The Incredible Hulk / Tropes N to R

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• Naked People Are Funny: During Peter David's run, the Leader shoots the Hulk with a BFG, seriously injuring him and incinerating his clothes. The Hulk regenerates almost immediately, but his clothes don't. The Leader requests, (more or less) "Dr. Banner, please! There are ladies present... And you're making some of us men feel inadequate."
• Named by Democracy: The Hulk was an example of this trope but it's since been retconned away.
• Names to Run Away From:
  • The Hulk.
  • The Maestro, an evil alternate universe version of the Hulk.
• Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: Michael Bertinelli, the Mafia-tied casino owner who employed the Hulk as a bouncer, wasn't particularly amoral for being a gangster. In discussions with a rival gangster who wanted to muscle in on his territory, Bertinelli alluded to the "friendly understanding" with the local police, wherein they agreed to leave him alone in exchange for his not stepping beyond an accepted limit of behavior. Bertinelli even prevented the Hulk from killing the rival gangster after he'd been kidnapped, drawing the line at murder.
• Nephewism: The only known relative of Rick Jones is his aunt. Also, although she is rarely brought up, a few stories and adaptations mention Bruce being partially raised by his aunt after his father kills his mother (and eventually gets arrested for it.)
• Never Gets Drunk: The Hulk is immune to alcohol.
  • Ultimate Hulk, however, might not be. During his New York rampage he was described as "drinking the contents of an entire beer truck." Unfortunately for Betty and the other people in New York, Hulk is a mean drunk.
  • His cousin She-Hulk can't either due to her size and metabolism. This doesn't apply to her human form though, and should she revert back into Jennifer Walters all the alcohol She-Hulk drank will affect her instantly.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: The Hulk is like this. He may rage to high heaven and destroy an entire city, but he has never killed anyone deliberately... or even accidentally! Best not to think about the latter too much. Ultimate Hulk is, quite graphically, as far from this as you can get. Then came the "Heart of the Monster" story arc in Incredible Hulks when he wound up in the Dark Dimension. Where no one is innocent. And his ex-wife and his worst enemies were there too.
• Never My Fault:
  • Brian Banner was all over this one. His horrific abuse of his wife and son is his dad's fault, for being abusive, or little Bruce's fault for being born super-smart. His eventual murder of his wife? Bruce's fault, for being born at all. Even in Immortal Hulk, when he's been dragged down to Hell itself for his actions, twice, he still refuses to acknowledge that the situation might possibly in any way be his own fault.
  • General Reginald Fortean, through Immortal Hulk. He constantly shifts any responsibility for his actions onto other people, when he's the one forcing them to do those things, especially when anyone tries calling him out on his deeds.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Whenever Hulk ventures into Man-Thing's swamp, he is attacked by alligators.
• New Old Flame: A while back, Bruce Banner of all people had an incredibly hot girlfriend in college, but dumped her because he was a neurotic twit. She's now an evil scientist, and still bitter about the breakup.
• Nice Guy: Bruce Banner is a kind-hearted, well-intentioned, self-sacrificing person as long as you don't piss him off. The Hulk can also be considered one although he leans more towards a Gentle Giant and a Bruiser with a Soft Center.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: General Ross has unwittingly and sometimes deliberately stopped Banner from curing himself of the Hulk many many times, not to mention acting as the catalyst for pissing off Banner and thus transforming him into the Hulk even more often. Ross' attempts to stop the Hulk only tend to make things even worse. Whether an incident falls under Nice Job Breaking It, Hero or Nice Job Fixing It, Villain depends on which side of the Face–Heel Revolving Door one considers Ross to be at the time.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • The Hulk's raison d'être: if you're going to kill him, at least try to make him happy about it. This makes Ultimate Nick Fury pretty smart since he did JUST THAT. Pity Loki intervened.
  • The Onslaught saga springs to mind... "And Hulk is ANGRY!!!!"
• The Nicknamer: The Hulk's generally not good with names, depending on the incarnation. Sometimes it's out of lack of intelligence, others out of lack of respect, and others it's a sign of affection. For The Defenders, Doctor Strange became "Dumb Magician", Valkyrie became "Sword Girl" and Nighthawk became "Bird Nose". For The Avengers, Iron Man is usually "Metal Man" or "Tin Man" (or Tin Head), Thor is usually "Blondie" or "Goldilocks" or "Red Cape", Spider-Man was "Bug-Eyes" or "Bug Man", The Sentry is "Golden Man".
