Hulk comics: Encyclopedia II - Hulk comics - Character biography

Hulk comics - Character biography

Hulk comics - Bruce Banner before the Hulk

Bruce Banner dealt with a difficult childhood. His father, Brian Banner, was convinced that his work as an atomic physicist researching radiation at Los Alamos had resulted in a mutant son, whom he had never intended to have. Although Bruce's mother Rebecca loved the boy, this only led to Brian becoming jealous and hating Bruce all the more. He used excuses to keep Bruce away from his mother, often leaving him in the care of Nurse Meachum, who barely tolerated the boy. When Bruce demonstrated an abnormally high intellect, Brian took it as proof positive that his son was a monster and began physically abusing both Bruce and Rebecca. Rebecca eventually tried to flee with Bruce, but was killed by Brian in the attempt.

Bruce initially refused to testify against his father, but was eventually convinced to reveal the truth, leading to his father being institutionalized for many years. In the meantime, Bruce was left in the care of Brian's sister Susan Drake. (Susan divorced her husband while Bruce was in high school and took the name Susan Banner again. Note that some early sources state that Susan was actually Rebecca's sister.) As a coping mechanism, Bruce developed an imaginary friend that he called "Hulk". This Hulk shared qualities of both the later Savage and Grey Hulks, but physically resembled the Savage Hulk. Bruce continued to use this technique at least into his high school years.

Banner was a loner in high school, and spent time at an old, abandoned shed making "gadgets", including a time bomb. This bomb was attached to a boiler in the school by Banner's "Hulk" persona in revenge for a beating that Bruce had received, but Bruce's "normal" personality disabled the bomb. Susan was offered a deal by the school so that the incident would be forgotten if they moved. The time bomb that Bruce built attracted the attention of the U.S. Army Department of Research & Development (and, in particular, of a Major Thaddeus Ross), who saw potential in Bruce as a weapons designer and took a hand in his education.

Bruce was transferred to the aptly named Science High School, but remained an outsider even to his classmates there. He eventually went to graduate school at Caltech, where he was at the top of his class. He also drew the attention of fellow classmate Phil Sterns, whose obsession with Banner would later lead to him turning himself into Madman. It was also there that he met future neuro-psychologist Angela Lipscombe, who may have been his first serious romance. The two broke up when Bruce entered a period of depression after having several applications for grants turned down as institutions dismissed his theories predicting the spontaneous formation of gamma particles in a vacuum. After leaving college, he began working on the development of a weapon involving gamma particles that would destroy buildings and other structures while keeping people unharmed. Ross, now a general, approached Bruce on behalf of the military and attempted to convince Bruce to alter his design to that of a localized destructive weapon. Bruce refused.

It was during this period of time that Brian Banner was released from the institution and briefly moved in with Bruce. Brian's insanity led to an attack to kill Bruce at the site of Rebecca's grave, but instead led to Brian's death at Bruce's hands. However, Bruce blocked out these memories, choosing instead to forget that his father had moved in with him at all. Instead, he remembered meeting his father again at the site of the grave, having a confrontation, and then watching his father leave. The police reports would state that Brian Banner was killed by muggers, and Bruce went on to believe this until the truth was revealed to the Hulk years later.

Bruce Banner continued his work on the Gamma Bomb (altering its design at Ross' request) and at the same time began to develop a relationship with Betty Ross, the General's daughter. The Hulk would make his first physical appearance during this period.

Hulk comics - Early biographical history

The Hulk's personality and intelligence level has varied wildly over the years, even from his earliest days. In his very first issue, he is easily confused, and rather brutish. In his second, as well as assuming his trademark green skin color, he acts almost as an outright villain. In the third, he becomes the mindless thrall of Rick Jones, and in the fourth, Bruce Banner gains the ability to impose his personality over the Hulk — although this is short-lived, as the personality later associated with the gray-brute-Hulk emerges in #5-6.

This remains his dominant personality in many of the guest appearances he makes in Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spider-Man between cancellation of his series and his reappearance in his own feature in Tales to Astonish. The best-known ncarnation of the character — "the savage Hulk" who almost invariably spoke in the third person, as in his famous catchphrase, "(object) make Hulk angry! Hulk smash (object)!" — began surfacing periodically in here, with the trademark speech pattern first appearing in issue #66 (April 1965).

Later, due to a side-effect of a teleportation beam, Bruce Banner gained control of the Hulk's body, and the ability to transform at will. Gradually, though, he again cycled downward, losing intelligence and gaining aggression in Hulk form. Finally, due to the interference of the dream-demon Nightmare, Banner committed "psychic suicide," causing the Hulk to become a near-mindless, rampaging monster, which the sorcerer Doctor Strange banished to an inter-dimensional "Crossroads". While there, the savage-Hulk personality gradually reasserted itself, and finally Banner himself re-emerged.

