Line #11 YMMV/TheIncredibleHulk


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
2	** Re-reading the original Lee-Kirby issues of Hulk from a certain point of view, it can be easy to interpret Banner as being gay, and the Hulk as straight. Banner's heterosexuality has been firmly established in the decades since, but still. This illuminates the way General Ross keeps calling him a milksop, why Banner seems indifferent to Betty but the Hulk is obsessed with her, and why Banner ''really hates'' being transformed into a caricature of he-man heterosexuality.
3	** Where does the Hulk's hatred of humans come from? Is it because he hates Banner, either for containing him or being weak, and sees humanity as an extension of him? Is it because of the mistreatment Banner suffered throughout his life? Is it just because he is different from them? Or is there [[http://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Igor_Drenkov_%28Earth-616%29 a more specific reason stemming from his origin story]]? [[note]]Banner only became the Hulk because while attempting to rescue Rick Jones, he ordered his colleague to halt the countdown, but said colleague was a Soviet spy and tried to indirectly kill him with the bomb. Given that the Hulk regards the bomb as an attempt to kill him, and the cause for much of his misery, rather than his "creator", it would be understandable why he'd come to hate everyone involved in its creation, including Banner, and the incident that led to his emergence. [[/note]]
4	*** In ''Immortal Hulk'', Rick Jones raises the possibility that the Hulk hates even ''being'' human, that he's something non-human forced into human form (which also [[FridgeLogic raises the question]] of why he's ''in'' human form in the first place, given what gamma mutation can do - does he blame Banner for viewing him that way?).
5	*** I always figured it came from Brian Banner telling Bruce in his childhood that humanity would never accept him and that he was a monster (yes, even baby human Bruce). So all of his alters would internalize the fact that humanity is the enemy, even if they don't want to think of it that way.
6	* ArcFatigue: The mystery of who Red Hulk was dragged on for roughly two years; by the point the arc was finished, nobody really cared.
7	* AudienceAlienatingEra: See [[AudienceAlienatingEra/MarvelUniverse the Marvel Comics page]].
8	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Considering all the different incarnations of the Hulk, who in RealLife terms would be very different separate types of people, those who first came into contact with a particular aspect of one incarnation recurrently strongly dislike very contradictory versions.
9	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
10	** An early issue has the Hulk getting sent to a BadFuture by a ray-gun, whereupon he's attacked by a futuristic army working for someone. After a brief fight he's transported back to the past, and this strange sequence of events is never mentioned again.
11	** When the Hulk was infected by a Wendigo and became the Wendi-Hulk.
12	* BrokenBase: The fandom generally falls into two camps. The first group likes the Earth's Mightiest Mortal aspect of the character, and like stories which concentrate on the Hulk fighting enemies that only he can defeat, and using his physiology to perform near-impossible feats (for instance, the Hulk can get anywhere on Earth by jumping there). The second group likes the character of Bruce Banner and how the Hulk represents his shattered psyche. There aren't a lot of writers skilled enough to do both ideas justice at the same time. The broken base is best exemplified by the two Hulk films that were made in the 2000s. The Ang Lee one was made by and for people in the second group; ''The Incredible Hulk'', on the other hand, was made for people in the first.
13	** Also Bruce Jones's run as writer. Some love it for being wonderfully atmospheric, others hate it for its disregard for previous continuity. Peter David all but [[CanonDiscontinuity removed it from canon]] when he returned as writer by announcing Nightmare had been messing with Bruce / the Hulk's perceptions during that time.
14	** And finally, which version of the Hulk do you like best? Savage Hulk, Devil Hulk, Smart Hulk, and Joe Fixit are usually the top contenders.
15	* CantUnHearIt:
16	** Chances are you're reading Hulk stuff (including the SelfDemonstrating [[SelfDemonstrating/TheIncredibleHulk page]]) in Creator/FredTatasciore's Hulk voice. Creator/LouFerrigno is another candidate. For Banner himself, there's Creator/GabrielMann (''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen2009'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes''), Creator/EricBana (''Film/{{Hulk}}''), Creator/EdwardNorton (''Film/{{The Incredible Hulk\|2008}}''), Creator/MarkRuffalo (the greater Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse) or even Creator/BillBixby (''Series/TheIncredibleHulk1977'').
