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This article is about the comic book character "The Incredible Hulk." For other uses see Hulk.
Hulk
Cover to The Incredible Hulk Vol. 2, #77
Pencils by Lee Weeks, inks by Tom Palmer
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics
First appearanceThe Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #1 (May 1962)
Created byStan Lee
Jack Kirby
In-story information
Alter egoRobert Bruce Banner
Team affiliationsWarbound, Rick Jones, Avengers, Defenders, Secret Defenders, Fantastic Four, Pantheon, Horsemen of Apocalypse, Sentry, The Order
Notable aliasesJoe Fixit
The Green Scar (on Planet Sakaar)
War (one of Apocalypse's horsemen)
AbilitiesVast Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, and durability. Regenerative healing factor. Ability to see and communicate with astral bodies. Radiation absorption. Transformation. Strong resistance (but not immunity) to mind control.

The Incredible Hulk is a superhero appearing in Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Hulk first appeared in Incredible Hulk # 1 (May 1962).He has since become one of the world's most recognized superheroes and pop culture icons.

After Nuclear physicist Dr. Robert Bruce Banner is caught in the blast of a gamma bomb he created, he is transformed into the Hulk, a raging monstrosity. The character, both as Banner and the Hulk, is frequently pursued by the police or the armed forces, often a result of the destruction he causes. While the coloration of the character's skin varies during the course of its publication history, the Hulk is most often depicted as green.

He is featured in a number of animated series, a feature film directed by Ang Lee, and a long-running television series and spin-off television movies starring Bill Bixby as Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk.

Publication history

File:Incrediblehulk1.jpg
Cover to The Incredible Hulk #1, by Jack Kirby

Dr. Robert Bruce Banner is a nuclear physicist working to develop a new type of weapon called a "gamma bomb", a nuclear weapon with a high gamma radiation output, for the U.S. Government. On the day that the bomb is tested, he notices a teenager, Rick Jones, on the test site. Banner saves the young man, but the countdown proceeds. Banner is caught in the blast and absorbs an enormous dose of gamma radiation. Rick takes Banner to a hospital; it's there that he first transforms into the Hulk.

The Hulk's skin color is gray in The Incredible Hulk #1, a decision made by Stan Lee, who wanted a color that did not suggest a particular ethnic group. [1] Colorist Stan Golberg, however, insisted to Lee that the coloring technology at the time could not present the color gray clearly or consistently, resulting in different shades of gray, and even green, in the issue. So in issue #2 and after, Goldberg colored the Hulk's skin green. [2] Reprints and retellings of the Hulk's origin during the next two decades feature him with green skin from the beginning, but in 1986, issue #324 reveals that the Hulk had been gray at the time of his creation. Incidentally, Iron Man is another early 1960s Marvel character who has a gray coloration in his first issue (Tales of Suspense #39) but whose color changes in the next issue; in Iron Man's case, he became gold-colored.

In early stories, Banner becomes the Hulk at sunset each day, but he later transforms whenever he becomes angry or panicked. Many early Hulk stories involve General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross trying to capture or destroy the Hulk with his U.S. Army battalion, the Hulkbusters, at his side. Ross' daughter, Betty, loves Banner and criticizes her father for pursuing the Hulk. General Ross' right-hand man, Major Glenn Talbot, also loves Betty and is torn between pursuing the Hulk and trying to gain Betty's love in a more honorable way. Rick Jones serves as the Hulk's friend and sidekick for a time. Later, another teenager, Jim Wilson, also befriends the Hulk.

Marvel published only six issues of the original Hulk series before canceling it to free space on the publishing schedule in order to give the Nick Fury character his own series, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. Shortly after the official cancellation notice was issued, creator Jack Kirby received a letter from a college dormitory stating that the Hulk had been chosen as their official mascot. Kirby and Lee realized that their character had found an audience in college-age readers—a demographic comic book publishers had almost entirely ignored.[citation needed] They featured the Hulk in numerous guest appearances in other series and added him to the founding ranks of the Avengers. The Hulk was then given a regular backup feature in Marvel's ongoing series Tales to Astonish. After several years, the series was re-titled The Incredible Hulk due to the character's popularity (#102), and it ran until March 1999, when Marvel restarted the series with a new issue #1.