  • In Heroes Reborn, he named Project X9500, worn by an Anthony Stark, Iron Man.
• Nighttime Transformation: In his first few appearances and in his Joe Fixit and Immortal personas. It got changed to anger-induced after his appearance in Tales to Astonish, but every so often, it comes back. However, Joe has managed to manifest by day in Banner's body, and the Immortal Hulk seems to be gaining more and more resistance to the light of day...
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The Hulk is an extreme example; he is both super tough, invulnerable to all conventional weapons, and has an extremely fast healing factor, so fast that it was not discovered in the continuity until he was wounded while he was slowed down because he was Joe Fixit. Basically, he has shrugged off point blank heavy nuclear weaponry, planet-splitting impacts, solar temperatures, strikes from cosmic entities, has healed within seconds from having over 80% of his flesh repelled off of his body, and one incarnation eventually managed to restore itself from being blown to powder. This even extends to extreme resistance to mind-control or molecular manipulation of his body, and some adaptive evolution to build greater immunity or adapt to hostile environments. Even on those occasions when he is vulnerable enough to have a body part removed, he can either regenerate it or reattach it.
  • Hulk is resistant to magical attacks as well. The various Ghost Riders using Hellfire on him is nothing but an annoyance. To even make him register damage, the Ghost Rider spirit needed to take over.
  • Lampshaded in "The Last Titan" wherein the immortal Hulk just keeps on going alone in the wasteland after the rest of humanity destroys itself. (The alien empires were said to host an enormous celebration.)
  • When Amadeus Cho accused Reed Richards of killing the Hulk, Richards maintained that was impossible, "Because the Hulk doesn't die."
• No-Dialogue Episode: Issue #35 was a completely dialogue-free one-shot about Bruce Banner being spotted in a diner by federal agents.
• No Endor Holocaust: The Hulk can go a long way without killing anyone during his rampages. Hulk's buddy, Amadeus Cho, tries to explain this by suggesting that the Hulk is amazingly gifted, doing math to know exactly where every chunk of debris he creates will fall.
  • At least during The Hulk and Superman's bout in DC Vs. Marvel, they were teleported to the Grand Canyon, where Superman lampshades that it would be one place they wouldn't hurt anyone collaterally.
  • Averted in Banner, where the plot involves testing The Hulk as a Weapon of Mass Destruction by repeatedly dropping him in populated areas where he wakes up to find entire square city blocks leveled, complete with strewn body parts.
  • Taken to its logical conclusion in The Immortal Hulk, where the lack of victims in his rampages is used to show how NOT mindless his rampages must be, instead being highly, scarily calculated acts.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Bruce Banner pays an even more personal cost for saving Rick Jones.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Hulk himself has been handing these out like candy for years, giving these to anyone foolish enough to fight him. Especially during World War Hulk.
  • He still receives them here and there, namely from Zeus, who left him crippled for days. The beatdown was bad enough that only Hulk's Healing Factor keeps him alive long enough to be rescued.
• No-Sell: Whenever Bruce Banner Hulks out, standard military procedure is to order armored columns, and air and artillery strikes against him, with predictable results.
• Nominal Hero: The Hulk is frequently one of this, most notably in his Savage and Joe Fixit versions. While they (generally) fight villains who piss them off (and also fight other heroes who do this too), their doing so still often does a world of good by thwarting the villains' plans.
• Non-Action Big Bad: The Leader. He may be a mutate, but his only power is Super-Intelligence, and he's got the physique of a string bean.
• Not Quite Flight: The Hulk can use his powerful leg muscles to leap miles and miles at a time.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: This Hulk cover◊.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The threat of the Hulk can be more terrifying than his actual presence.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Originally, Banner's Hulk condition was a secret and all the US Military suspected was that Banner was somehow a compatriot of the monster. Unfortunately, Rick Jones later mistakenly thought Banner was dead and told Col. Glenn Talbot everything. With that, Banner's life really goes to hell with him becoming a fugitive.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • The majority of Hulk Gray consisted of Bruce coming to realise that he had a surprising amount in common with his long-time enemy General Ross. Naturally, this being a Hulk comic, he didn't take it well.
  • In Immortal Hulk, the Devil Hulk gets the upper hand in a duel with She-Hulk by pointing out how she's recently gone from being a bubbly, much-beloved Amazonian Beauty into a disfigured, muscle-bound, rage-fueled brute that everybody distrusts, just like her "savage" cousin. She-Hulk is so horrified and busy protesting it gives the Devil Hulk the opportunity to Megaton Punch her away from the battlefield.
