When Marvel renumbered its titles a few years ago, it erased the The Incredible Hulk (1962) and is still yet to correct this bizarre oversight. In 2017, Marvel launched its Marvel Legacy initiative in an attempt to honor its storied history and re-energize its line. As a part of the initiative, Marvel renumbered its long-running titles, taking into all the issues that have been published for each respective character. With decades of miniseries, constant renumberings, and multiple titles for many characters, the process of switching to a legacy numbering became incredibly complicated. Adding to the confusion was the fact that most of Marvel's most popular characters first appeared in later issues of anthology series such as Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 and Thor in Journey into Mystery #83. Marvel released elaborate charts showing its math for how it landed on the new issue numbers for each title.
One of the most convoluted charts was for how Marvel landed on issue 709 for the renumbering of The Incredible Hulk. The math included all 101 issues of the first volume of the anthology series Tales to Astonish before it was renamed The Incredible Hulk with issue 102. What makes this an odd choice is that the Hulk didn't actually appear in the anthology series until issue 59. This means The Incredible Hulk landed on issue 709 by using 58 issues that never featured the Hulk. But even stranger is what Marvel chose not to count.
The math for The Incredible Hulk reaching issue 709 left out arguably the Hulk's most important series. Marvel didn't include the series where the world was first introduced to the Hulk, 1962's The Incredible Hulk by legends Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and (for issue 6) Steve Ditko. Even though the Hulk would one day gain mass popularity, his original series only ran for six issues before being canceled. Issue #1 was the Hulk's first appearance and presented his origin story. By not including the Hulk's first series, Marvel erased his origin story from the character's official canon.
There is some reasoning behind which series Marvel chose to include and which go ignored. In the late sixties, multiple anthology series were renamed after the most popular character of the series, even as the numbering continued. Tales of Suspense #99 led into Captain America #100. Journey into Mystery #125 led into Thor #126. Tales to Astonish #101 led into The Incredible Hulk #102. These newly renamed series ran for considerable lengths of time. In The Incredible Hulk's case, the series ran in one consecutive streak without renumbering or renaming all the way up to issue 474. For these titles, Marvel chose to use the Marvel Legacy Initiative as an opportunity to return to the theoretical numbering of those long-running series. While this makes sense for some characters, in this case, it means including 58 issues the Hulk was never in and leaving out the Hulk's first series as it was never included in the numbering of the jumping-off series Tales to Astonish.
The only people who really suffer from the complicated history of comic numbering are new readers, but mainstream superhero comics already famously struggle with a high barrier to entry in of assumed familiarity with the world and story so far. At the start of almost any new book, knowledge of decades of stories and hundreds of characters is assumed. While the most common advice is to simply jump in and pick things up in the context of a compelling story, constant renumbering and renaming of series makes it harder for new readers to believe they'll ever really understand what's going on. The Legacy Initiative did little to solve this conundrum. For example, if a fan of Mark Ruffalo's Hulk wanted to read The Incredible Hulk comics from the beginning, using the chart they would find themselves without an origin story and reading 58 issues of unrelated adventures before the Hulk even appears. Thankfully, there are helpful local comic book stores and now the internet, otherwise some fans would never discover the joy of Marvel's interconnected world.
