One panel in #180, one full issue in #181 — and the Bronze Age got its biggest book. Why Wolverine's first full appearance never cools off.
Some keys are hot. Incredible Hulk #181 is load-bearing. Published in November 1974, it gave Wolverine his first full appearance — one issue after his famous last-panel cameo in #180 — and it has been the Bronze Age's defining book ever since.
The ingredients are perfect storm material: a character who would go on to anchor the X-Men and a 17-year film run, a Herb Trimpe cover everyone recognises, and a print era where kids read comics to pieces, so high-grade survivors stay scarce. Even mid-grade copies behave like blue-chip assets: they dip with the market, but they always come back.
The collector's debate is #180 vs #181. The cameo is cheaper and the story is cute, but the market has voted for fifty years: the full appearance wins. If a Wolverine shrine gets one book, it is this one — which is why it sits on the Grail shelf, with #180 beside it as the completist's pairing.