Post by Kaz ~;~ on Aug 26, 2010 8:31:10 GMT -5
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The Hulk::
During the experimental detonation of a gamma bomb, scientist Bruce Banner rushes to save a teenager who has driven onto the testing field. Pushing the teen, Rick Jones, into a trench, Banner himself is caught in the blast, absorbing massive amounts of radiation. He awakens later in an infirmary, seeming relatively unscathed, but that night transforms into a lumbering grey form that breaks through the wall and escapes. A soldier in the ensuing search party dubs the otherwise unidentified creature a "hulk".
The original version of the Hulk was often shown as simple and quick to anger. His first transformations were triggered by sundown, and his return to Banner by dawn. However, in Incredible Hulk #4, Banner started using a Gamma ray device to transform at will. In more recent Hulk stories, emotions trigger the change. Although grey in his debut, difficulties for the printer led to a change in his color to green. In the original tale, the Hulk divorces his identity from Banner’s, decrying Banner as "that puny weakling in the picture". From his earliest stories, the Hulk has been concerned with finding sanctuary and quiet, and often is shown reacting emotionally to situations quickly. Grest and Weinberg call Hulk the "...dark, primordial side of [Banner's] psyche.". Even in the earliest appearances, Hulk spoke in the third person. The Hulk retains a modest intelligence, thinking and talking in full sentences, and Lee even gives the Hulk expository dialogue in issue six, allowing readers to learn just what capabilities the Hulk has, when the Hulk says, “But these muscles ain't just for show! All I gotta do is spring up and just keep goin'!" In Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Les Daniels addresses the Hulk as an embodiment of cultural fears of radiation and nuclear science. He quotes Jack Kirby thus: "As long as we're experimenting with radioactivity there's no telling what may happen, or how much our advancements may cost us." Daniels continues "The Hulk became Marvel's most disturbing embodiment of the perils inherent in the atomic age."
Though usually a loner, the Hulk helped to form both the Avengers and the Defenders. He was able to determine that the changes were now triggered by emotional stress.
Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963), featured the Hulk's first battle with the Thing. Although many early Hulk stories involve General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross trying to capture or destroy the Hulk, the main villain is often, like Hulk, a radiation based character, like the Gargoyle or the Leader, along with other foes such as the Toad Men, or Asian warlord General Fang. 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 more honorably. Rick Jones serves as the Hulk's friend and sidekick in these early tales.
In the 1970s, Hulk was shown as more prone to anger and rage, and less talkative. Writers played with the nature of his transformations, briefly giving Banner control over the change, and the ability to maintain control of his Hulk form.
Hulk stories began to involve other dimensions, and in one, Hulk met the empress Jarella. Jarella used magic to bring Banner’s intelligence to Hulk, and came to love him, asking him to become her mate. Though Hulk returned to Earth before he could become her king, he would return to Jarella's kingdom of K'ai again.
When Bill Mantlo took on writing duties, he led the character into the arena of political commentary when Hulk traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel, encountering both the violence of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the Jewish Israeli heroine Sabra. Soon after, Hulk encountered the Arabian Knight, a Bedouin superhero.
Under Mantlo's writing, a mindless Hulk was sent to the "Crossroads of Eternity", where Banner was revealed to have suffered childhood traumas which engendered Bruce's repressed rage.
Having come to terms with his issues, at least for a time, Hulk and Banner physically separated under John Byrne's writing. Separated from the Hulk by Doc Samson, Banner was recruited by the U.S. government to create the Hulkbusters, a government team dedicated to catching Hulk. Banner and Ross married, but Byrne's change in the character was reversed by Al Milgrom, who reunited the two personas,[39] and with issue #324, returned the Hulk to his grey coloration, with the changes occurring at night, regardless of Banner's emotional state. The Hulk appeared to perish in a gamma bomb explosion, but was instead sent to Jarella's home dimension of K'ai.
Shortly after returning to Earth, Hulk took on the identity of "Joe Fixit," a shadowy behind the scenes figure, working in Las Vegas on behalf of a casino owner, Michael Berengetti. For months, Banner was repressed in Hulk’s mind, but slowly began to reappear. Hulk and Banner began to change back and forth again at dusk and dawn, as the character initially had, but this time, they worked together to advance both their goals, using written notes as communication as well as meeting on a mental plane to have conversations. In The Incredible Hulk #333, the Leader describes the grey Hulk persona as strongest during the night of the new moon and weakest during the full moon. Eventually, the Green Hulk began to reemerge.
