Hulk

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Hulk is a Marvel Comics superhero who lives as two people in one body, and the two typically resent each other. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created him, and he first appeared in the debut issue of The Incredible Hulk in May 1962. One half is Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a physically weak and socially withdrawn physicist. The other is an immense, green-skinned brute with a limitless degree of physical strength. In the comics, the character has dissociative identity disorder.

  How did two storytellers decide that a monster should be the hero? Why does his strength track his temper? And how did a niche comic book become a reference point for filmmakers, musicians and politicians? The answers begin with what Stan Lee believed about imperfect heroes.

  506174

• 2. Monsters We Root For

  ›

  By Stan Lee's own account, the Thing was the most popular character in the Fantastic Four, Marvel's recently created superhero team. Lee had long suspected that people favor someone less than perfect. He pointed to Quasimodo, a name everyone remembers, while few people can name the handsomer, more glamorous heroes of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  Frankenstein's creature held a special place in Lee's affections. He refused to accept that the creature was the bad guy, because it never wanted to hurt anyone and only tried to defend itself against people who sought to destroy it. Lee then borrowed from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so that his hero would change from a normal identity to a superhuman one and back again.

  Jack Kirby described his own route to the character. He had already done a small feature called The Hulk, which was quite different from the figure we know today. Kirby saw possibilities in it and transformed it. He thought the Hulk might be a good-looking Frankenstein, and he said, “there's a Frankenstein in all of us.” Anything with an element of truth, in his view, is valid, because the reader relates to it.

  Kirby also named a real-life image as inspiration. He recalled witnessing the hysterical strength of a mother lifting a car off her trapped child.

  Lee compared the Hulk to the golem of Jewish mythology. The authors of The Science of Superheroes, Lois Grest and Robert Weinberg, see the character as a reaction to the Cold War and the threat of nuclear attack. Weinstein shares that reading in Up, Up and Oy Vey. Other fiction of the period fed on the same prevailing American sense that nuclear power could produce monsters and mutants.

  Before any of that could matter, Lee still had to decide what color his creature should be.

  6791011

• 3. Names and Colors

  ›

  Gray was Stan Lee's first choice for the Hulk's skin. He wanted a color that did not suggest any particular ethnic group. Colorist Stan Goldberg had problems with the gray, and the debut issue shows different shades of gray and even some green. Ink problems are cited as well. After seeing the first published issue, Lee changed the skin to green.

  Green then became the rule for roughly two decades. Even reprints of the original story were recolored. That ended with The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #302 in December 1984, which showed a gray Hulk again in flashbacks set close to the origin story. An early exception was the 1974 trade paperback Origins of Marvel Comics. Its prologue, written by Lee, explains how hard it was to keep the gray consistent, and it reprints the origin in gray. Since December 1984, reprints of the first issue show the original gray, and the fictional canon says his skin was gray at first.

  Bruce Banner's name came from a memory trick. Lee found alliterative names easier to remember. Even so, in later stories he misremembered the name and called the character “Bob Banner,” an error readers quickly caught. The fix was to give him the official full name Robert Bruce Banner.

  The name Hulk itself came from The Heap, a large green swamp monster from another comic book character. Marvel had also used the word before. In Strange Tales #75, from June 1960, Albert Poole built an armor he called the Hulk, which reprints later renamed Grutan. In Journey into Mystery #62, from November 1960, a huge, furry alien called Xemnu the Living Hulk appeared. Kirby illustrated that story too, and the alien was later renamed Xemnu the Living Titan. A huge, orange, slimy monster called the Hulk featured in Tales to Astonish #21, from July 1961, and reprints renamed him the Glop.

  16141621

• 4. Cancelled and Reborn

  ›

  Paul Reinman inked the first issue, which Kirby penciled and co-plotted and Lee wrote. The series ended after six issues, in March 1963. Kirby penciled five of them, and Steve Ditko penciled and inked the sixth. The Hulk kept appearing elsewhere. In Fantastic Four #12, dated March 1963, he fought the Thing for the first time.

  Months later, he became a founding member of the Avengers, appearing in the first two issues, dated September and November 1963. José Alaniz argues that the most striking feature of those issues is “the Hulk's utter alienation.” The Hulk returned in Avengers #3 as an antagonist and in #5 as an ally. He also guest-starred in The Amazing Spider-Man #14, dated July 1964.