• Now Do It Again, Backwards: Kate Waynesboro gets dumped into some wacky gizmo and comes out the other end as an evil, female version of M.O.D.O.K., complete with giant head and hoverchair. Naturally, sending her through the machine again backwards returns her to normal.

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• Official Couple: Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. They're currently on the outs, in the wake of Betty returning from being Mostly Dead.
• Offing the Offspring:
  • The Hulk's Green Scar persona - that is, the one that first appeared during Planet Hulk and World War Hulk - really, really, really wants to kill his son Skaar as he blames Skaar for feeding his mother's spirit to Galactus, killing her off for real (it looks like, anyway). Skaar is equally intent on killing him for abandoning him on a savage planet (Hulk thought he was dead). In the end, they manage to settle things without killing each other.
  • Bruce's father Brian was a nasty piece of work who murdered Bruce's mom and tried to kill him too — while they were visiting her grave no less. Bruce killed him in self-defense. Brian would later briefly come back from the dead in the form of Guilt Hulk — the worst of Bruce's various Hulk personas — to try again. The Greenscar being reminded of Brian during his decisive fight with Skaar, realizing that he's acting no different from his awful father is what causes Green Scar to stop fighting.
• Oh, Crap!: Is the Hulk coming your way? Is he angry? Then it's too late to run. Let's just save some time and say damn near everyone who's ever made [[Bruce Banner]] angry. has had this reaction.
• One-Man Army: The Hulk obviously fares well against hordes of mooks, or even Elite Mooks, due to Nigh-Invulnerability and Super-Strength. He has spent large part of his publication history annihilating literal armies and goes up against several beings considered Physical Gods, and on more than one occasion beats the stuffing out of them.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The Hulk himself is known mainly by his moniker since Savage Hulk insists on it and actually gets pissed when people call him (puny) Banner or Bruce. Likewise Bruce himself doesn't like being called Hulk and as he normally would rather treat his big green alter ego as a seperate entity altogether.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You:
  • Skaar has this for his father the Hulk, and it's why he protects Banner while he waits for the Hulk's return. Granted, Skaar isn't a bad guy (He's mainly angry because he thinks he abandoned him) and Banner is training him for when the Hulk returns.
  • The Leader has this for the Hulk as well. He even got a bit depressed when he found out Hulk was shot into space.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: Bruce Banner's most recognizable appearance is that of a short, scrawny, lab-coat-wearing geek with completely opaque nerd glasses.◊
• Out of the Inferno: The Hulk does this. A lot.

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• Pain & Gain: The Hulk explicitly gets more powerful the angrier he gets, and if any of his foes hits him hard enough for Hulk to feel it he's only going to get angrier, and thus both stronger and harder to hurt. Protracted fights with the Hulk are never a good idea because of this, especially because he's never displayed an upper limit. Granted, pain isn't the only thing that can trigger this, but it's the most reliable method.
• Pajama-Clad Hero: The Hulk, believe it not was this, complete with bunny slippers while strapped to the brim with ammo and a BFG, no less.
• Papa Wolf: May there be mercy upon you if you injure or threaten anyone the Hulk considers a friend. This also goes for anyone who harms his son. To the point where Bruce - not the Hulk, but Bruce - promised to kill Steve Rogers if he killed his son Hiro-Kala, who for the record was trying to crash a Mars-sized planet into Earth at the time.
  • The Hulk zigzags this as he usually lacks the mental stablity to be a good father, however while having a Duel to the Death with his son Skaar, he stops mid-rageout remembering his own father's abuse◊ and reverts back into Banner to give Skaar a Cooldown Hug. Played straighter later Doctor Doom is about cut Skaar down with his own sword, Bruce bursts in (not even as the Hulk) to protect his son◊ and even calls Doom a "jackass" while he does it. Hulk depending on the mood, plays straight with other characters whom he is close to such as: his sidekick Rick Jones who he saved from a nuclear blast and protected from the military, his cousin She-Hulk whom he gave his blood to so she wouldn't die from a gunshot, and even Spider-Man (no really◊). He is a Bruiser with a Soft Center at his very best and will protect anyone who he cares about, and seeing them get hurt makes him very, very angry.
