What did the Hulk first gain Banner's intelligence for a significant period of time? I always remembered it as being about 1985ish but reading some old issues of the defenders (from 1983) it must have been earlier than this?

I think about a year's worth of issues leading up to # 300 had Banner in control of the creature...but with that control slowly slipping away to the machinations of a certain villian who I won't spoil for you in case you are going to be picking up those issues.

The Hulk gained Banner's mind and intellect in issue 272, June, 1982. This lasted about two years, until the storyline Ed mentioned above that climaxed in issue 300.

bump.

Didn't this happen early on in the series as well for a brief time?

It did briefly happen once or twice when the character was in his infancy and Lee and Kirby/Ditko were throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what stuck. There was even a time when Banner could change his body into the Hulk's but his head stayed normal... forcing him to wear a Hulk-mask in order to keep his secret identity.

You're making that up, but I appreciate the effort.

Mmm-no. Stan Lee made that up.

It seemed to me that every time the Hulk had Banner's intelligence that the Hulk's more bestial nature started to come through.

I don't see that at all.

Well, maybe with the Ultimate version...

There were a few issues - I'm thinking of the arc that began with the Wendigo, Sasquatch and the Hulk fighting it out, when Banner had just returned to Earth from Rocket raccoon's planet - where this happened. He was intelligent, but quite viscious. His mode of speech was almost Dr. Doom-esque, as well.

It was during the "give me amnesty or give me death" era of the Hulk.

I'm not sure here, but I think the Hulk was also the first comic book hero who ever lost his secret identity. Can anyone check on that?

Ralph Dibney's Elongated Man.

Elongated Man never had his own title though. (Or did he?)

Uh.. noooo, but the fact that he was the only hero who had revealed his secret identity was mentioned on a pretty regular basis. It was the one thing that set him apart from the rest of the heroes. He didn't have a solo run in any book until the 80's, but he was a part of the Flash's stable of characters until his long-running status in Detective.

BTW, I have to say I fully approve of Simon's avatar.

It's sexy and funny.

Who is that in Simon's avatar anyway?

So does that mean the Hulk is the first superhero to lose his secret identity? (Since Ralph revealed it as a choice.)

I'm guessing we'll never actually see the whole pic, but one can guess that she's involved in the Adult Film Industry.

If you have a week or two, you could read through toonopedia.com to see if any other hero lost his secret identity prior to the hulk. But right now I can't think of anyone that lost their secret ID. But in the Golden Age, those off-brand comic companies did some strange stuff with heroes getting killed and others replacing them. It wouldn't surprise me if someone had lost their ID along the way.