In issue #377, David revamped the Hulk again. Doctor Leonard Samson engages the Ringmaster's services to hypnotize Bruce Banner and force him, the Savage Hulk (Green Hulk) and Mr. Fixit (grey Hulk) to confront Banner's past abuse at the hands of his father, Brian Banner. During the session, the three identities confront a ‘Guilt Hulk’, which sadistically torments the three with the abuse of Banner’s father. Facing down this abuse, a new larger and smarter Hulk emerges and completely replaces the "human" Bruce Banner and Hulk personae. This Hulk is a culmination of the three aspects of Banner. He has the vast power of the Savage Hulk, the cunning of the grey Hulk, and the intelligence of Bruce Banner.
Peter David then introduces the Hulk to the Pantheon, a secretive organization built around an extended family of superpowered people.The family members, mostly distant cousins to each other, had codenames based in the mythos of the Trojan War, and were descendants of the founder of the group, Agamemnon. When Agamemnon leaves, he puts the Hulk in charge of the organization. The storyline ends when it is revealed Agamemnon has traded his offspring to an alien race to gain power. The Hulk leads the Pantheon against the aliens, and then moves on.
Hulk: Future Imperfect #2 (Jan. 1993), depicting the Maestro. Cover art by George Pérez.Shortly after, Hulk encounters a depraved version of himself from the future, called Maestro. Thrown into the future, Hulk finds himself allied with Rick Jones, now an old man, in an effort to destroy the tyrant Maestro. Unable to stop him in any other manner, Hulk uses the time machine that brought him to the future to send the Maestro back into the heart of the very Gamma Bomb test that spawned the Hulk.
Artistically, the character has been depicted as progressively more muscular in the years since his debut.
Powers and abilities
The Hulk possesses the potential for limitless physical strength depending directly on his emotional state, particularly his anger. This has been reflected in the repeated comment "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets." After probing, the entity Beyonder once claimed that the Hulk's potential strength had "no finite element inside". His durability, regeneration, and endurance also increase in proportion to his temper.[46] Greg Pak described the Hulk shown during World War Hulk as having a level of physical power where "Hulk was stronger than any mortal --and most immortals-- who ever walked the Earth."
The Hulk is resistant to most forms of injury or damage. The extent varies between interpretations, but he has withstood the equivalent of core solar temperatures, nuclear explosions, and planet-splitting impacts. He has been shown to have both regenerative and adaptive healing abilities, including growing tissues to allow him to breathe underwater, surviving unprotected in space for extended periods (yet still eventually needing to breathe), and when injured, healing from most wounds within seconds.
His powerful legs allow him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents, and he has displayed sufficient superhuman speed to match Thor,[55] or the Sentry. He also has less commonly described powers, including abilities allowing him to "home in" to his place of origin in New Mexico, resist psychic control, grow stronger from radiation or dark magic, and to see and interact with astral forms.
In the early days of the first Hulk comic series, "massive" doses of gamma rays (such as from the explosion of a hand-held nuclear grenade) would cause the Hulk to transform back to Bruce Banner, though this ability was written out of the character by the 1970s.
As Bruce Banner, he is considered one of the greatest minds on Earth. He has developed expertise in the fields of biology, chemistry, engineering, and physiology, and holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. He possesses "a mind so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test".
In The Science of Superheroes, Lois Grest and Robert Weinberg examined Hulk’s powers, explaining the scientific flaws in them. Most notably, they point out that the level of gamma radiation Banner is exposed to at the initial blast would induce radiation sickness and kill him, or if not, create significant cancer risks for Banner, because hard radiation strips cells of their ability to function. They go on to offer up an alternate origin, in which a Hulk might be created by biological experimentation with adrenal glands and GFP.
Charles Q. Choi from LiveScience.com further explains that unlike the Incredible Hulk, gamma rays are not green; existing as they do beyond the visible spectrum, gamma rays have no color at all that we can describe. He also explains that gamma rays are so powerful (the most powerful form of electromagnetic radiation and 10,000 times more powerful than visible light) that they can even create matter from energy- a possible explanation for the increased mass that Bruce Banner takes on during transformations. "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."
Related characters
Main article: List of Hulk supporting characters
Over the long publication history of the Hulk's adventures, many recurring characters have featured prominently, including his sidekick Rick Jones, love interest Betty Ross, and her father, the often adversarial General Thunderbolt Ross.
Family
Bruce had a stillborn child with his (formerly deceased) first wife Betty Ross Banner. He has one son named Skaar with his (still deceased) second wife Caiera Oldstrong on the planet Sakaar. Skaar was introduced in November 2007 and now has his own comic series. Hiro-Kala, a former slave from planet Sakaar, appears to be Skaar's brother. He also has a daughter named Lyra with Thundra first introduced in August 2008. He may be Carmilla Black's biological father. His cousin, Jennifer Walters, is She-Hulk, who has generally acted as his substitute sister since when Bruce visited her family as a child.