  • Played with and then deconstructed with General Thaddeus Ross, he loves his daughter Betty Ross deeply and devoted his entire life to protecting her from the Hulk/Bruce whom she loves. But Ross is so bitter and overprotective that his extreme efforts to “look after“ Betty did far more harm than good and eventually turned her against him.
  • Immortal Hulk has a strange example in the Devil Hulk persona, who explicitly cares for Bruce and Savage/Child Hulk and seeing them get hurt, royally pisses him off. This even extends to loved ones like Betty Ross who hurt Child Hulk while in her Red Harpy form, Devil Hulk warns her once she’s not allowed to hurt “the kid” again. It’s theorised in-universe Devil Hulk is Banner subconsciously creating a caring father figure that he sorely lacked in his childhood.
  Devil Hulk [to Bruce]: I know you locked me away for years. I know I scare you. What I do. What I am. But before any of the others... I was there protecting you. I always protect you... ‘cause I love you stupid kid. Somebody had to. Come on home [holding his hand out to Bruce, who takes it].
• Parental Substitute:
  • Doctor Strange has served as this for the Hulk's simple and childlike Savage Hulk incarnation, providing him with occasional sanctuary and regular advice.
  • The Joe Fixit incarnation identified Michael Berengetti, the Mob boss he worked for in his Vegas thug days as a father figure.
  • When Bruce Banner’s father killed his mother and was institutionalized, he was taken in by his Aunt Susan, his father’s estranged sister, who, being a child of abuse herself, did everything she could to protect him and lavished him with all the care and attention she could. Subverted in that Bruce’s trauma, repressed emotions and vastly superior intelligence meant he could never really bond with her no matter how much she tried.
  • Immortal Hulk reveals that, of all the Hulk-sonas, the Devil Hulk, the one Bruce is most afraid of, was born of Baby Bruce's desire for a loving dad. But since Bruce "didn't know what love was", Devil's affection comes out in the form of wanting to kill Bruce's actual dad, and Bruce's fear warps his perceptions of what the Devil Hulk was trying to say into him being creepy and sinister, something he's put out about.
• Pedestrian Crushes Car: The Hulk is a giant green behemoth, yet people seem to think he can be taken out by cars that are smaller than him! The opposite tends to happen. Then again, due to his Nigh-Invulnerable body, buses, trucks, tanks, even planes and train end up getting destroyed crashing into him.
  • Likewise for video games that feature the Hulk.
• Perma-Shave: Hulk no grow puny facial hair! Hulk punch scruff and beard!
  • Averted in Peace in our Time, right before Planet Hulk. Living in the wilderness Banner sports a long beard so Hulk has one as well.
  • Indeed, Hulk sported stubble throughout Planet Hulk, and has had a fair bit on and off since then. The merged Hulk would occasionally go unshaven during the nineties, and the Maestro had a full on Beard of Evil.
  • In Hulk: The End Banner mentions that he bothers with shaving just so that with his greyed hair he wouldn't have Maestro staring back at him from every reflection as Hulk.
  • His Doc Green persona grew a beard after dreaming of becoming a Maestro, and when he turned back into Banner he still had the beard.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: The Hulk cannot be stopped except by being calmed down by a close friend or loved one. Trying to subdue him by physical means only makes him angrier and his strength is proportional to his anger and has no upper limit.
• Person of Mass Destruction: The Hulk is one of the earliest examples. Like Godzilla, he was created by a bomb, and some adaptations literally compare him to the atomic weapon that spawned him; for example, the shockwaves he creates from smashing things are compared to the blast wave of a nuke. Later on this tendency was dropped, but the Hulk remained as one of these since his power increases the angrier he gets and he doesn't seem to have an upper limit.
• Personal Hate Before Common Goals: In "The Evil that Men Do", this happens to the titular protagonist. The dark side of a man that presents himself in a Mr. Hyde manner called the Stalker tries to convince the Hulk that they are the same, and that like him, he should try to also experience the joy of tearing apart those weaker than them. When the Stalker tries this first with a teenage girl, Hulk refuses. Later, when he tries the same with a bunch of criminals that had eluded punishment for their crimes, the Stalker seems to have convinced him — only for the grey goliath to turn on him, saying the Stalker is the one he wants to tear apart. Not because he cared about the thugs. Not even because he cared about the girl. He cared little to nothing about them. No. He is going to do it simply because he doesn't like him.

Hulk: Okay. You talked me into it.

The Stalker: I never doubted I could. Wh—? Wait! Not me, you fool!