  A letter from a college dormitory reached Kirby with news that the Hulk had been chosen as its official mascot. Kirby and Lee realized that their character had found an audience among college-age readers. In October 1964, a year and a half after The Incredible Hulk was canceled, the Hulk became one of two features in Tales to Astonish, beginning with issue #60. Lee scripted, Ditko penciled and George Roussos inked. Later artists included Kirby, Gil Kane credited as “Scott Edwards,” Bill Everett, John Buscema and Marie Severin.

  That run introduced the Leader, who would become the Hulk's nemesis, and the Abomination, another gamma-irradiated being. In April 1968, with issue #102, the book was retitled The Incredible Hulk vol. 2. It ran until 1999. Marvel filed for the trademark in 1967, and the registration was issued in 1970.

  Len Wein wrote the series from 1974 through 1978. Herb Trimpe drew first, and from issue #194 in December 1975 Sal Buscema became the regular artist for ten years. Issues #180 and #181, from October and November 1974, introduced Wolverine as an antagonist. He went on to become one of Marvel's most popular characters. In 1977 Marvel launched a second title, a black-and-white magazine called The Rampaging Hulk. After nine issues it became The Hulk! and printed in color.

  Peter David had begun a 12-year run in May 1987 with issue #331. In 1998 he killed off Betty Ross, Banner's long-time love. Marvel executives saw the death as a chance to bring back the Savage Hulk. David disagreed, and he parted ways with Marvel. The second-volume series was cancelled in March 1999 with issue #474, and a new series called Hulk began the following month.

  Greg Pak took over in 2006 and led the Hulk through the crossovers “Planet Hulk” and “World War Hulk.” The second left the Hulk temporarily incapacitated, and the demigod Hercules replaced him as title character in The Incredible Hercules, in February 2008. The Hulk returned periodically in Hulk, which then starred the new Red Hulk. In November 2012, as part of Marvel NOW!, Indestructible Hulk debuted from Mark Waid and Leinil Yu.

  Al Ewing and Joe Bennett launched The Immortal Hulk in 2018, and it ran for 50 issues. Donny Cates and Ryan Ottley began a new Hulk series in November 2021. In May 2022 it crossed over with Thor in Hulk vs Thor: Banner of War. In March 2023, Marvel announced that a new volume of The Incredible Hulk would launch in June 2023, written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and drawn by Nic Klein.

  1920505123

• 5. A Mind Divided

  ›

  Brian Banner looked at his young son Bruce and saw a monster, because the boy's intellect seemed unnatural. Brian physically abused both his wife and his son. After Brian killed Bruce's mother in a fit of rage, the boy lived with several relatives. Those years taught Bruce to bury his negative emotions as a coping mechanism.

  The United States Army noticed his intelligence in his high school years. He was recruited to develop nuclear weapons under General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, and he began a relationship with the General's daughter, Betty Ross. Banner designed the gamma bomb that later changed him, and the irony of that self-inflicted fate has been one of the most persistent themes.

  During the experimental detonation, a teenager named Rick Jones was dared onto the testing field. Banner pushed him into a trench and took the blast himself, absorbing massive amounts of gamma radiation. He woke apparently unharmed, but at nightfall he turned into a powerful, destructive creature. A pursuing soldier described it as a “hulk.”

  In Avengers #3, from 1963, Banner realized that his transformations were now triggered by surges of adrenaline in response to fear, pain or anger. Incredible Hulk #227, from 1978, then reframed the whole condition. The separate identity was not caused by the mutation affecting his brain. The savage Green Hulk embodied Banner's repressed childhood rage and aggression, and the Gray Hulk embodied his repressed selfish desires and urges.

  Bill Mantlo's “Crossroads of Eternity” stories, in issues #300 to #313 between October 1984 and November 1985, explored the idea that Banner had been abused as a child. Later Hulk writers Peter David and Greg Pak have called those stories an influence on their approaches. David returned to the abuse storylines, expanded the damage they caused, and used them to depict Banner's fractured mind.

  The Gray Hulk had a different temperament from his savage counterpart. Many sources compare him to the moody teenager Banner never allowed himself to be. The Leader said he grows stronger on nights of the new moon and weaker on nights of the full moon. Under a spell that kept him from turning back into Banner, and publicly presumed dead after a gamma bomb explosion destroyed a town, he took the name Joe Fixit. In that identity he worked as a security expert for Las Vegas casino owner Michael Berengetti.

