's Hulk long run are very good ones.
Dale Keown's art "smash", but the "Return of the Defenders" crossover and the annual at the end of the volume haven't aged well at all...
The Hulk vs Thing arm wrestling match opening the volume made me laugh a lot! XD
Profile Image for Malum.
2,839 reviews168 followers
December 23, 2018
I have been kind of lukewarm on the Peter David Hulk era up to this point, but this volume was great. Red Skull, Juggernaut, Hulk's daddy issues, and even a romp with the Defenders are collected here. Even The Pantheon is a bit more interesting (which is good because I usually find them pretty lame).What surprised me most, however, was the fact that Rick Jones' B story was one of the most interesting things in here (mostly because they gave him more of a personality than "Gee wiz, isn't being a Boy Scout great!).
Profile Image for James DeSantis.
Author 17 books1,203 followers
May 21, 2023
Probably my favorite collection so far. Hulking dealing with the leader, Rick Jones decent into madness, Marlos faith, Betty being great, and a bitter sweet ending. This all worked for me. A 4.5 out of 5.
Profile Image for Don Weiss.
131 reviews4 followers
August 8, 2016
Picking up almost precisely where the Hulk Visionaries: Peter David series left off, the Hulk finds himself drawn into another reunion with his former Defenders teammates, a massive throwdown with his greatest nemesis, the Leader, and a major turning point in his life as he takes over the leadership of the Pantheon.

The “Ghost of the Past” storyline (previously released as a separate trade paperback in 1996) remains one of Peter David’s finest contributions to the mythos. A sequel of sorts to “Ground Zero”, it harkens all the way back to the beginning of David’s run, addressing some long-running loose ends, and bringing the war between the Hulk and the Leader to a close (at least for the present), at a great personal cost to our hero. When Doc Samson merged the Hulk’s personalities and created this current incarnation, it had always seemed a fast fix for Bruce Banner’s emotional turmoil. It’s here that we see the first inclination that the “cure” is not as permanent as everyone thought, and it’s no coincidence that Doc Samson reenters the series after a 20+issue absence to more closely observe the results of his work.

Putting the Hulk in charge of the Pantheon is an innovative change of pace for the character. While he has worked within groups like the Avengers and the Defenders prior to this point in his life, the Hulk has by tradition been a loner, never seeking a leadership role and the demands that come with it. It’s not the smoothest of changes, but it’s an excellent opportunity for David to probe even deeper into the Hulk’s dual capacity for good and for evil, backed by a think tank organization rife with its own drama and interpersonal conflicts. The new direction is marked artistically by the departure of Dale Keown, in-between work from Jan Duursema, and the arrival of Gary Frank, all seasoned pros who do well in visualizing the people and events depicted by David.

The “Return of the Defenders” crossover, here collected in its entirety, unfortunately doesn’t fair as well, plagued by the usual sort of inconsistencies evident in crossovers. The Hulk, in particular, seems slightly out-of-character in the Namor, Dr. Strange, and Silver Surfer annuals he’s featured in, as if the other writers don’t quite have a handle on how the merged Hulk should be portrayed, and what differentiates him from other incarnations in which Banner’s mind is in control. The savage Hulk has suffered from similar mischaracterization, played as more of a beast than the lonely, child-like tragic figure he should be.

For those fans who have religiously followed Peter David’s work on the Hulk, Incredible Hulk Epics: Ghost of the Past is a hefty continuation of that prolific period. Hopefully this reprint series will continue long enough to see the remainder of David’s first twelve-year run collected, as it deserves to be.
Profile Image for Daniel.
1,205 reviews8 followers
November 24, 2019
Was a great collection, and the Peter David story is still in it's stride..
Profile Image for Kenneth Clark.
61 reviews
June 11, 2017
So much fun

This book is a great addition to the Peter David collection. I suggest picking up the lot as he, more than anyone else, has really defined the Incredible Hulk.
Profile Image for Michael.
3,385 reviews
March 20, 2022
via NYPL - The main stories here - "Ghosts of the Past," the Juggernaut/Red Skull/Avengers stuff and the Marlo death/resurrection storyline are all very good and very well drawn. The Annuals included here are mixed - the "Return of the Defenders" arc, running through a Hulk Annual and three other Annuals, might not be terrible if it were half as long as it is. The final Annual is a token "introduce a new and totally forgettable/trendy character who'll never be referred to again" one-off. But the main Hulk storyline is good. You can skim the rest of it.
++++++++++
I got several Peter David Hulk books on Kindle, including this one, so I'm reading them all in sequence, including rereading this one. Again, the Annuals are all forgettable - I wound up skipping most of the Return of the Defenders story. The main run of Hulk issues is pretty solid - not my favorite PAD Hulk stuff, but enjoyable. Bruce's arrogance is maxing out.
3,014 reviews
April 8, 2018
Seems OK.

Why are Betsy Ross and Marlo supermodels?