---------------------------------
The Hulk::
During the experimental detonation of a gamma bomb, scientist Bruce Banner rushes to save a teenager who has driven onto the testing field. Pushing the teen, Rick Jones, into a trench, Banner himself is caught in the blast, absorbing massive amounts of radiation. He awakens later in an infirmary, seeming relatively unscathed, but that night transforms into a lumbering grey form that breaks through the wall and escapes. A soldier in the ensuing search party dubs the otherwise unidentified creature a "hulk".
The original version of the Hulk was often shown as simple and quick to anger. His first transformations were triggered by sundown, and his return to Banner by dawn. However, in Incredible Hulk #4, Banner started using a Gamma ray device to transform at will. In more recent Hulk stories, emotions trigger the change. Although grey in his debut, difficulties for the printer led to a change in his color to green. In the original tale, the Hulk divorces his identity from Banner’s, decrying Banner as "that puny weakling in the picture". From his earliest stories, the Hulk has been concerned with finding sanctuary and quiet, and often is shown reacting emotionally to situations quickly. Grest and Weinberg call Hulk the "...dark, primordial side of [Banner's] psyche.". Even in the earliest appearances, Hulk spoke in the third person. The Hulk retains a modest intelligence, thinking and talking in full sentences, and Lee even gives the Hulk expository dialogue in issue six, allowing readers to learn just what capabilities the Hulk has, when the Hulk says, “But these muscles ain't just for show! All I gotta do is spring up and just keep goin'!" In Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Les Daniels addresses the Hulk as an embodiment of cultural fears of radiation and nuclear science. He quotes Jack Kirby thus: "As long as we're experimenting with radioactivity there's no telling what may happen, or how much our advancements may cost us." Daniels continues "The Hulk became Marvel's most disturbing embodiment of the perils inherent in the atomic age."
Though usually a loner, the Hulk helped to form both the Avengers and the Defenders. He was able to determine that the changes were now triggered by emotional stress.
Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963), featured the Hulk's first battle with the Thing. Although many early Hulk stories involve General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross trying to capture or destroy the Hulk, the main villain is often, like Hulk, a radiation based character, like the Gargoyle or the Leader, along with other foes such as the Toad Men, or Asian warlord General Fang. 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 more honorably. Rick Jones serves as the Hulk's friend and sidekick in these early tales.
In the 1970s, Hulk was shown as more prone to anger and rage, and less talkative. Writers played with the nature of his transformations, briefly giving Banner control over the change, and the ability to maintain control of his Hulk form.
Hulk stories began to involve other dimensions, and in one, Hulk met the empress Jarella. Jarella used magic to bring Banner’s intelligence to Hulk, and came to love him, asking him to become her mate. Though Hulk returned to Earth before he could become her king, he would return to Jarella's kingdom of K'ai again.
When Bill Mantlo took on writing duties, he led the character into the arena of political commentary when Hulk traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel, encountering both the violence of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the Jewish Israeli heroine Sabra. Soon after, Hulk encountered the Arabian Knight, a Bedouin superhero.
Under Mantlo's writing, a mindless Hulk was sent to the "Crossroads of Eternity", where Banner was revealed to have suffered childhood traumas which engendered Bruce's repressed rage.
Having come to terms with his issues, at least for a time, Hulk and Banner physically separated under John Byrne's writing. Separated from the Hulk by Doc Samson, Banner was recruited by the U.S. government to create the Hulkbusters, a government team dedicated to catching Hulk. Banner and Ross married, but Byrne's change in the character was reversed by Al Milgrom, who reunited the two personas,[39] and with issue #324, returned the Hulk to his grey coloration, with the changes occurring at night, regardless of Banner's emotional state. The Hulk appeared to perish in a gamma bomb explosion, but was instead sent to Jarella's home dimension of K'ai.
Shortly after returning to Earth, Hulk took on the identity of "Joe Fixit," a shadowy behind the scenes figure, working in Las Vegas on behalf of a casino owner, Michael Berengetti. For months, Banner was repressed in Hulk’s mind, but slowly began to reappear. Hulk and Banner began to change back and forth again at dusk and dawn, as the character initially had, but this time, they worked together to advance both their goals, using written notes as communication as well as meeting on a mental plane to have conversations. In The Incredible Hulk #333, the Leader describes the grey Hulk persona as strongest during the night of the new moon and weakest during the full moon. Eventually, the Green Hulk began to reemerge.