17	** Chances are you would read General Thunderbolt Ross/the Red Hulk's lines in either Creator/SamElliott or Creator/WilliamHurt's voices, or even Creator/ClancyBrown for either identity.
18	* CharacterRerailment: The Immortal Hulk was created as a return to form for the original characterization of the Hulk, as a character framed more like the monster in a horror story rather than a superhero.
19	* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/TheIncredibleHulk here]].
20	* CreatorsPet: The Red Hulk under Creator/JephLoeb. Shortly after being introduced he beat Odin-forced Thor with his own hammer, punched out the Watcher, killed the Grandmaster (who is immortal), casually killed off the whole Defenders (including the '''ComicBook/SilverSurfer!''') and much more. Luckily, he got depowered when Parker took over, and every hero that has been beaten by him before [[LaserGuidedKarma returned]] to [[CurbStompBattle return the favor]] in some very satisfying ways.
21	** [[CurbStompBattle His getting casually owned by Galactus]] at the height of his wankery was pretty satisfying as well.
22	* DamselScrappy: Rick Jones was this from his first appearance, in which he stupidly drove out into an active military testing site, causing Bruce Banner being subjected to Gamma radiation while saving him, turning him into the Hulk. This tendency tends to annoy the Hulk, especially during his grey, intelligent phases, and is lampshaded by Rick himself in one issue where he manages to beat his captor and escape on his own.
23	* EnsembleDarkhorse:
24	** Rick Jones, after Peter David made him into a NiceGuy who worked perfectly as Hulk's best friend.
25	** The Devil Hulk. He only appears once in a blue moon, but whenever he does, it's ''horrifyingly'' memorable. He's frequently mentioned as one of the Hulk's most terrifying enemies. [[spoiler: [[BreakoutCharacter He even ended up getting his own new ongoing]] in ImmortalHulk and his portrayal in there only made him even more popular.]]
26	** The Gray Hulk/Joe Fixit.
27	** Jim Wilson. Although he's been dead and rarely mentioned for decades, his death storyline and his friendship with the Hulk is well-remembered to this day.
28	** Gamma mutated rattlesnake Rattilore only appears in one issue, but is well-liked for leading a tribe of animals affected by the gamma rays in cool ways, and for being a kind but wise leader who knows to OptOut of the conflict between Hulk and the military to save his tribe from bloodshed.
29	* EscapistCharacter: Hulk is a mix between ThisLoserIsYou and this. Most people can relate to feeling like poor, downtrodden Bruce Banner at least once in their life and he can provide wish fulfillment by turning into an unstoppable rage monster that can curbstomp almost anything that pisses him off. Less so in later storylines, as his Hulk persona wrecked his personal and professional life.
30	* EvilIsCool: Pretty much any villain who can go toe to toe with the freaking Hulk, either in terms of power or intellect. Some stand-outs include the Leader, Abomination, Xemnu, Zzaxx, the U-Foes, the Puff Ball Collective, the Maestro, the Devil Hulk, and the One-Below-All. Notably, the former two are versions of Hulk himself, and Devil actually became an Anti-Hero thanks to ''Immortal Hulk''.
31	* FanNickname: "Rulk" for the "'''R'''ed H'''ulk'''." It eventually became AscendedFanon.
32	* GenreTurningPoint: The Hulk got a lot of attention as an ambiguous hero who was neither entirely a superhero nor entirely a monster, and his series pushed the boundaries of the Comics Code Authority by depicting the United States military as antagonists (the Code stipulated that comic books couldn't portray respected organizations in a negative light). With his anger, his inherently flawed nature, and his troubled relationship with authority figures, he also went on to become a counterculture icon, showing the potential for superheroes to act as a voice for the youth.