  Doc Samson, a psychiatrist, was convinced that the Banner, Green Hulk and Gray Hulk identities would eventually destroy each other. He used hypnosis to merge them into one personality, called the Merged Hulk, Professor Hulk or Smart Hulk. It combined Banner's intelligence with the Green Hulk's body. The merger was imperfect. When overcome with rage, the Merged Hulk would change back into Banner's human body while still thinking himself the Hulk.

  The Devil Hulk emerged from the Hulk's need for a father figure. His appearance varies, but he always has glowing red eyes and reptilian traits. Unlike the other incarnations, he is content to wait inside Bruce. Doc Green arrived by another route. After an assassin shot Banner in the head, Tony Stark saved him with a variant of the Extremis virus, and the procedure created a new intelligent persona. Doc Green concluded that Gamma Mutates endangered the world, and he created a cure that removed the powers of A-Bomb, Skaar and Red Hulk.

  Doctor Doom once separated the two. He extracted the parts of the Hulk's brain that uniquely belonged to Banner and placed them in a clone body. Banner became criminally insane, driven by his desire to regain the Hulk's power. After the two recombined, he accepted that he was a better person with the Hulk, who gave him something to focus on controlling.

  3047828689

• 6. Life on the Run

  ›

  Arie Kaplan describes Banner as a man who lives “in a constant state of panic.” His secret was exposed when Rick Jones, after Jones's assumed death, revealed it to Major Glenn Talbot. Talbot informed his superiors, and Banner became a fugitive.

  Hitchhiking, train hopping and plain walking are Banner's most frequent ways to travel. Several travel watchlists keep him off planes, passenger ships and buses. He uses no cell phones, debit cards or credit cards, only payphones and cash. At motels and jobs that require identification he uses fake identities. After years of running, he can normally tell when he is being followed, and he has learned to sneak over borders and pick up local languages.

  A satchel or a backpack holds nearly everything Banner owns. He often loses all of his belongings when he transforms, so he avoids keeping anything of personal value. To support himself he takes quick part-time jobs for cash, from low-pay diners to work as a local doctor. His skills in science, medicine and engineering get him hired quickly. Unless he is desperate, he avoids high-stress jobs because of the danger of transforming.

  Banner has little memory of the Hulk's actions, apart from his initial transformation, which he described as extremely painful. He has often changed back to find the devastating aftermath of a battle, which saddens him and pushes him to understand his condition. Meditation and hypnotherapy have helped him suppress his transformations. None of the techniques he has learned has given him full control over the Hulk.

  Betty Ross loves Banner and criticizes her father for pursuing the Hulk. Major Glenn Talbot also loves Betty, and he is torn between hunting the Hulk and winning her more honorably. Banner's cousin Jennifer Walters, the She-Hulk, is a frequent ally. Banner had a stillborn child with Betty. After the Illuminati judged the Hulk too dangerous for Earth and sent him by rocket to the planet Sakaar, he found allies in the Warbound and married the alien queen Caiera. She died when the Illuminati's ship exploded, and the Hulk is the father of her two sons, Skaar and Hiro-Kala. His DNA was also used to create a daughter named Lyra with Thundra.

  The Abomination is more monstrous-looking than the Hulk and twice as strong at normal levels, though his strength does not rise when he gets angry. He wreaks havoc for fun and pleasure. The Leader, a gamma-irradiated super-genius, has tried plan after plan to take over the world.

  73333510061

• 7. Strength and Science

  ›

  “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets” is the comment that comics repeat most. The cosmically powerful Beyonder once analyzed the Hulk's physiology and claimed it had “no finite element inside.” Banner's subconscious has sometimes limited that strength. When Jean Grey psionically “shut Banner off,” the Hulk became strong enough to overpower and destroy the physical form of the villain Onslaught. Greg Pak wrote that the Worldbreaker Hulk was powerful enough to destroy entire planets.

  His leaps carry him into lower Earth orbit or across continents. His durability, regeneration and endurance also rise with his temper. He has withstood the equivalent of solar temperatures, nuclear explosions and planet-shattering impacts. He has grown tissues that let him breathe underwater, survived unprotected in space for extended periods, and healed from most wounds within seconds. Continuous high-caliber gunfire can hinder his movement, and anesthetic gases can subdue him temporarily.

  As Bruce Banner, the character is about 5 ft 9 in tall and weighs 128 lbs. As the Hulk he stands between 7 and 8 ft tall and weighs between 1,040 and 1,400 lbs. The Gray Hulk is 6 ft 6 in and 900 lbs. The Merged Hulk is 7 ft 6 in and 1,150 lbs. The Devil Hulk is roughly the size of Sasquatch, at around 9 or 10 ft and roughly 2,000 lbs.