In issue #377, David revamped the Hulk again. Doctor Leonard Samson engages the Ringmaster's services to hypnotize Bruce Banner and force him, the Savage Hulk (Green Hulk) and Mr. Fixit (grey Hulk) to confront Banner's past abuse at the hands of his father, Brian Banner. During the session, the three identities confront a ‘Guilt Hulk’, which sadistically torments the three with the abuse of Banner’s father. Facing down this abuse, a new larger and smarter Hulk emerges and completely replaces the "human" Bruce Banner and Hulk personae. This Hulk is a culmination of the three aspects of Banner. He has the vast power of the Savage Hulk, the cunning of the grey Hulk, and the intelligence of Bruce Banner.
Peter David then introduces the Hulk to the Pantheon, a secretive organization built around an extended family of superpowered people.The family members, mostly distant cousins to each other, had codenames based in the mythos of the Trojan War, and were descendants of the founder of the group, Agamemnon. When Agamemnon leaves, he puts the Hulk in charge of the organization. The storyline ends when it is revealed Agamemnon has traded his offspring to an alien race to gain power. The Hulk leads the Pantheon against the aliens, and then moves on.
Hulk: Future Imperfect #2 (Jan. 1993), depicting the Maestro. Cover art by George Pérez.Shortly after, Hulk encounters a depraved version of himself from the future, called Maestro. Thrown into the future, Hulk finds himself allied with Rick Jones, now an old man, in an effort to destroy the tyrant Maestro. Unable to stop him in any other manner, Hulk uses the time machine that brought him to the future to send the Maestro back into the heart of the very Gamma Bomb test that spawned the Hulk.
Artistically, the character has been depicted as progressively more muscular in the years since his debut.
Powers and abilities
The Hulk possesses the potential for limitless physical strength depending directly on his emotional state, particularly his anger. This has been reflected in the repeated comment "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets." After probing, the entity Beyonder once claimed that the Hulk's potential strength had "no finite element inside". His durability, regeneration, and endurance also increase in proportion to his temper.[46] Greg Pak described the Hulk shown during World War Hulk as having a level of physical power where "Hulk was stronger than any mortal --and most immortals-- who ever walked the Earth."
The Hulk is resistant to most forms of injury or damage. The extent varies between interpretations, but he has withstood the equivalent of core solar temperatures, nuclear explosions, and planet-splitting impacts. He has been shown to have both regenerative and adaptive healing abilities, including growing tissues to allow him to breathe underwater, surviving unprotected in space for extended periods (yet still eventually needing to breathe), and when injured, healing from most wounds within seconds.
His powerful legs allow him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents, and he has displayed sufficient superhuman speed to match Thor,[55] or the Sentry. He also has less commonly described powers, including abilities allowing him to "home in" to his place of origin in New Mexico, resist psychic control, grow stronger from radiation or dark magic, and to see and interact with astral forms.
In the early days of the first Hulk comic series, "massive" doses of gamma rays (such as from the explosion of a hand-held nuclear grenade) would cause the Hulk to transform back to Bruce Banner, though this ability was written out of the character by the 1970s.
As Bruce Banner, he is considered one of the greatest minds on Earth. He has developed expertise in the fields of biology, chemistry, engineering, and physiology, and holds a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. He possesses "a mind so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test".
In The Science of Superheroes, Lois Grest and Robert Weinberg examined Hulk’s powers, explaining the scientific flaws in them. Most notably, they point out that the level of gamma radiation Banner is exposed to at the initial blast would induce radiation sickness and kill him, or if not, create significant cancer risks for Banner, because hard radiation strips cells of their ability to function. They go on to offer up an alternate origin, in which a Hulk might be created by biological experimentation with adrenal glands and GFP.
Charles Q. Choi from LiveScience.com further explains that unlike the Incredible Hulk, gamma rays are not green; existing as they do beyond the visible spectrum, gamma rays have no color at all that we can describe. He also explains that gamma rays are so powerful (the most powerful form of electromagnetic radiation and 10,000 times more powerful than visible light) that they can even create matter from energy- a possible explanation for the increased mass that Bruce Banner takes on during transformations. "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."
Related characters
Main article: List of Hulk supporting characters
Over the long publication history of the Hulk's adventures, many recurring characters have featured prominently, including his sidekick Rick Jones, love interest Betty Ross, and her father, the often adversarial General Thunderbolt Ross.
Family
Bruce had a stillborn child with his (formerly deceased) first wife Betty Ross Banner. He has one son named Skaar with his (still deceased) second wife Caiera Oldstrong on the planet Sakaar. Skaar was introduced in November 2007 and now has his own comic series. Hiro-Kala, a former slave from planet Sakaar, appears to be Skaar's brother. He also has a daughter named Lyra with Thundra first introduced in August 2008. He may be Carmilla Black's biological father. His cousin, Jennifer Walters, is She-Hulk, who has generally acted as his substitute sister since when Bruce visited her family as a child.