Hulk: Yeah, you. 'Cause I don't care about that guy. I didn't even care about the girl much. But I don't... like... YOU!!

• Phlebotinum Bomb: In the Marvel Adventures version, the gamma bomb is apparently supposed to be the anti-Neutron Bomb — destroy inanimate material, leave living things aside. That's not quite what happens, but you can say this about the end product — he doesn't specifically go after civilians, and can be persuaded to try and save them. Indeed, a recent story claimed that the Hulk's rampages have never killed an innocent person. Yes, even when he knocks over entire buildings.
• Physical God: The Hulk qualifies, seeing as how he has potentially infinite strength, even managing to defeat Onslaught, who had easily overpowered the Juggernaut. The Beyonder says the Hulk's power has no limitations.
  • There was an evil Bad Future version of the Hulk named Maestro who was even stronger.
• Pitiful Worms: The first issue had the Hulk swat aside Rick Jones while exclaiming "Get out of my way, insect!"
• Please Put Some Clothes On: In #398-399, the Hulk has his clothing, along with a significant amount of flesh, blasted off of his body (one of the few times the Hulk's Magic Pants clause is subverted). Hulk's insane Healing Factor allows him to regenerate the injury almost instantly, but without a pair of purple pants handy, Hulk's state of undress causes the Big Bad of the moment, The Leader, to invoke this trope, not only for the sake of modesty, but to prevent giving the other men present an inferiority complex. The Dark Action Girl present, Atalanta clearly doesn't mind.
  Atalanta: [staring closely at Hulk's hindquarters] Don't hurry on my account.
• Poor Communication Kills: A Silver Age example can be found in #165: To Become A God'': a Mad Scientist who has founded a mobile deep sea colony is at war with his born-below son, who wants to see the surface world that his father abandoned, but his father refuses to take him and the other youths topside. With the Hulk's help, the son leads a rebellion and leads the youths to the surface... where they all die horribly due to being adapted for the high-pressure underwater environment. Apparently, daddy dearest never bothered to simply tell his son that his mutations would make him burst in the low-pressure atmosphere above the waves.
• Posthumous Character: Bruce Banner's mother, who was later revealed to have been murdered by her husband.
• Power Born of Madness: What the Hulk runs on, and heavily implied to be the reason that Banner not only survived the detonation of the gamma bomb, but why the Hulk is so much more powerful than most, if not all of the gamma mutates that have come before or since. His already fractured psyche created a monster based on the trauma he received as a child, and the personae emerged from different stages of his life that Banner denied himself the person he wanted to be (Savage-the angry child; Joe Fixit-the late adolescent, etc.). Adding to this, his long-suppressed rage gives the Hulk the ability to get stronger when he gets madder. His rage and anger is shown to be so powerful that not only does it cause Unstoppable Rage but also gives him immunity to mind control and other telepathic attacks, often showing him simply shrugging it off. Also explains his more varied abilities, like being able to see ghosts, as Banner always feared his long-dead abusive father would come back to torment him again.
  • Gamma radiation based powers seem to work like this in general. Gamma radiation brings out everything people suppress (assuming it doesn't just kill them like real radiation poisoning). Depending on what they are suppressing, the resulting transformations can be...unpleasant.
• Power Incontinence:
  • Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk whenever someone makes him too angry, and once he's in that form, he has no control over his actions (depending on which personality is in control).
  • Joe Fixit (a smaller, gray-skinned variant) had a brief storyline where he always came out at night and generally did things Bruce did not approve of. (This is in fact what the Hulk was always like in the very earliest issues. This new storyline tweaked the original Gray Hulk a bit, taking him from Early-Installment Weirdness to a different manifestation of his powers.)
• Power Limiter: Almost always strongly on, except against certain high-level Cosmic Entity characters, as otherwise he could accidentally ignite reality-spanning destruction. He even once did just that, when in the Crossroads dimension. He might have done a lesser variant when in Umar's Dark Dimension as well.
• The Power of Love: It turns out that since Hulk's power is emotion-based and quasi-mystical in nature, the love he felt for Jarella makes her even more powerful after dying than his father's spirit turned from his rage. His mother also said that she by far preferred his more moral wife Jarella to his other wife, the Blood Knight Red She-Hulk.
• Power-Upgrading Deformation: The Hulk and several of his friends and enemies.