Peter David became the writer of the series in 1986, beginning a run that lasted nearly 12 years. David's run altered Banner's pre-Hulk characterization and the nature of Banner and the Hulk's relationship. Originally, Banner was written as a normal but shy man whose negative emotions (the normal, repressed anger that all humans have) found expression through the Hulk; David, however, turned Banner into a victim of multiple personalities who had serious mental problems long before he became the Hulk. David expanded on an earlier story that establishes that Banner had suffered child abuse, writing that it fostered a great deal of repressed anger within the character, which in turn triggered a latent case of multiple personality disorder.[volume & issue needed] Three Hulks emerge from Banner's psyche,[volume & issue needed] the Savage Hulk, Joe Fixit, and the Professor, a merger of the Savage Hulk and Bruce Banner.

In 1998, David followed editor Bobbie Chase's suggestion to kill Betty Ross. In an interview in Wizard: The Guide to Comics,[volume & issue needed] David reveals that his wife had recently left him at the time, providing inspiration for the storyline. Marvel executives used Betty's death as an opportunity to push the idea of bringing back the Savage Hulk. David disagreed, and the disagreement quickly led to David and Marvel Comics parting ways.

When David left the Hulk, Marvel hired Joe Casey as a temporary writer. Casey brought the character in the direction that Marvel had requested earlier[citation needed], making the Hulk mute, but his short run found little critical success,[citation needed] and he ended the series. Marvel then hired John Byrne for a second volume of the series, re-titled Hulk, with Ron Garney penciling. Byrne wrote of his plans for the first year,[citation needed] but creative differences led to his departure before the first year was over. Erik Larsen briefly filled scripting duties in his place, and the title of the book soon returned to The Incredible Hulk with the arrival of Paul Jenkins.

Jenkins wrote a story arc in which Banner and the three Hulks (Savage Hulk, Gray Hulk, and the Merged Hulk, now considered a separate personality and referred to as the Professor) are able to mentally interact with one another, each personality taking over their shared body. He also created John Ryker, a ruthless military general in charge of the original gamma bomb test responsible for the Hulk's creation and is planning to create similar creatures.

File:HulkGreenScar.png
The Hulk as a gladiator and conqueror in the 2006 "Planet Hulk" storyline

Bruce Jones followed as the series' writer, and his run features Banner using yoga to take control of the Hulk while pursued by a secret conspiracy and aided by the mysterious Mr. Blue. Jones focused on a horror theme with the Hulk as a fugitive, influenced by the classic TV series. He appended his 43-issue Incredible Hulk run with the Hulk/Thing: Hard Knocks limited series, which Marvel published after putting the ongoing series on hiatus.

Peter David, who had initially signed a contract for a six-issue Tempest Fugit limited series, returned as writer when it was decided to make the story part of the ongoing series instead. David contracted to complete a year on the title. Tempest Fugit reveals that Nightmare has manipulated the Hulk for years, tormenting him in various ways for "inconveniences" that the Hulk had caused him. After a four-part tie-in to the House of M crossover and a one-issue epilogue, David left the series once more, citing the need to do non-Hulk work for his career's sake. [1]

In the 2006 storyline "Planet Hulk" by Greg Pak, after the Hulk destroys much of Las Vegas, a secret group of superheroes traps the Hulk and rockets him into space to live a peaceful existence on an planet uninhabited by intelligent life. After a trajectory malfunction, the Hulk travels through a wormhole and crashes on the violent planet Sakaar. Weakened by his journey through the wormhole, the Hulk is sold as a slave. In a gladiatorial arena, he makes a deadly enemy when he scars the emperor's face. The Hulk overcomes great odds to become a gladiator, a rebel leader, and a conqueror.

Personality and behavior

The Hulk is the alter ego of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a genius in nuclear physics. As a result of exposure to gamma radiation, Banner often becomes a large, superhumanly strong green creature. Although the Hulk is usually classified as a superhero, he and Banner share a Jekyll and Hyde-like relationship. In his most well-known incarnation, the Hulk has little intelligence or self-control, and can cause great destruction. As a result, he has been hunted by the military and other superheroes, and as such, Banner considers the Hulk a curse.

In recent decades, comic book writers have portrayed the character as a symbol of inner rage and Freudian repression. The Hulk's existence has been retroactively explained as an after-effect of child abuse and latent multiple personality disorder.