Why is Rick Jones the same as hooked-on-drugs Miguel O'Hara?

Why do we care about the Pantheon?

Not really clear.

But not terrible either.
Profile Image for Omar.
80 reviews1 follower
September 21, 2019
6.8 ok. I didn't really like this much. It's a meh comic. Fun and entertaining but it's okay overall.


Spoiler alert


The best part was the fight with Juggernaut
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
1,607 reviews12 followers
January 13, 2019
Reprints Incredible Hulk (2) #397-406, Annual #18-19; Namor (1) Annual #2, Silver Surfer (3) Annual #5, Doctor Strange (3) Annual #2, and Marvel Holiday Special 1993 (September 1992-June 1993). The Hulk adjusts to his life at the Pantheon and finds himself teamed with his old allies the Defenders to protect the world from an entity called the Wild One. After a confrontation with the Leader, Rick Jones faces a crisis that could shatter his life while Hulk finds himself in charge of the Pantheon and questioning how he can become a leader!

Written by Peter David, Ron Marz, Roy Thomas, Evan Skolnick, Tom Brevoort, Mike Kanterovich, James Robinson, and Ron Fortier, Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: Ghost of the Past (officially Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Volume 19: Ghost of the Past) is a collection of Hulk stories falling in the Peter David period of the series’ run. The collection features art by Kevin Maguire, James Fry, Tom Morgan, M.C. Wyman, Dale Keown, Jan Duursema, Chris Bachalo, Gary Frank, Travis Charest, Gary Barker, Karl Altstaetter, Joe Phillips, Dan Lawlis, Kirk Jarvinen, Paul Pelletier, and John Herbert.

I really enjoyed the Marvel Hulk Visionaries: Peter David collection that Marvel was putting out a few years. With a really long run, I read all the collections (Volumes 1–8) and was disappointed when the series stopped…leaving much of David’s run unfinished in reprints. Incredible Hulk: Ghost of the Past picks up where the Hulk Visionaries: Peter David ends off and continues the fun.

I’m not going to pretend that the series is the best that it has been, but it is different. It is hard to change up the story of an angry guy who gets strong over decades, but I felt that David did manage to keep evolving the character. While I was interested in the Pantheon when it first started, my interest quickly waned by this volume simply because not very many members of the group have really been developed. Hector, Achilles, Ulysses, and Paris all are underwritten and have little personality…the only reason Atalanta and Delphi escape that is that they are women and at least look different.

The Return of the Defenders portion of the story also drags and falls into 1990s “fights a lot” moments. There are panels and panels of gibberish talk with Namor’s body switching with Rick and inter-dimensional villains. It doesn’t help that the original Defenders aren’t my favorite Defenders so I had little interest in this story.

The best part about this run is probably the Rick Jones storyline though it does end up dragging out a bit too long due to the Hulk’s stories taking up most of the issues. The Rick and Marlo relationship (and the weird addition of Betty) was a bit bizarre and almost felt more like a soap opera dropped in the middle of a super-hero comic…and that is part of the fun of David’s run.

As I said, the volume has lots of faults but overall it still is a light and fun “comic book” read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you are a completionist like me, and you want to see Peter David’s run through, it is a must. Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: Ghost of the Past is followed by Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: Future
Profile Image for Fez Vaccaro.
85 reviews
October 3, 2021
I picked this up due to enjoying the subsequent Epic volumes: Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Vol. 21: Fall of the Pantheon, and; Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Vol. 20: Future Imperfect, more than I thought I would. I really enjoy this current iteration of the merged/ Professor Hulk and I really enjoy David's humour, as well as his soap opera storylines, with Betty, Rick and Marlo. There's some great artwork too from Dale Keown and Gary Frank, with Jan Duuresma as a solid fill in, keeping the same cartoony/ cheesecake style, to balance the musclebound fight sequences and the gratuitous posing of Betty and Marlo, which I like in this era of comics.

On the bad, there is 200 pages of Annuals in here and they are the weakest part of the volume. It starts off strong with Annual #18 from David to set up "The Return of the Defenders", which runs through the 4 respective heroes books. As there is a heavy Hulk focus and there are some continuing characters from the monthly book, it fits in relatively seamlessly. David is also handily assisted by Maguire, who perfectly captures humour (see his Justice League International work). After that it's a mish mash of a storyline that can't come soon enough. The last annual isn't any better either, which is a surprise as David was one of the few writers who had a decent run of Annuals in the 90s. Marvel mandated that a new character be introduced in all the Annuals in 1993. Most were terrible and this was one of those.
Profile Image for Alex E.
1,721 reviews12 followers
December 10, 2019
This collection picks off right after the last Peter David collection, and I found it to be pretty entertaining.

Not only do we have the continuation of the Defender's reunion that was started in vol 7 (I think) of the Peter David collections, but we also have a bit more substance regarding the Pantheon, and a continuation on the fate of Marlo and Rick. I liked this volume far more than the Peter David collections. Even though the majority of these stories is written by Mr. David. He manages to wrap up and touch upon basically every story-line since he took over the title, and make it culminate in a way that is satisfactory, but also has you wondering what is coming next. Which is a fantastic ability for a writer to have.