• Power-Up Full Color Change: When Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk, his body changes color to green, or sometimes gray. Jen Walters' She-Hulk turns green as well (and has occasionally gone gray), while Rick Jones as A-Bomb turns blue, Hulk's son Skaar turns into a gray shade of green (so he is often gray or green, depending on the colorist), and Red Hulk and Red She-Hulk turn red.
• Pragmatic Villainy: In one issue, two perverts in the showers at the local YMCA are planning to rape Bruce Banner until he warns them about his having superpowers; they decide not to see whether he's bluffing. Moreover, in the future depicted in Spider-Girl's comics, several bands of assassins made it a policy only to subdue cops who got in their way and never to kill them, since the various law enforcement agencies involved tend to retaliate swiftly and brutally against cop-killers. A couple of petty burglars caught in the act by a superhero also surrender immediately rather than risk the near-certainty of being pounded into the pavement for fighting or fleeing.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  • "You're making me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry."
  • Hulk's "Hulk SMASH!" catchprase usually preceeds a brutal beatdown on whoever has pissed him off.
• Prescience by Analysis: This is stated to be the "power/talent" of Amadeus Cho, the smartest kid in the world. He possesses a "hypermind" capable of making a seemingly endless number of calculations in his head within seconds, predicting what's going to happen. Visually, it appears as numbers and formulas floating in mid-air. Later, we learn that it runs in the family as his sister Maddie can do the same thing. In Chaos War, this was Played With, as Cho and other super-intelligent characters (such as Galactus) accept that the Big Bad Mikaboshi is unbeatable, but Hercules refuses to accept it.
• Primary-Color Champion: Inverted with the Hulk, who is usually green with purple pants, highlighting how the character is more monstrous than the usual hero. Also inverted with Red Hulk, where the primary-colored character is the villain, while the secondary-colored character (the original Hulk) is the hero.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Red She-Hulk a.k.a. Betty Ross. One of the Hulk's wives finally doesn't stay dead, and this happens. It later turns out to be a case of brainwashing, though this isn't to say their relationship gets much better without it. Just less murder-y.
• Psycho Psychologist: Doc Samson turns into this due to the Intelligencia, though this involves turning him into a Superpowered Evil Side.
• Puny Earthlings: Although the Hulk is an Earthling himself, "HULK SMASH PUNY HUMANS!"

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• Race for Your Love: One issue had Betty Ross leaving on a train to be in a convent, and naturally one of Bruce's enemies shows up on his way to the station. They battle it out and Bruce sees the train leave just as he gets there, and falls to the ground defeated... and then hears Betty standing behind him with a suitcase.
• Radiation-Induced Superpowers: This is how Banner became the Hulk in the first place. Immortal Hulk suggests one reason gamma radiation can spawn things like the Hulk is that in the Marvel universe, gamma radiation operates just as much by magical principles as it does by scientific ones, turning people into metaphors for their psychological issues.
• Radiation-Immune Mutants: The Hulk and his Rogues Gallery.
• Rage Breaking Point: Ultimately, what created the Hulk. Bruce Banner, as a child, repressed many of his emotions, particularly concerning his father, and thus built up a lot of fury that the Hulk personality latched on to, and thus that anger burst out in a big way, as he now could no longer keep it under control.
• Rampage from a Nail: This wasn't an actual nail, but there was a Superman/Hulk crossover story where Hulk is on a rampage and Superman discovers a tiny little machine is emitting a sound that is driving Hulk crazy. Superman destroys it and soon after Hulk begins to calm down.
• Real Men Eat Meat: Both Bruce Banner and the Hulk love meat.
• Really Gets Around: Although far less than his cousin, Hulk does get more affairs than expected for a giant, hulking ball of pain. From Betty, Meriam (a siren), Jarella, Bereet, Kate Waynesboro, Marlo, Caiera, and the college girlfriend that he saved from being unlawfully contained in an Amnesty International condemned US prison; to being desired by Thundra, the other college fling Monica Rappaccini and Umar (TWICE)... Not to mention Joe Fixit who probably had ten times as much sex as all the other incarnations put together. Lampshaded by Red She-Hulk, in those Exact Words. He even has a couple of kids as a result of this (at least Jen uses birth control, it seems).
• Red Baron: The Hulk lives and breathes these, since his name itself is always an example. He has gained other epithets in the recent past, such as "Indestructible" and "Immortal". His traditional Stan Lee-given kennings are "Jade Giant" and "Green Goliath". His cousin, meanwhile, is the Green Glamazon and is usually accompanied by the adjective "Sensational". Hulk's Mini Marvels counterpart is the Jade Juvenile.