When the Hulk finally returned to Earth, Doc Samson, a green-haired scientist whose strength had been enhanced by a controlled dose of gamma radiation some years before, managed to capture the Hulk and remove Banner from the Hulk's body by the use of a "nutrient bath". While Banner, finally free of his curse, was finally able to wed Betty Ross, Samson rebelled at plans to execute the again-mindless Hulk and accidentally freed the violent brute in attempting to prevent the execution. After much rampaging, it was discovered that Banner and the Hulk were dying from the separation, before the Vision managed to reunite them. This merger proved unstable, with Banner's head emerging from the Hulk's torso while the Hulk's personality flicked back and forth from savage-Hulk to gray-brute-Hulk (although his color remained green). Finally, the Hulk was captured and placed in the nutrient bath to stabilize him, but Rick Jones also fell in, emerging as a green, savage-Hulk-like creature. Banner briefly emerged as a gray Hulk until the sun hit his skin, reverting him back to Banner.

Hulk comics - Later biographical history

The craftily intelligent Grey Hulk allied with the Leader to restore the Leader's intelligence by draining Rick Jones' gamma power, in return for the Leader making it possible to allow him to remain the Hulk in both day and night (since the Grey Hulk now appeared during the night, and Banner during the day). While the first step was accomplished, an explosion meant the Leader escaped without having to make good on his promise. Soon after, the Hulk apparently died in a Leader-induced gamma bomb explosion, but actually escaped and took a job as a Las Vegas casino enforcer named "Mr. Fixit," working for casino boss Michael Berengetti, with no Banner to trouble him. For a time, he lived a hedonistic life, including a brief relationship with Marlo Chandler. When Banner reemerged, however, "Joe Fixit"'s life began to fall apart, since he could no longer appear in the daytime - with his problems helped along by the well-meaning Glorian, whose desire to turn the Hulk into a "noble, self-sacrificing individual" led him to a deal with the being Cloot (actually the demon Satannish), and the destruction of the Hulk's life, terrifying Marlo into dumping him and Berengetti into firing him.

Finally, with the Hulk realizing that he'd go to the same Hell as Glorian was being dragged down to too, eventually, it boiled down to him and Cloot playing Craps for his and Glorian's souls: if the Hulk won, Cloot could never take him or Glorian. If he lost, Cloot got them both immediately. The Hulk rolled the pair of giant dice, over twice as tall as himself, and jumped to land as they bounced, to make them roll a double-6. As Cloot complained about the Hulk's "cheating" and tried to take Glorian anyway, Glorian's master, the Shaper of Worlds intervened, saying that with Cloot's deal broken, he had no power. Cloot vanished, swearing to get Glorian and the Hulk someday, and the Shaper warning the Hulk to think about his future life "and after."

Three dominant personalities had emerged over the years: the quiet intellectual Banner, the Grey Hulk which embodies his more antisocial cunning side, and the Savage Hulk which embodies his inner child and repressed rage. Doc Samson, with the assistance of the Ringmaster, managed to prompt the merger of Banner's personalities into one apparently healthy personality which embodied Banner's intellect and conscience, the Grey's cunning and confidence and the Savage's color and strength. (Doc Samson would later claim, when something resembling the Merged Hulk emerged alongside his apparent component parts, that this was just another personality released from Banner's mind, who became known as the "Professor." However, since it was shown at the time of the merger that Samson had little control over the process, exactly how much truth there is to this remains unknown.) This "Merged Hulk" shortly thereafter joined up with the group known as the Pantheon, all of whom took their names from Greco-Roman mythology. The immortal leader and patriarch of the family, Agamemnon (from whom all of the other members were descended to some degree), and Ulysses convinced the Hulk to join them between his desire to do good in the world, and his desire to stick it to the U.S. Government for years of hounding him by taking down a U.S.-supported government with an abominable human rights record, among other things. As he joined, however, Delphi, the Pantheon's prophetess, saw "violence, death and pain, and a soul no longer sane" in the future: the Hulk laughing maniacally, while covered in blood.

The Hulk spent some time with the Pantheon. The merger of personalities began to destabilize beginning with a battle with the Leader and the reanimated body of General Ross that led to both foes' deaths. As the Pantheon's home and headquarters, the Mount, crumbled around him and Delphi's vision of insane anger came true, the Savage Hulk came out in Banner's body, thanks to the Merged Hulk's feelings of helplessness, frustration, and rage. After this, the Hulk went into hiding for some time, hampered by the "Savage Banner" coming out whenever he got angry. Finally, in battle with the psychic creature Onslaught, he was once more physically separated into both Hulk and Banner. Banner went on to be teleported to the Heroes Reborn universe, and the Hulk left behind was not mindless but soulless, a mixture of the Fixit and Savage personae. The Hulk became a conduit of energy between the two universes, growing physically stronger, but coming ever closer to dying; meanwhile, Banner relived an altered version of his life, becoming a Hulk similar to the Savage Hulk again, in the other universe. Eventually Banner (along with the others who ended up in the other universe) returned home, and Banner was reunited with the soulless Hulk in the process, although the Hulk's personality was not significantly changed.

Finally, just as Banner looked like he was about to settle down with Betty, she died of gamma radiation poisoning. Although Banner and an again-resurrected General Ross believed the source of the poisoning to have been Betty's close relationship with Banner, it had actually been caused by the Abomination, who hated the Hulk for having kept him away from his estranged ex-wife. The Abomination was exposed and defeated in retaliation by the Hulk twice: first as the Professor, who saw reason to forgive the Abomination, and again as the Savage Hulk, who was manipulated by Ross into beating the Abomination nearly to death.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Character biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki