I wish serialized comics sometimes took a breather. After a major event like World War Hulk, described last time, the Hulk could have stood to stay on ice for a few years before going back to monthly stories. The time off could have allowed that cataclysmic story to resonate a bit. Instead, it became just another big event, and the Hulk was on the loose and rampaging around soon afterward. But this time, he wouldn’t do it alone.

The Hulk Family

A non-gamma powered Bruce Banner turned out to be a major problem for the bad guys. With time to build gadgets and do what he wanted, Banner became a bigger thorn in villains’ sides than the Hulk. Thus, Norman Osborn conspired to re-infect our favorite scrawny scientist with gamma radiation to derail his newfound heroism. At the end of the “World War Hulks” storyline, Banner became the Hulk once again. But this time, he had an extended family: Rick Jones, now “A-Bomb” due to shenanigans from the Leader, Betty, still the red She-Hulk, Korg of the Warbound, and Skaar, Banner’s son via Caiera.

This Hulk family was volatile to say the least. In fact, through the many events that followed, the family started to unravel as each member found their own place in the world. By the end of Greg Pak’s second run, it looked like Banner was alone again…until Betty showed up to accompany him. The two transformed into their gamma alter egos and leaped into the sunset, realizing that neither breaks easily.

Nul, Breaker of Worlds

The Hulk Family arc ended on a happy note, with Bruce and Betty finally together in their own dysfunctional way. As is the nature of serialized comics, that didn’t last long. The Hulk changed again (take a shot) during the “Fear Itself” crossover event, in which he received a magical hammer that turned him into Nul, Breaker of Worlds.

What do you do with an enchanted Hulk who has the power to break worlds apart? You send him after Dracula, apparently. The Hulk’s portion of “Fear Itself” primarily focused on him rampaging through Transylvania. Ultimately, he broke free of the hammer’s control and wound up back with Betty…but only for a little while.

A Banner/Hulk Split with a Twist

By the next time the Hulk appeared, Bruce and Betty had split up again. This time, it was Bruce who had driven the split, because he and the Hulk had become separated (a “favor” done to him by Doctor Doom…and take a shot). However, while the Banner/Hulk divide had previously always had Bruce as the good guy, this time he was unhinged and the Hulk was the hero.

In an attempt to re-gammafy himself, Banner created a new gamma bomb…which proved to be his downfall. The Hulk held him at ground zero of the explosion, intending to kill him. Thanks to wonky comic book physics, however, the blast fused Banner and the Hulk back together.

In the adventures that followed, Bruce came to accept that he needed the Hulk. This run by Jason Aaron ended with Banner and the Hulk finally learning to coexist with one another…a theme that had already been repeated often and would continue to be repeated more in the future.

An Origin Revisited

Throughout the 2010s, the Hulk changed drastically depending on who wrote him. Whether due to editorial not keeping track of what stories had been told or each new writer wanting to make their mark on the character, there really wasn’t much of a throughline for readers to grab with the Hulk. Case in point: under Mark Waid, Banner sold his services to SHIELD, deploying the Hulk as a weapon against world-threatening foes. Along the way, he suddenly acquired a “long-standing” jealousy of Tony Stark–a character trait that had never even been hinted at before.

This came to a head when Banner discovered that Stark had messed with the original gamma bomb back in the day. While Bruce at first thought that Tony accidentally created the Hulk through his meddling, in truth he fixed a flaw in the design that would have leveled most of North America. This revelation was part of Marvel’s “Original Sin” event, which rewrote a bunch of continuity for reasons I still don’t comprehend.

When an assassin shot Banner, Tony saved his newly-retconned frenemy by injecting the Extermis nanotechnology into his head. This created–you guessed it–another new incarnation (take a shot).

Doc Green

The Extermis technology made the Hulk smart, but this smart Hulk was neither the version with Banner’s brain nor the “merged” Hulk of yesteryear. Instead, this incarnation was the child-like savage Hulk given super intelligence. He named himself Doc Green and went on a mission to reduce the vast number of gamma-irradiated heroes and villains in the world.

Doc Green’s sudden awakening had its dark side. He suppressed Banner and created an artificial intelligence that got out of hand and started working against him. He grew out a beard, giving a visage that recalled the Maestro. In the end, he did succeed in depowering most of the gamma-enhanced people in the Marvel Universe. This was essentially Marvel’s attempt to put the genie back into the bottle, removing the red Hulk, A-Bomb, red She-Hulk, and many other extra “Hulks” that had sprung up over the years. Only Jen Walters, the original She-Hulk, remained unscathed, as the Hulk determined that she represented the best that gamma power had created.

Doc Green’s tenure ended in a Flowers for Algernon sort of way, with the Extremis technology eventually wearing off and the Hulk reverting back to his childlike intellect. Several dangling plot threads remained, such as the rogue AI and a mysterious benefactor who warned the Leader of Doc Green’s assault ahead of time and allowed the villain to regain his gamma powers after they had been drained. But such loose ends got dropped, because Marvel was in a cycle where a major character got killed every few months to drive up sales, and it was soon to be the Hulk’s turn.

Death of the Incredible Hulk

In an off-panel adventure, the Hulk became the center of a near-nuclear meltdown and Amadeus Cho, the boy genius who had helped the Hulk during World War Hulk, absorbed his gamma radiation into himself. This depowered Bruce (take a shot), while also creating a new Hulk. Amadeus became the headliner for a new title, The Totally Awesome Hulk…which maybe I’ll talk about if I ever do one of these for him.

As for Bruce Banner, he knew darned well that the Hulk wasn’t gone for good and prepared a contingency in case he ever went berserk again. He created a special arrow that could kill the Hulk permanently and gave it to Hawkeye, just in case.

That “just in case” came about during the “Civil War II” event, where the Marvel heroes picked up where they had left off in the original “Civil War” by being civil rights-denying jerks. This time around, it was Captain Marvel leading the charge against heroism and basic decency, as she had found someone who could predict the future. She started using those predictions to arrest people for crimes they had not yet committed.

“But wait,” you might ask, “isn’t that just the plot of Phil K. Dick’s ‘The Minority Report?'”

Yes, yes it is. And yet, somehow, Marvel removed any of the subtlety from that story.

Anyway, one vision showed the Hulk killing a bunch of people. Naturally, the smart move would be to warn Banner and/or have a friend talk to him. You certainly wouldn’t want to mobilize an entire army and multiple groups of superheroes against the guy who is completely harmless as long as you don’t make him agitated or angry…

Oh.

Remember that, at this point, Banner can’t turn into the Hulk. He is conducting gamma experiments again, but he still doesn’t have the power to transform. Despite that, Hawkeye thinks he sees a flash of green in his eyes and shoots the special arrow, killing his old friend.

The whole thing was so stupid and insulting to all the characters involved. Every single Marvel hero had to act like a fascist or a moron, and Hawkeye had to commit murder over a “maybe.” This was all par for the course for Marvel in the 2010s, which cynically churned out events where heroes fought heroes for increasingly contrived reasons and a major character died every few months in an attempt to drum up sales and/or create storylines that the movie studio could cannibalize.

Naturally, nobody remains dead in superhero comics, and this wasn’t even the first time the Hulk had died. After a false start in “Secret Empire” where he was basically a zombie, he came back for good during the Avengers story “No Surrender.” And when he came back, he really brought his A game. I’ll delve into The Immortal Hulk and its repercussions in the future.

_{Images: Marvel Comics}