• Red/Green Contrast: The Hulk, in an inversion of the usual heroic color schemes, is bright green, while his opponents — villains like Madman, Red Hulk and Juggernaut — are often red.
  • Jennifer Walters, the original She-Hulk, is green while Betty Ross is the Red She-Hulk. Betty as the Red She-Hulk was originally an antagonist and even after her Heel–Face Turn was still less pleasant than the green She-Hulk.
• Redemption Equals Death:
  • In the Hulk's very first appearance, he was captured by Yuri Topolov, the Gargoyle, a Soviet scientist who had been mutated into a big-headed dwarf. However, when the Gargoyle found that the Hulk had reverted to Bruce Banner, he lamented the loss of his own normalcy. Banner decided to use his own genius to cure Topolov, who responded by ensuring Banner's safe return to America while destroying his own base, taking himself and his Soviet handlers out in the process. Unfortunately, his son Kondrati took the wrong lesson from Yuri's sacrifice, deciding to blame the Hulk and the State for his father's death.
• Reed Richards Is Useless:
  • Indestructible Hulk Lampshaded and perhaps averted this, with Bruce Banner lamenting the fact that all the years he spent trying to cure himself of the Hulk could have been used to fight problems like famine and disease. He then agrees to join S.H.I.E.L.D. on the condition that they give him funding to work towards bettering mankind while not in his Hulk form.
  • Immortal Hulk begins to address this around Issue #25: After Bruce/Hulk takes over the organization meant to kill him, he begins formulating a new sort of plan, one that he gives some of the basics to Amadeus Cho. Namely, in that he declares war against the "world's leaders" or more specifically, the individuals and groups such as Dario Agger, the CEO of Roxxon (and a minotaur). According to Bruce, the reason people like Reed, Tony and Adam Brashear (Blue Marvel) have failed to make an impact is because of powerful people like Agger manipulating the world and thus Bruce takes it upon himself to tear down the establishment with the hopes of entrusting the younger folk to fix it. Put simply, "I can't build what needs to be built, but I can smash what needs to be smashed.".
• Reforged into a Minion: Back in The '90s the Leader used the dead body and mostly dead brain of Thunderbolt Ross to power the Redeemer armor.
• Resist the Beast: Banner, especially in cases where Hulk is portrayed the most destructively and as a huge detriment on his life, does so regularly.
• Ret-Canon:
  • The Hulk's iconic "You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!" Catchphrase originated in the 70s live-action show.
  • The Hulk's reintroduction into the Avengers was also motivated by the films. In the original comics, he quit after one issue, but the Marvel NOW! relaunch has since seen him return to the team as a main character.
  • In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Bruce's ex-girlfriend Betty Ross became She-Hulk (as a Decomposite Character, unrelated to Jennifer Walters). The idea was well received, which led to Marvel reviving the Earth-616 Betty and making her into the Red She-Hulk.
  • In Hulk, Brian Banner, as a mythology gag to the '70s show, underwent Adaptation Name Change and was named "David". During ''House of M", David was made Brian's middle name.
• RetCon:
  • The Rampaging Hulk stories were initially far out stories featuring the Hulk. In The Incredible Hulk #269-287, it is revealed the stories were created as techno-art movies by Bereet the Krylorian. Similarly, an unpublished story by Steve Gerber would have retconned the Howard the Duck stories not written by Gerber as art made by the Krylorian Chireep.
  • Immortal Hulk has a few:
    • Quite a few regarding the first appearance of the Hulk. Firstly, Bruce's Resurrective Immortality was first activiated in the accident that turned him into the Hulk as he was originally actually killed in the gamma bomb explosion. Additionally, it undoes the Canon Discontinuity Peter David gave to the Devil Hulk by revealing he was real: he's actually the Immortal Hulk and thus, his actual true form resembles a traditional green Hulk. And that the Immortal/Devil Hulk is in fact the Hulk seen in Bruce's first few adventures.
    • Brian Banner, Bruce's father, is also shown to have feared the existence of offspring from him would break a spell instead of a fear of something wrong with his genetics, and he'd previously dealt with the Green Door.
    • The Hulk seen in Secret Empire is really a new personality.
• The Rival: The Hulk has several.
