The Hulk And His History Of Having Three Toes

Comics are weird and they were a lot weird back during the esteemed golden and silver ages. While most of it can be attributed to writers having some fun while also feeling the pressure of cooking up new plots every issue, some of them have legitimate reasons sometimes. Today are going to look into one such plot point- Why is the Hulk first drawn with three toes and then five?

Why Did Hulk Have Three Toes At First Before Moving Onto Five?

When it comes to comic books, themselves, it is obviously just a mistake by Jack Kirby. Kirby drew just SO many pages at the time that he was not always perfect. He would sometimes make mistakes and Stan Lee didn’t catch them. A very famous one was when the Fantastic Four captured four Skrulls in an issue but at the end of the issue, Kirby only drew three Skrull captives.

So let’s have a look at the toe progression of the Hulk and see that we’re here just talking of a mistake and nothing else.

First of all, when Kirby introduced the Hulk in The Hulk #1, he was grey and had five toes. In the next issue, he became green but still he had five toes.

Basically, all throughout Kirby’s run on the book (which was the first five issues), the Hulk had five toes.

Next up, Steve Ditko took over for the final issue and even then he till had five toes.

After that, the book got canceled but the Hulk resurfaced in Fantastic Four #12 and it was then that Kirby drew the Hulk with Three toes. It clearly is a mistake. But it gets a little bit more weird as by the time the story ended, the Hulk had four toes. But honestly, this is just very clearly Kirby not keeping track of things as the following issue sees Hulk’s toes alternate from four to five in different panels.

But after a few more Avengers appearances, the big change in the Hulk’s history came when he fought the Avengers and the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #26. There, Kirby drew him with five toes.

After that, when the Hulk got his own feature again Tales to Astonish, Steve Ditko drew him with five toes. And it has been five toes ever since.

It’s always been an honest mistake and with how many pages Kirby drew in a day, it’s normal to have such mistakes.

(Source: cbr.com and syfy.com)