Incarnations

File:Hulks.jpg
The four main Hulk incarnations. Clockwise from top left: Bruce Banner, the Savage Hulk, the Gray Hulk, and the Merged Hulk

The Hulk initially is characterized as a separate entity from Bruce Banner, a distillation of his anger that gradually develops its own personality and memories separate from Banner's.

Due to retroactive continuity established by writers Bill Mantlo and later Peter David in the 1980s, Banner is said to suffer from multiple personality disorder, which stems from the abuse he suffered as a child. The Hulk has many incarnations, each representing a different aspect of Banner's psyche.

  • Bruce Banner – The core personality, he is an emotionally-repressed genius whose mind is so brilliant that it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test. Banner can transform into the different versions of the Hulk, whereas his alter-egos seem to be able only to transform into Bruce Banner.
  • Savage Hulk – He possesses the mental capacity and temperament of a young child, and typically refers to himself in the third person. Savage Hulk often claims that he wants to be left alone, and is usually depicted as green-skinned and heavily-muscled with a loping, ape-like gait.
  • Gray Hulk/Joe Fixit - The Gray Hulk (though possibly not the original) worked for a time as a Las Vegas enforcer called Joe Fixit. He has average intelligence, although he occasionally displays knowledge and intellectual ability normally associated with Bruce Banner. He is hedonistic, cunning, arrogant, crafty, and distant with a hidden conscience. In most of his Las Vegas appearances, he appears only at night. According to the Leader,[volume & issue needed] the Gray Hulk persona is strongest during the night of the new moon and weakest during the full moon; this aversion to sunlight and moonlight vanished when the Gray Hulk's night-induced transformation trigger is later removed. Although he is the smallest of the Hulks, the Gray Hulk towers over the average human. He prefers to dress in tailored suits.
  • Merged Hulk/The Professor – The merger of Bruce Banner and the Savage and Gray Hulks in Incredible Hulk #377 (written by Peter David). The Merged Hulk is later ret-conned into The Professor. The Professor, rather than being a merger of the three core personalities, was interpreted as a fourth, separate personality that represented Banner's ideal self. The primary difference between the two is that the Merged Hulk demonstrated aspects of the Banner, Grey Hulk, and Savage Hulk personalities (also possessing Banner's intelligence, Joe Fixit's cunning, and the Savage Hulk's size and strength), while the Professor did not. The Merged Hulk is even prone to uttering "Hulk smash!", which is the Savage Hulk's most common catchphrase. The Merged Hulk is an associate and leader of the team of superheroes called the Pantheon. Despite his exaggerated musculature, the Merged Hulk had a relatively normal-looking face, resembling that of Bruce Banner. The Professor personality is defined during Paul Jenkins' run as a "revelation" that the Merged Hulk is not actually a merger of the three personalities but rather a separate personality altogether. Unlike the Merged Hulk, the Professor is physically distinguished by having a pony tail, which the Merged Hulk did not. Jenkins justified this by ret-conning into the Hulk's continuity a new character named Angela Lipscomb (modeled after Jenkins' own girlfriend) who knew more about Bruce Banner than even Doc Samson. Lipscomb confronted Doc Samson with her observations of the Professor and Doc Samson validated them, despite events presented in previous issues to the contrary.
  • The Maestro - The Maestro is a version of the Hulk from a future timeline when he has conquered mankind after it had already been brought to the brink of extinction through nuclear warfare. The Maestro's green skin is darker than that of the other green skinned incarnations, and his hair is gray and balding on top. Due to the increased radiation from nuclear fall-out, the Maestro is significantly stronger than the Merged Hulk (as demonstrated in the Hulk: Future Imperfect mini-series), and his strength still increases with rage, making him more powerful still. Creator Peter David stated on his various message boards that the Maestro is intended to be simply an insane evil alternate version of his Merged Hulk and not a separate personality within Bruce Banner.

Powers and abilities

File:Hulk mount.jpg
The Hulk holding up a mountain, on the cover for Secret Wars #4, by Mike Zeck

The most well-known incarnation of the Hulk possesses vast superhuman strength which increases proportionally to his level of anger or emotional distress. During the Secret Wars limited series, he is shown supporting a 150 billion ton mountain. Of the Hulk's incarnations, Joe Fixit is relatively the weakest and the Merged Hulk the strongest when not enraged.[citation needed] The Hulk's strength allows him to cover great distances by leaping. He can also grow stronger by absorbing radiation.