  • Thor will always be the big one, as they are Marvel's two heaviest "Big Name" hitters, and sometimes one of them wins, sometimes the other, but usually it somehow ends up as a draw. Whether it's a friendly rivalry or a hostile one depends on what mood the Hulk is in (or whose side he's on). Basically Hulk has a lot more raw power and durability, so he should have the edge in pure close combat, despite a considerable skill disadvantage, but if Thor ever started to use all of his myriad powers in ways Hulk couldn't counter then there wouldn't be much that Hulk could do about it. Still, the thing is that Thor and Hulk get along swell with each other when not fighting, or when watching each other's back, starting back in Secret Wars (1984).
  • Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Hulk were both mainly used as obstacles for heroes in early comics, which may be why writers decided to pit them against each other. Hulk hates Namor's rudeness and arrogance and Namor hates Hulk's childish behavior and stupidity. The rivalry remained even when they were on the same team. Admittedly thanks to their time on the Defenders they act more like squabbling siblings as opposed to actually trying to kill each other.
  • The Thing also has a bit of this going on, with the Thing's durability and sheer tenacity meaning he's commonly used for slugfests with the Hulk.
  • Wolverine is also seen as Hulk's rival. That's probably because Wolverine debuted in Hulk's book.
  • The Juggernaut is also shown to have a rivalry with the Hulk, and a noticeably bitter one at that. Like most rivalries between Hulk and another character, both believe themselves to be the strongest and want to prove'' it.
  • In crossovers with DC, the Hulk always gets in a fight with Superman.
• Rock Beats Laser: It's a fairly common tactic for the Hulk to use a blunt object against technologically advanced foes. This is presuming that he can't simply tear them metal limb from metal limb with his bare hands (which he usually can). Granted, the Hulk pretty much applies this tactic to any foe, regardless of the level of technology at their disposal. This is quite in line with real world physics; you can destroy anything in the universe, ANYTHING at all... if you hit it hard enough. And who could possibly hit harder than an enraged Hulk? .
• Rogues Gallery: The Hulk has a really big one. Most of the Hulk's enemies are other super-strong bruisers who can actually go a few rounds with the Big Green Machine without immediately getting turned into roadkill, like the Abomination, Red Hulk, Absorbing Man, Mister Hyde, Madman, the Glob, Bi-Beast, and the Wendigo. Not everyone fits the bill however, such as the Leader, a Mad Scientist and Evil Genius who has as much brains as the Hulk does brawn; the U-Foes, a collective Evil Counterpart to the Fantastic Four with a similar origin and powers, although they never actually met the Four; Zzzax, a sentient electrical field; Mercy, a fragile-looking and wayward Dark Magical Girl; the Gamma Corps, a collection of other gamma-mutated humans who serve the Leader; Rock and Redeemer, one of whom is a sentient shapeshifting boulder and the other who wears a suit of deadly power armor; and others such as Speedfreek, Constrictor, Boomerang, and Piecemeal. The Hulk has even battled a couple of Eldritch Abominations, like the Crawling Unknown (a giant, cancerlike growth that mutated out of control), and Sh'mballah, an Expy of Cthulhu who tried to conquer the Earth, messed with the Hulk, and didn't live to regret it. The Hulk is also a popular choice for villains who fight someone besides their traditional enemies, as he's tangled with the likes of Sandman and the Rhino, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Juggernaut. The Hulk is also one of the few Marvel characters who has other heroes in his rogues gallery, regularly slugging it out with Thor, Wolverine, and The Thing.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
  • Some of the Hulk's recurring enemies, like the Juggernaut, Mister Hyde, and Absorbing Man, originally started out fighting other foes (and those two still do on a regular basis). The Big Green Machine also tangles with other heroes' enemies every now and again, even if they don't become permanent fixtures.
  • Ever since The Defenders introduced Umar (a Doctor Strange villain) as a Stalker with a Crush for the Hulk, she's been added to his list of foes and romantic interests.
  • Zig-Zagging Trope with Gremlin. Gremlin uses the name and the armor of the Titanium Man, an Iron Man foe who goes way back, but Gremlin himself is primarily a Hulk villain, first appearing in issue #163.
  • Wolverine started out as a foe of the Hulk before becoming primarily associated with the X-Men.
  • The contract killer Boomerang, who uses deadly gimmick boomerangs as his weapons, originally started out fighting the Hulk, before he moved on to become a semi-regular Spider-Man villain after writers realized that trick boomerangs versus the most powerful creature on Earth was a bit of a mismatch. Boomerang even appears in the Uncanny X-Men Nintendo game by LJN even though he's neither a X-Men enemy nor a mutant.