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The Incredible Hulk




One of Marvel Comics' original breakthrough characters, The Incredible Hulk
is Dr. Robert Bruce Banner's alter ego, a large green beast possessed of
superhuman strength and endurance.

The story of the Hulk was essentially a loose, space age adaptation of the
story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the dichotomy usually consisting of the
simple minded and emotional brute who springs from a quiet intellectual.
Indeed, in contrast to the quiet Banner, the most famous version of the Hulk
has been as a childlike persona who just wants to be left alone, but is
continually forced to battle foes determined to hunt him down. This is
somewhat similar to that of Universal Studios's 1931 film, Frankenstein,
another major influence on the character.

In the first issue of the Incredible Hulk comic book, the Hulk was supposed
to be gray. However, the publishers of the time had difficulties with
printing a consistent and clear shade of gray, so after the first issue they
decided to make him green and that color was preferred and so it stuck. For
a period later in the series, the Hulk was indeed printed gray.

In the origin story of the Hulk, Dr. Bruce Banner was a military scientist
who had developed a new type of weapon called the "Gamma Bomb." As the bomb
was being tested (in a fashion reminiscent of the Trinity atomic bomb test,
Dr. Banner noticed that a teenager (Rick Jones) had driven his car onto the
test site. Banner raced out into the open to bring the young man to safety,
but the bomb exploded before he could reach safety himself. Banner was
subjected to an incredible dose of gamma rays, and this was what caused him
to transform into the rampaging Hulk. At first he became the Hulk when the
sun went down, but this was soon changed to the more familiar transformation
whenever Dr. Banner became angry or emotional. This story had a strong Cold
War subtext to it; in addition to the Gamma Bomb test, the Hulk was promptly
captured in the first issue of the book and brought to a country which is
presumably the Soviet Union (though the name "Soviet Union" was never used
in the book, the story ended with a statement about the end of "Red
tyranny"). Later revisions of the Hulk's origin (especially for the TV
series of the 1970s and the animated TV cartoon of the 1980s) removed the
military subtext and made Bruce Banner a non-military scientist.

The plots of many of the earliest Hulk stories would involve General
"Thunderbolt" Ross continually pursuing the Incredible Hulk, his
"Hulkbuster" U.S. Army group at his side. Ross's daughter Betty was a love
interest for Bruce Banner and would criticize her father for going after the
Hulk so relentlessly irregardless of her feelings for the Hulk's alternate
identity. General Ross's right-hand-man, Major Glenn Talbot, was also in
love with Betty Ross but was an honorable man and was torn between pursuing
the Hulk and gaining Betty's love in an honest way. Teenager Rick Jones was
the Hulk's first and only friend for a time. Later on, another teenager
named Jim Wilson became the Hulk's friend.

For over twenty years, the Hulk would rampage across the face of Marvel
Comics, engaging in titanic battles and leaving destruction in his wake. He
became the ultimate personification of "brute strength" in comic books,
something that not even Superman would be able to match in terms of sheer,
raw power. Futhermore, the Hulk's strength can increase further when he is
further provoked into more intense anger which leads to his enemies often
underestimating his power at critical moments.

Occasionally the Hulk would gain a decent intelligence, only to lose it
again; during the mid-1980s, Bruce Banner "lost control" of the Hulk and he
became a truly mindless, rampaging monster. Shortly after this, however,
writer Peter David took on the mantle of the Incredible Hulk and made some
drastic changes to the character. He returned the Hulk to his original
"grey" state -- his skin became gray instead of green, and he gained a
brutish intelligence which got him a job as a Las Vegas casino enforcer.
Later, David expanded on an earlier story that established that Banner had
an abused childhood which fostered a great deal of repressed anger which
triggered a latent case of multiple personality disorder. The three dominant
personalities are the quiet intellectual Banner, the Gray Hulk which
embodies his more antisocial cunning side and the Green Hulk which embodies
his inner child and repressed rage. Eventually, Doc Samson, a scientist who
had his body enhanced by a controlled gamma radiation exposure managed to
merge Banner's personalities into one healthy personality which balanced
Banner's intellect and conscience, the Gray's cunning and confidence and the
Green's body. David spent the next decade taking the Hulk on a series of
adventures that many fans considered to be a change of direction that
breathed new life into the character.

After David left the comic series in the mid-1990s, the Hulk reverted back
to a green-skinned, rampaging behemoth.

In addition, Bruce Banner has a cousin, Jennifer Walters, whom he once had
to give an emergency blood transfusion when she was critically wounded. As a
result, she took on the Hulk condition as the She-Hulk. However, her form
allowed her to keep most of her original personality albiet with more
assertiveness and self confidence.

The Incredible Hulk's supervillain enemies include

   * The Leader: A villain whose own exposure to gamma radiation made a
     superintelligent genius with an oversized brain.
   * The Abomination: A soviet spy who deliberately exposed himself to gamma
     radiation to become a reptilian version of the Hulk with his original
     personality and intelligence intact.
   * The U-Foes: a quartet of villains who participated in an attempt to
     recreate the same accident that created the Fantastic Four. When Banner
     discovered them in the middle of their foolhardy scheme, he interfered
     with it to successfully save their lives. Although they survived and
     gained superpowers, they swore revenge on Banner for supposedly
     cheating of the chance to gain even more power.
   * While not a supervillian, Wolverine of the X-Men made his first ever
     appearance in Marvel Comics as a villian in the Hulk series.

There was a cartoon, TV series, and even a few TV movies for the Hulk. The
TV series and movies starred Bill Bixby as Dr. David Banner (note the
name-change for television purposes) and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk himself.
In 2003, Ang Lee directed a film on the Hulk, which was released on June 20,
2003 to mixed reviews.

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