File:Hulk heal.jpg
The Hulk's healing factor

The Hulk is depicted with a high resistance to physical damage. He is shown withstanding the impact of high-caliber artillery shells, falls from orbital heights, and powerful energy blasts without sustaining injury and resisting extreme temperatures, poisons, and diseases with no ill effect. In addition, the Hulk's body regenerates damaged or destroyed areas of tissue at an accelerated rate. Similar to his strength, his durability increases with his emotional stress.

In addition to his physical power and healing ability, the Hulk demonstrates the ability to "home in" on the desert base where he was empowered.[volume & issue needed] He can also see and hear spectres, such as the astral form of Doctor Strange. . There is further evidence that the Hulk is highly resistant to telepathic abilities; for instance, he is the only being in the Marvel Universe who still remembered the Sentry after Robert Reynolds wiped all memories of himself from the world.

Allies

See also: Category:Hulk supporting characters
  • She-Hulk – Also known as Jennifer Walters, she is Bruce Banner's cousin, whom he gives an emergency blood transfusion when she is critically wounded.
  • Rick Jones – A teenager whom Banner saved, causing Banner to be caught in his life-changing explosion.
  • Jim Wilson – A friend of Bruce Banner and sometime sidekick. He was the first character in mainstream comics to be HIV positive. Is deceased due to full-blown AIDS (Incredible Hulk #420).
  • Doc Samson – The Hulk's psychologist.
  • Betty Ross-Banner – Bruce Banner's love interest, and later his wife. Deceased.
  • Jarella – The Hulk's lover from another planet. Deceased.
  • Warbound
  • Wolverine
  • Sentry
  • The Thing
  • Marlo Chandler
  • Sam Wilson – He has defended the Hulk on a few occasions due to the Hulk's comforting his nephew, Jim Wilson, during his last moments alive.

Enemies

See also: Category:Hulk villains
  • The Abomination – The Hulk's primary physical rival, also gamma-spawned
  • Absorbing Man - Thor villain, able to magically "absorb" the properties of things/people he touches
  • Bi-Beast
  • The Leader – Gamma-irradiated super-genius
  • Tyrannus - Would-be world conqueror and long-time Hulk villain, once possessed the body of the Abomination
  • The Maestro – A future, evil version of the Hulk
  • The Red King – The emperor of the planet Sakaar.
  • General Thaddeus Ross – Betty Ross' father, a military leader often on the hunt for the Hulk.
  • Major Glenn Talbot – Betty Ross' ex-husband, a military officer who tries to kill Bruce Banner and destroy the Hulk.
  • Wendigo
  • Zzzax – Electricity-based villain

Ultimate Hulk

Main article: Ultimate Hulk

A version of the Hulk appears in the Ultimate Marvel titles. In the Ultimates, Bruce Banner attempts to recreate the super-soldier formula that created Captain America, but creates a formula that turns him super-strong and brutish. When Captain America is recovered from a block of ice and Banner's funding seems likely to be cut, he supposedly uses the formula on himself to give the Ultimates a villain to defeat so they would be viewed as heroes by the public instead of a waste of taxpayer money. Banner was also suffering from his repeated failures to create a super-soldier formula and his girlfriend, Betty Ross, abandoning him and dating Freddie Prinze, Jr. As he tells Betty over the phone, "To tell you the truth...I just wanted to be big again."

The "Ultimate" Hulk combines the Savage Hulk and Joe Fixit thrown in. He is primarily a creature of anger with more intelligence and direction, demanding revenge on those who had wronged Banner. He is also capable of vices beyond wrath, particularly lust; he tells Betty that during his rampage that he was "horny as hell." The Ultimate Hulk is also prone to gluttony and has the habit of devouring the people he killed in his berserk rampages.

Hulk in other media

Television

The Hulk started out in television as part of the Marvel Super Heroes animated television series in 1966. The 39 (10-minute) episodes were shown along with those featuring Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the Sub-Mariner episodes based on early stories appearing in the Hulk and Tales to Astonish series.