33	* GrowingTheBeard: The original six issue run of ''Incredible Hulk'' is, in all honesty, not some of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's best works by... well, any metric. (Thrill as the unstoppable Hulk faces the savage might of, er, the Toad Men! Or the Ringmaster and his Circus of CRIME!) Not helping is that the Hulk's nature and powers shift wildly from issue to issue. A guest appearance in ''Tales to Astonish'' establishes the "hulks out when angry" part, and then the Hulk's following feature in that title goes on to establish all the things usually associated with Big Green (foes like The Leader and the Abomination, Bruce's status as a fugitive from the world, and Hulk's lack of intelligence and simple desire to be left alone).
34	* HilariousInHindsight:
35	** Issue #418 featured Marlo selling her soul to Mephisto (she thought it was just a dream) in order to have a perfect wedding day. Over a decade later ''Spider-Man: ComicBook/OneMoreDay'' comes out, a story which involves Mephisto convincing Peter Parker to sell his ''marriage'' to him.
36	** Issue #1 declared, as General Ross named the Hulk, that it was a name that was destined to become immortal. Fast forward decades later, and Hulk's latest title is... ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk''.
37	** Related to that, a ClueFromEd in What If? Issue #2 ("What if the Hulk retained the mind of Bruce Banner?") said that the original events were chronicled in "the immortal Hulk #1", which is... confusing now.
38	** In 2011, [[Series/TheColbertReport Colbert]] joked about the possibility of a Chinese/Asian Hulk (while commenting on [[Comicbook/UltimateSpiderMan Miles Morales]]). And guess what? A couple of years afterwards, Marvel announced Amadeus Cho as the new Hulk!
39	** The Hulk series has a tendency of introducing characters who are basically prototype versions of future ones. The Metal Master was one for Magneto and somewhat Molecule Man, while Blossom from issue 217 was one for Big Bertha, the Blob's SpearCounterpart.
40	** The Red Hulk, despite not being... well, red, made his debut as a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' story. [[http://www.comicvine.com/homage-covers/12-43734/incredible-hulk-1/108-7074/23113-homage-covers/105-120310/ Here, have a laugh.]]
41	* HoYay:
42	** There are some instances between Banner and Namor, and the exchanges between them at times look like SlapSlapKiss. In one issue of the PAD series Namor complimented Banner on being muscular.
43	** During the "Circle of Four" arc in ''Venom'', Red Hulk and Agent Venom (Flash Thompson) quickly found common ground because of their military background.
44	-->'''Comicbook/GhostRider:''' I swear, you two are just a hair away from kissing each other.\
45	'''Venom:''' Don't ask; don't tell.
46	* InferredHolocaust: Although the Hulk is ostensibly a hero, many of his UnstoppableRage rampages have caused enormous and widespread destruction, which raises the question of exactly how many innocents have lost their lives as collateral damage. As it stands, only a single Hulk rampage (Incredible Hulk #300, which in Hulk's defense, was the result of Hulk being {{Mind Rape}}d by Nightmare, and all of Earth's heroes knew this) led to deaths (the number varies but as of ''Civil War'', the count is 26 dead men and women and one dog). Lampshading this is Amadeus Cho hypothesizing that the lack of carnage in every other Hulk rampage save the one from Hulk #300 is because [[NoEndorHolocaust underneath it all, the Hulk still retains Banner's super-math skills, maybe even to a greater degree than Banner, and so he's able to predict the trajectory of all the debris he sends flying and make sure it never hits anybody (Cho himself has a similar ability to instantly calculate trajectories)]]. Even so, the Hulk's rampages still ruin people's lives, as shown by Jackie [=McGee's=] backstory in ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'' -- her father worked himself to death trying to rebuild their lives after the Hulk destroyed their neighbourhood. How many more like Jackie's father the Hulk's left in his wake is unknown, and probably unknowable.
