Hulk Fact — November 4, 2026

Today's Fact

A faulty gamma machine once delivered half a transformation, and the missing half nearly exposed Marvel's most wanted secret.

THE HULK ONCE WORE A HULK MASK — BECAUSE ONLY HIS BODY TRANSFORMED AND BANNER'S HEAD CAME ALONG FOR THE FIGHT!

The Featured Fact

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's The Incredible Hulk #6 (1963) opens with Bruce Banner changing on demand, courtesy of a gamma ray projector in his sanctuary cave — and the machine was wearing out. Each use grew more painful and less predictable, until one transformation stopped halfway: Banner gained the Hulk's enormous green body while keeping his own unmistakably human head.

Exposure would have ended everything, so Banner improvised. He kept a lifelike Hulk mask — cast from the real face — and pulled it on before leaping off to confront the Metal Master, an exile from the planet Astra who could command all metal and had come to conquer Earth. The most powerful creature on the planet went into battle wearing a disguise of himself.

The disguise nearly failed in the worst possible way. The Metal Master knocked the masked Hulk unconscious, soldiers hauled him away and peeled the mask off — but by then the transformation had quietly completed, and the face underneath was the Hulk's own. Banner's secret survived by minutes, and he finished the job by bluffing the Metal Master off the planet with a fake gun the villain never realized was plastic.

Why It's Obscure

The last issue of the Hulk's first series is also its strangest costume drama.

1963

The final issue — #6 closed the Hulk's original series; the character moved on to guest spots and then Tales to Astonish.

The projector

A machine with side effects — in this era Banner triggered his changes mechanically, and the device degraded a little more with every single use.

The mask

Cast in advance — Banner had prepared a Hulk mask from molds of the creature's face, which raises its own questions about his spare time.

Molyb

The Metal Master — the Astra exile debuted here too, and his metal command made him a walking preview of a certain mutant master of magnetism.

Gallery

The cover of issue #6 pits the Hulk against the Metal Master, who shares the first frame as this page's featured guest.

Incredible Hulk issue 6 cover showing the Hulk trapped in a metal cage by the Metal Master — **The Metal Master debuts** Steve Ditko's cover for The Incredible Hulk #6 (1963): the Hulk strains against a cage of living metal while the Metal Master gloats above him.

The Hulk roaring and smashing through rock comic art — **No mask required** The familiar green face in full roar — the one Banner's borrowed head so conspicuously failed to become that day.

The Hulk in classic comic art pose — **The genuine article** Classic Hulk art: the head that usually arrives with the body, no projector malfunction and no latex required.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 #6 — Marvel Database Full synopsis of the issue: the faulty projector, the half-finished transformation, the latex Hulk mask, and the soldiers who removed it too late to learn anything.
Incredible Hulk #6 — Marvel Masterworks synopsis Independent issue summary confirming the green body with Banner's face, the dash for the special Hulk mask, and the cardboard-box bluff that ended the fight.
Metal Master (Molyb) — Marvel Appendix Profile of the issue's villain, noting the Hulk's Banner-headed, mask-wearing condition during their first encounter.