These culminations have a lot of character building in them, so I think the characterization of each our cast vastly improved the title overall. Where before they felt more "one dimensional", now they feel more rounded out and human.

The art is mostly Keown, but there are other artists in this book (its nearly 500 pages). I think the Keown art is the best, but none of the artists are bad at all. Overall, a good looking book.

Peter David planted the seeds of things to come, and gave us some emotional resolutions to story-lines that have been running through the title for some time now. In the past I felt this disconnection from not only Hulk, but the overall title itself. But now that there is so much groundwork laid and plot threads resolved, that I'm eager to see where we are going next.

Recommended for fans of (90's) Hulk!
Profile Image for Marcelo Soares.
Author 2 books14 followers
April 24, 2020
Eu gosto dessas Epic Collections, acho um formato bem legal para colecionar fases inteiras de personagens, nessa do Golias Ruculoso pelo Peter David muita coisa acontece.
Começa com uns anuais do Hulk, Surfista, Namor e Dr Estranho num dos eternos retornos do Defensores, e é uma história bem chata do Ron Marz; o interessante é que no fim da história o Namor não aparece e os outros três se olham e dizem: "Ah, é o Namor, ele vai sobreviver." E tipo, Imperiux Rex no do coitado.
Depois temos um quebra-pau entre o Hulk, Alienígenas, Líder e a Hidra, numa história bem tri - Fantasma do Passado - cheio daqueles outros personagens gamóticos e bizarros que o Líder tinha.
Aí mais umas edições com o Hulk, agora líder do Panteão - eu achava bem divertida a dinâmica entre os "irmãos" -, enfrentando os mais diversos inimigos; um bom quebra-pau com o Fanático e o Caveira Vermelha, com direito a participação de uma das piores formações dos Vingadores de todos os tempos.
Enquanto isso, temos uma plotline coadjuvante com o Rick e a Marlo - algo sabe o que aconteceu com a Marlo? - que eu não vou entregar de bandeja, mas quem lê quadrinhos sabe que o Rick Jones é uma espécie de político brasileiro, sempre que aparece, alguma coisa dá terrivelmente errado.
Profile Image for Nicholas Ahlhelm.
Author 98 books19 followers
May 13, 2019
I've read a large chunk of the Hulk stories already in this book either in collection or single issues, as they just pre-date when I hopped back onto the book for several years. These Pantheon years are probably the high point of Peter David's run with the character and I still feel like he brought them to an end far too soon.

But the real reason I picked this up was to finally read the complete Return of the Defenders annual event that opens the book. The crossover brought the four classic main characters together in a time that was probably one of the only in Marvel history where all four characters had an ongoing series at the same time. It's far from an essential point in Marvel history, but David, Ron Marz and Roy Thomas craft a really off the wall tale that feels like a Steve Gerber throwback.
Profile Image for Justin Nelson.
592 reviews4 followers
February 25, 2021
Honestly, not a fan.
These were the stories immediately preceding when I originally started reading Hulk in 1993 with #106. I remember those stories fondly (we will see if that holds up when I eventually read the next volume.)
The 1992 Annuals collected here are boring and terrible. The story seems like a forgotten story from the 60s that should have stayed there. The 1993 Annual was forgettable, too.
The main issues have a storyline (Ghost of the Past) that was apparently a popular one? I'm not sure why, it was, again, pretty ridiculous and forgettable.
That may be the biggest issue here, that these stories were by and large forgettable.
I will say, it was interesting to see early Chris Bachalo artwork here, and Gary Frank as the Hulk artist which I never realized was a thing.
Profile Image for Eligos Vespillo.
193 reviews
December 13, 2025
Peter David's character-defining run continues as the new improved "Professor Hulk" tries to establish a new healthier life for himself despite the constant obstacles of foes and even his friends! Hulk's supporting cast thrives here, as David clearly enjoys writing longtime-everyone's-sidekick Rick Jones and his newfound love (and Hulk's ex!) Marlo.
Profile Image for David.
2,565 reviews88 followers
December 23, 2016
I'm a huge Hulk fan so I've read quite a bit. This is one of my favorite collections. Caveat - David's maybe a bit weak on the female characters.
Profile Image for Edward Davies.
Author 3 books34 followers
April 19, 2019
Great fun re-reading these issues from the 90s, including the annuals that I hadn't read before.
Profile Image for ReyReyPod.
55 reviews
December 8, 2019
Honestly...I can read, and re-read this for years to come..good, wholesome, fun stories and great art
Profile Image for Nicolas.
3,138 reviews13 followers
June 18, 2024
I did like seeing the Defenders again and the Juggernaut stuff was fun. I don’t know, this era just isn’t clicking for me. It feels messy and unfocused. Not enough Hulk!
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews

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