47	* InformedWrongness:
48	** Writers have a habit of painting anyone who reacts negatively to the Hulk's destructive temper as being in the wrong. Thaddeus Ross is the most frequent victim of this but even other superheroes aren't immune:
49	*** ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'': The decision of the Illuminati (Iron Man, Mr Fantastic, Black Bolt, Charles Xavier and Dr. Strange) [[ComicBook/PlanetHulk to shoot the Hulk into outer space]] is treated as an unforgivable crime and a terrible betrayal of a close friend, ally and hero. Except the impetus for the Illuminati's decision was the Hulk going on a rampage which killed 26 people. This was also a period in which [[ComicBook/CivilWar2006 anti-superhero political forces were had enacted very strict registration laws]] in the wake of another destructive incident caused by superheroes. Exiling him was being pretty lenient and arguably doing him a favor since "Leave Hulk alone" is one of the Hulk's catchphrases. That's not even getting into the fact that the Illuminati were innocent of planting a bomb in the ship Hulk was in which was the reason for the Hulk's RoaringRampageOfRevenge in the first place.
50	*** ''Giant-Size Hulk #1'': The story "Green Pieces" has the Champions of Los-Angeles (Black Widow, Iceman, Hercules, Darkstar, Ghost Rider and Angel) receive word that Banner is back in town. Knowing what tends to happen when the Hulk is around, they scout the city for him. Angel encounters him first when Banner [[HulkingOut hulks out]] in the middle of a traffic jam. The Hulk throws a car door at Angel who has to intercept it from hitting a nearby couple. The other Champions arrive and engage the Hulk until he decides to leave for a hospital and turn over a woman who was in the car to the doctors. This woman turns out to be Jennifer Walters, Banner's cousin and after her surgery she explains that Bruce was trying to get her to the hospital after her appendix burst. When Hercules asks why the Hulk did not simply explain his troubles, Jen responds that the Champions never tried to ask him what his problem was. The story tries to make it look like the Champions jumped to conclusions and attacked the Hulk without cause but the Hulk did not make himself look sympathetic by attacking the first person who approached him and endangering nearby civilians. And considering that Jen was ''in the car'' when Banner hulked out, it's a miracle she was still alive when he got her to the hospital.
51	** Skarr, Son Of The Hulk, was hit with this really hard throughout his entire miniseries. The narration and tone constantly informed us that he was pure evil. And while he certainly did a few [[WellIntentionedExtremist morally dubious things in his quest to stop the slavers and slaughterers rampaging across the planet]], they were phrased in such overblown ways to make them seem worse than they were that it just seemed melodramatic (with one of his "worst" offenses being a ''bluff'' of PayEvilUntoEvil). This culminated in Skarr being wrong for ''not wanting ComicBook/{{Galactus}} to eat his planet'' because, apparently, Galactus eating the planet was for the greater good... keep in mind, Earth superheroes regularly bluff Galactus with '''destroying the entire universe''' to make him leave Earth alone, which means he just goes off and eats someone else's planet.
52	* IronWoobie:
53	** Bruce Banner was abused as a child, turned into a green monster, endured the death of ''three'' wives, chased around the world by the Army, shot into space, enslaved by an alien empire, loses the empire once he conquers it, has his RoaringRampageOfRevenge crushed by a HeelRealization, and fails to save one of his troubled sons. Man it ''SUCKS'' to be a big green badass.
54	** How bad does Banner's life suck? In ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'' one issue of the series draws direct parallels between Bruce and Job. You know, the guy in Literature/TheBible whose life God absolutely and completely destroyed (Home destroyed, livelihood destroyed, family destroyed, riddled with ailments, etc.) as a test proposed by Satan to prove Job's loyalty to God was not bought. Yes, Bruce's life is so awful and absolutely f*#@ed that he can be compared to a guy who is the posterchild for human misery and being a CosmicPlayThing.
55	** And, oddly enough, the Hulk himself, as depicted in ''ComicBook/HulkTheEnd''.
56	--->'''Hulk''': [[spoiler: For years... forever... Hulk has listened to Banner, and Banner's friends, talking about how Hulk ruined Banner's life! Hulk made Banner's life! Banner was nothing before Hulk... nothing!...Hulk doesn't want friends, because friends will hurt him. Everyone hurts him. Everyone hurts Hulk.]]
