Marvel corner boxes seem to be a thing of the past, but at the PPC we're reaching back and reassembling them in all their glory. Having already run down the collection of corner boxes featuring the Fantastic Four, we now pivot to the God of Thunder, Thor, as well as the rampaging behemoth men call the Hulk, two characters who have gone head to head in previous meetings and who now face off again in a contest where they can't possibly injure one another. (We hope!)
Since a coin toss would probably have proven fatal for yours truly, depending on which side it landed, it seems fair to start our showdown with the character whose comic premiered first--but even though that would be the Hulk (by three months, but a win's a win), his six-issue first volume had no corner boxes to display. It wouldn't be until 1964, when the character was brought back in Tales To Astonish as a companion feature to Giant-Man, that the Hulk began appearing in corner boxes; the Journey Into Mystery book, however, where Thor first appears, displayed its first box of the Thunder God in 1963.
None of which I explained to our two heavy hitters, since they seemed a bit impatient to get this ball rolling. I just assigned the honor of going first to the oldest one present, which was Thor by a landslide.
Yet Thor's corner boxes in his initial appearances didn't exactly knock it out of the park for him--in fact, I'd made a comment at one time which likened Thor's image here to some kid's yearbook photo.
As we see, the grinning face shot was changed to a more serious, godlike portrayal, which would still be put to use well into the run of Thor's own title.
As for the Hulk, his boxes in TTA weren't exactly sensational, either, though things improved just before the book was discontinued. (Yet it bears mentioning he had more staying power than Giant-Man, who had enjoyed first billing in the book, so he must have been doing something right).