  The Hulk usually decries his other half as “puny Banner.” He also keeps a memory of his own. After Spider-Man: One More Day erased Peter Parker's knowledge of his secret identity, the Hulk later asked how Peter was doing. When questioned, he said, “Banner forgot. But I don't forget.” Being exiled into space by the Illuminati angered him enough to suppress Banner for an extended period. He can also home in on his place of origin in New Mexico. That ability was later explained by his latent sense for astral forms, since the bomb site holds the skeleton of the Maestro, whose spirit was calling out to him.

  In The Science of Superheroes, Lois Grest and Robert Weinberg examine the Hulk's powers and explain their flaws. The gamma radiation Banner takes at the blast would cause radiation sickness and kill him, or at least create significant cancer risks, because hard radiation strips cells of their ability to function. They offer an alternate origin built on biological experimentation with adrenal glands and GFP.

  Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience.com adds that gamma rays have no color we can describe, since they lie beyond the visible spectrum. They are the most powerful form of electromagnetic radiation, 10,000 times more powerful than visible light, and they can convert energy into matter. That may explain the extra mass Banner takes on when he transforms. In Choi's words, “Just as the Incredible Hulk 'is the strongest one there is,' as he says himself, so too are gamma-ray bursts the most powerful explosions known.”

  115929396

• 8. An Icon of Anger

  ›

  Two Hulk television films aired in 1977 to strong ratings, and an Incredible Hulk series ran from 1978 to 1982. The series was a huge ratings success. It introduced the catchphrase “Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry,” and it carried the character from a niche comic book readership into the mainstream. Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno first played Banner and the Hulk in live action. Three later television films followed: The Incredible Hulk Returns in 1988, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk in 1989 and The Death of the Incredible Hulk in 1990.

  Eric Bana played the character in the 2003 film Hulk, directed by Ang Lee. Lee spoke of a “subcurrent of repression” in the Hulk and tied it to his own life. He said, “Growing up, my artistic leanings were always repressed.” Jeff Yang of the San Francisco Chronicle extended that idea, arguing that the passive-aggressive streak runs deep among Asian Americans, especially those who enter creative careers against their parents' wishes. Lee also said the Iraq War influenced his direction.

  Edward Norton first portrayed the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in The Incredible Hulk in 2008. Mark Ruffalo took over in later appearances, including The Avengers in 2012, Thor: Ragnarok in 2017, Avengers: Endgame in 2019 and the television series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in 2022. Fred Tatasciore has voiced the Hulk in television series and video games, including The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Avengers Assemble.

  A 1965 Esquire magazine poll of college students, cited by Bradford Wright in Comic Book Nation, found that student radicals ranked Spider-Man and the Hulk alongside Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as favorite revolutionary icons. Jerry Jeff Walker recorded “The Ballad of the Hulk.” The Rolling Stone cover of the 30th of September 1971 carried a full-color Herb Trimpe piece commissioned for the magazine. The Hulk has also served as a cipher for the frustrations of the Vietnam War.

  After the September 11 attacks, the Hulk appeared in the tribute comic Heroes. Stefanie Diekmann argued that his prominence, alongside Captain America, stressed the connection between anger and justified violence. Les Daniels wrote that “The Hulk became Marvel's most disturbing embodiment of the perils inherent in the atomic age.”

  Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine claimed in 2003 that the Hulk had “stood the test of time as a genuine icon of American pop culture.” In 2008, Wizard magazine listed him as the 19th greatest comic book character, and Empire magazine named him the 14th-greatest comic-book character and the fifth-greatest Marvel character. IGN placed him No. 9 on its 2011 list of the top 100 comic book heroes and fourth on its 2012 list of the top 50 Avengers. In 2015 he ranked first on a listing of Marvel's monster characters.

  The Simpsons, Robot Chicken, Family Guy and The Young Ones have all caricatured him. Hip hop references him as well. Dr. Dre's 2001 uses the term as an analogue to marijuana, and Ludacris and Jermaine Dupri reference him more conventionally in “Welcome to Atlanta.” A 2008 Daily Mirror review of an EastEnders episode said a character went into “Incredible Hulk mode, smashing up his flat.”

  In September 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson likened himself to the Hulk in an interview with the Mail On Sunday. Political pressure was building on him to request an extension to the date of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union.

  267791888