One of the first comics a friend of mine collected was THE INCREDIBLE HULK-( this would be around…oh 1978 or so) Though I myself wasn’t a reader of Marvel's jolly green giant, I always loved looking at the covers of those comics because they had such impact!
There was one of Hulk lifting a tractor above his head. There was one of Hulk smashing through the wall of a roadside saloon . There was an incredible cover (by Ernie Chan, as I recall) of the Leader in some robot-gizmo blasting Hulk’s back…
And there was this one featuring a “Maiden” punching out the Hulk named Moonstone!
Looking at Psychologist-turned-Villianess Karla Sofen’s costume now, it wasn’t much different from the other duds of the day, sort of NOVA mixed with the RED GUARDIAN, but at the time, I really thought that was one KEWL chick in that costume! I didn’t get around to actually reading those issues til years later, and didn’t get around to picking up copies for myself until even LATER, but as the old adage goes, better late than…you know the rest!!
Re-reading the comic now, it’s shocking to see how subdued Karla’s Moonstone character is. In the day of big boobs, skimpy costumes and pin-up splash pages, artists Bob McLeod and Sal Buscema seem almost unconcerned about using her sexiness as a selling point, (Ahh, these were the days, after all!) and I really had to scrounge around those two issues to get any kind of decent full-body shots of Moonstone!
Of course, Karla and her lunar powered alter-Ego Moonstone would get the “modern” updating in titles like THUNDERBOLTS, complete with obligatory sexy poses AND sexier new costumes, nonetheless, it’s still cool to see that Karla's character is still around, even though she ain’t NOTHIN’ like the Maiden I loved all those years back!
Moonstone
First Appearance
Incredible Hulk #228
By Marv Wolfman, Frank Robbins and Sal Bucema with Roger Stern and Bob McLeod