57	* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: Banner being permanently rid of the Hulk and his subsequent death at the hands of Hawkeye were immediately undone when [[Comicbook/{{Daredevil}} The Hand]] brought him back to life.
58	* MemeticBadass:
59	** In the Fall of 2013, a website, [[http://famousmonsters.com/brawl Famous Monsters of Filmland]], held a tournament between various comic characters from DC and Marvel where fans would vote to determine the outcome. In the final match, Hulk defeated '''Batman'''.
60	** It's generally accepted by fans, that like Batman and his prep-time, given enough time for the Hulk to get mad enough, he could take down a huge amount of characters.
61	* MemeticMutation:
62	** '''HULK SMASH PUNY LANGUAGE'''!
63	** HulkSpeak good for DumbMuscle, show lack of smarts while still making point.
64	** "HulkingOut" describes someone driven to rise up and wail on everyone, especially if one wouldn't expect them to have it in them.
65	** "Puny X!", borrowing Hulk's oft-phrased reference to humans as "[[PunyEarthlings Puny humans!]]" This meme was elderly until ''Film/{{The Avengers\|2012}}'' rejuvenated it with the Hulk's ''only'' line of dialogue.
66	--> '''Hulk''' (flinging Loki's unconscious, battered body to the floor): Puny god.
67	** A good one was during ''ComicBook/{{Civil War\|2006}}'', where fans would state "I'm with [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony]]" or "I'm with [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Steve]]". A third camp popped up, stating "You're all fucked when the Hulk gets back!", a reference to Hulk's imminent return from the then-ongoing ''ComicBook/PlanetHulk'' storyline.
68	** Ross' mustache and its incredible abilities.
69	* MisaimedMerchandising: A children's book series has Hulk going around making friends and helping people. He's never angry and always huge and green. A sweet, [[TheVoiceless silent]] guy.
70	* MoralEventHorizon:
71	** The Abomination almost murdering Betty Ross by giving her cancer.
72	** The Leader detonating a gamma bomb in the middle of a small town of five thousand people in an attempt to create more gamma-powered superhumans. This worked for about one in a thousand. The rest were ashes.
73	* MyRealDaddy:
74	** Creator/PeterDavid wrote the book for over ''12 years'' and pretty much single-handedly shaped the mythos, cast, and central traits of the Hulk. Like Chris Claremont for the X-Men, nearly every run of the Hulk builds off what PAD started.
75	** Thanks to his seminal run, Creator/AlEwing now competes with David for the title of being considered ''THE'' Hulk writer.
76	** Jeff Parker, the writer on the Red Hulk's solo title, has done an amazing job of rebuilding and redeeming the character.
77	* NeverLiveItDown: Umar will, understandably, never live down the fact she once raped the Hulk. It doesn't help that this instance was played for laughs when Hulk had been the victim of both an attempted ''and'' a successful rape before, and they were rightfully shown to be the horrible, traumatizing events they were.
78	* OlderThanTheyThink:
79	** The coloration of the Red Hulk is hardly anything new. The Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno Hulk series has a WhatCouldHaveBeen of changing the Hulk to red instead of green since red is more associated with anger than green is.
80	** ComicBook/NineteenSixtyThree Hulk-based character N-Man is red in color as well.
81	* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Once [[MyRealDaddy Jeff Parker replaced Loeb as the Red Hulk's writer.]]
82	* RootingForTheEmpire: Zeus gained quite a lot of MemeticBadass Internet credibility due to beating the Hulk, despite hardly being the best person himself. Most of it stemmed from fans being afraid that Hulk was getting a little ''too'' strong for his own good, so Zeus setting a hard limit on the Jade Giant's power level and driving home that he is far from unbeatable was really appreciated.
83	* SeasonalRot: While most of Peter David's run on the book is pretty iconic, readers agree that 1995-1996, the first two years after the "Pantheon" era ended, were the low point with David not at his best. The book took a darker turn mostly shifting away from the balanced comedy-drama writing David was known for, the artwork started to get real hit or miss, and then it got mixed up in the whole ''ComicBook/{{Onslaught}}'' and ''ComicBook/HeroesReborn'' business which resulted in Hulk and Bruce Banner getting separated. It got back on track in 1997 around the time Adam Kubert took over as artist, with the title shifting back to its "dramedy" style and Banner returning a few months later.