The most famous TV adaptation is the live-action The Incredible Hulk TV series and its spin-off TV movies, starring Bill Bixby as David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk. After the live-action show ended in 1982, the Hulk returned to cartoon format with 13 episodes of The Incredible Hulk, which aired in a combined hour with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. The series featured more characters from the comics than the live-action series, including Rick Jones, Betty Ross, and General Ross.

Typical of many superhero cartoons of the era,[citation needed] the show used stock transformation scenes which include Bruce Banner transforming back with his clothing somehow restored intact. The She-Hulk and the Leader made an appearance in the show. This series featured Stan Lee as a narrator. Bruce Banner and the Hulk also appeared in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode, "Spidey Goes Hollywood."

In 1996, Marvel Studios and Saban Entertainment brought the Hulk back to animated form in the animated series The Incredible Hulk, with Lou Ferrigno returning to role of the Hulk. The first season's stories are exceptionally dark, but in 1997, the show's name changed to The Incredible Hulk and She-Hulk, and featured She-Hulk in several episodes with the Gray Hulk. The series became much lighter during this season and was cancelled quickly. The show aired briefly on ABC Family following the release of the live-action movie in 2003.

Movies

Template:Spoiler In 2003, Ang Lee directed a film based on the Hulk for Universal Pictures. Eric Bana played Bruce Banner/The Hulk. Here, Banner's father, David Banner (played by Nick Nolte), was partly responsible for the Hulk's origin as before Banner was born, he experimented on himself and passed his mutated genes onto his son. When Banner grew up, believing his real parents died (this is only half-true, as only his mother died and his father was incarcerated for thirty years), he saved a co-worker from being killed by gamma radiation and took the impact of the rays instead, mysteriously surviving the onslaught.

The Hulk caused a lot of destruction, wounding Glenn Talbot, killing his father's mutated dogs in battle, made a path of danger from the Desert Base to San Francisco, and finally in a final battle against his insane father. General Ross decided to end the battle by having one of his soldiers fire a missile from a jet in the water where the battle took place, ending the confrontation. It killed and disintegrated David, with the Hulk/Banner presumed dead from the event, but it was revealed at the very end of the movie that he did survive and is living as a secret doctor in South America, protecting the innocent from any intruders. Template:Endspoiler In 2006, the Hulk appeared in the animated movie Ultimate Avengers, which is based on the comic book The Ultimates. The second Ultimate Avengers movie is scheduled for release on August 8, 2006.

2008 is the scheduled release date of the second live-action movie, The Incredible Hulk, to be directed by Louis Leterrier. The movie is still in pre-production. Abomination is scheduled to be the villain. [citation needed]

Video games

The Hulk appears in video games for many different systems, including the Sega Genesis, SNES, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and personal computer. Most are based on the comics, although the more recent releases draw primarily from the 2003 movie.

In Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Bruce Banner's voice is performed by Neal McDonough, who voiced the character in the 1996 animated series. In Ultimate Destruction, the Hulk is so uncontrolled that he will kill even innocent civilians in his path and the Desert Base soldiers that dare fight him. As much as the Hulk sounds like a villain, he is merely an uncontrolled creature.

Sometimes the Hulk can be a hero as one time, when he is battling the Abomination (the real villain) in a final showdown, his goal is to protect the dam the Abomination wants to destroy until every soldier has evacuated. Some of these soldiers fly off in jets, in which the Hulk can easily use as weapons to target the Abomination, but that is the player's decision.

The Hulk is also in a cutscene in the Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects game for the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube.

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Fighting Game Moves/Capcom/Hulk

In addition to his own games, the Hulk appears in several fighting games by Capcom, starting with Marvel Super Heroes in 1995 and including the Marvel vs. Capcom series. The version of the Hulk appearing in these games closely resembles the Professor.

The Hulk will appear in the upcoming game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance[citation needed]

Themed products

Hulk-themed products include action figures, clothes, jewelry, video games, cards, pins, posters, cars, games, lunchboxes, toys, pinball machines, all types of collectibles and even the Incredible Hulk roller coaster at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.

Bibliography

Collections

References

  1. ^ Comics Buyer's Guide #1617 (June 2006)
  2. ^ Starlog #213 (July 2003)

Template:Avengers members

Preceded by
Abraham Kieros as War II
 As War III, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #456 (July 1997) – Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #457 (August 1997) 		Succeeded by
Deathbird as War IV
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