Splash page from HULK ANNUAL #7 by John Byrne and Bob Layton.

A border note from Byrne reads:

TOGETHER AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Splash page from the Hulk story in TALES TO ASTONISH #65 by Steve Ditko and Dick Ayers.

You can see where the word ON was cut out from the board and corrected—often corrections in this era were made by physically cutting up the originals. Also evident are some of Stan’s balloon placements for the letterer, most notably the big arrow-shaped caption.

Finally, at the bottom there’s a portion of a note, presumably from Steve Ditko since it’s not Stan’s handwriting, that reads HULK CONTINUING

A beautiful early Hulk page from HULK #3 by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.

One handwritten border note by Stan Lee is visible:

AS HE GOES UNDER CALLS FOR HULK

Splash page to the first Hulk story in TALES TO ASTONISH, #60, by Steve Ditko and George Roussos (as George Bell.)

Seems like an adjustment was made to the lettering credit for the final book. Also, it’s apparent that the George Bell credit was added later, and by a different hand. This was often the case with Marvel stories of the period—the specific inker wouldn’t have been finalized at the time of lettering, so the letterer would just leave a blank space where the name was supposed to go, and production would fill it in later.

Splash page to the Hulk story in TALES TO ASTONISH #77, layouts by Jack Kirby, pencils and inks by John Romita.

Splash page from the Hulk story in TALES TO ASTONISH #65, penciled by Steve Ditko and inked by Dick Ayers.

Page two of HULK #4 by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. This was produced at around the same time as that unpublished Hulk story whose pages I’ve been showing intermittently.

Another page from that very early unused and unfinished Hulk storyline intended for HULK #3 or #4. Pencils by Jack Kirby.

The story concerns a bad guy trying to fix a high school basketball game that Rick Jones is involved in. Stan’s one margin note is tough to make out, but says:

EVENT OK. BALL NORMAL

A page from INCREDIBLE HULK #6, the final issue of the original series, which was cancelled after this issue. Artist Steve Ditko does a lot with a little here—his sense of composition and design does wonders with just a few simple lines.

A page from the Hulk story from TALES TO ASTONISH #79 laid out by Jack Kirby and illustrated by Bill Everett. As he tended to do when he provided breakdowns, Kirby wrote extensive border notes. The ones that can be deciphered at the top read:

ANGRILY BALLS HIS (word missing) —KNEELS DOWN AND TUGS AT SCIENTIST—BUT HE DOESN’T RESPOND

BRUCE BANNER INSIDE HULK TAKES OVER MOMENTARILY—AND HULK PUTS HIS EAR TO SCIENTIST’S CHEST—THERE IS NO PULSE

BRUCE REALIZES GUY IS DEAD—HE KNOWS HE WILL BE BLAMED FOR THE DEATH

Based on these notes and the images in these panels, it’s pretty clear that Everett deviated from what Kirby had laid out pretty widely, at least in this sequence.