84	* StrawmanHasAPoint: In ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'', the Illuminati get a number of "WhatTheHellHero" speeches from other characters for [[ComicBook/PlanetHulk shooting the Hulk into outer space]] and allegedly planting a bomb in his ship that killed Hulk's wife and child. The latter is unforgivable but the former can be excused by the impetus for the decision being Hulk's rampage in Las Vegas which got about 22 people killed. This was also a period in which [[ComicBook/CivilWar2006 anti-superhero political forces were just LOOKING for an excuse to enact registration laws.]] Exiling him was being pretty lenient and arguably doing him a favor since "Leave Hulk alone" is one of the Hulk's catchphrases. And the Illuminati only end up looking even more like [[DesignatedVillain designated villains]] when it is revealed [[spoiler:that the bomb that killed Hulk's wife was not planted by them but by loyalists of the Red King who wanted revenge against the Hulk for overthrowing their leader and that Miek, one of Hulk's new friends, knew about this but didn't tell Hulk because he wanted him to become the [[PersonOfMassDestruction Worldbreaker.]]]]
85	* TakeThatScrappy: Once the Red Hulk makes a HeelFaceTurn, Thor, Iron Man and Namor decide to beat him up in retaliation. The moment where Red Hulk wields Mjolnir is handwaved in that he picked it up in space where there is no gravity and turns out he can't lift it on the surfaces of planets.
86	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
87	** Regarding Jim Wilson's death from AIDS, one letter regarding the issue felt that the subplot ultimately amounted to this, as right after Jim was revealed to have the disease he was injured and hospitalized thanks to the supervillain Speedfreak, and then wasn't even mentioned in over thirty issues (outside a cameo at Rick Jones' wedding) before finally [[BackForTheDead showing up again where his death occurred]]. As they stated, "It's not enough to ask us to feel for Jim Wilson because he had AIDS, especially when we could (and should) have felt for him because he was a three-dimensional character we had grown to love."
88	** [[spoiler: After establishing Amadeus as Hulk in 616, showing Banner accepting his new state of being Hulkless in issues 7 & 8 of Totally Awesome Hulk and potentially becoming the ZenSurvivor mentor to Amadeus, he's promptly and brutally executed in ComicBook/CivilWarII.]]
89	* ToughActToFollow: Peter David wrote Hulk for twelve years, so naturally anyone was going to have a tough time replacing him. Joe Casey even begins the final issue of his six issue run practically smashing through the fourth wall to point out the deck was stacked against him from the start on that one.
90	* {{Wangst}}: Sometimes his whole 'Leave Hulk alone' shtick can get quite tedious, especially at times where he actually ''manages'' to be left alone, but then starts crying about how he has nobody close to him.
91	* TheWoobie:
92	** In some ways Bruce Banner is very unfortunate, given all of the abuse, isolation, and mental illness he has suffered from.
93	** The ''ComicBook/PlanetHulk'' storyline proves that [[DiabolusExMachina neither the Hulk nor Banner are allowed to have a happy life]]. He's exiled all the way to another planet, where he manages to overthrow the corrupt government and become a hero and the new king, finally finding a place where he can belong. He even manages to find a wife, and has a child on the way. Then the shuttle that brought him to the planet explodes, killing her and destroying the entire city.
94	** Before that, there was Jarella, a WarriorPrincess from the Microverse who was not only an ideal mate for the Hulk ''and'' Banner, but loved them both equally and unconditionally. Every time it seems like they would be able to be together, Hulk was forcibly pulled back to the macroscopic world, until finally, Jarella was brought to Earth with him, and they looked set to have an idyllic, carefree life together. Their very first day out as a couple, she was [[DroppedABridgeOnHim crushed by falling rubble]]. Jesus.

Context YMMV / TheIncredibleHulk