The Incredible Hulk / Tropes S

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• Say My Name:
  • In one story Bruce Banner makes this comment to a screaming Doctor Doom right after helping to take him down.
  • Doom had been fighting a Hulk robot that was screaming "DOOOM" as it pummeled him. As Doom turned the tables on the robot, he said "Once more… with feeling… say my name!" The above example is an Ironic Echo of this scene.
    • Of course there is Doom's famous semi-catchphrase from the Silver Age ""RRRRRRICHAAAAARRRRRDDDSS!!!""
• Science Hero: Bruce Banner is a great example, especially in the run-up to Fall of the Hulks where he spent a good while Hulkless. The man does such things as manufacturing his own super-tech mini-computer out of an old iPod and while men like Reed Richards and Tony Stark consider themselves smarter than him overall, they at least know when to bow to him as the eminent scientist in the field of nuclear radiation and its mutating effects on biology.
• Screaming Warrior: The series ties the Hulk with the trope. Even more in the movies, where he barely speaks (the comics still give him short Badass Boast or Trash Talk sentences every now and then).
• Secret Identity Change Trick: Since Bruce Banner is usually not in control of his transformations into the Hulk, he can't really orchestrate one of these tricks. It's thus pretty convenient for the writers that his secret identity was outed very early in his career.
• Self-Inflicted Hell: Hulk: The End concludes with the Banner part of the Hulk dead and the savage personality trapped alone on a nuclear-ravaged Earth with nothing to look forward to except wandering aimlessly and being daily devoured by gigantic mutant cockroaches from which he always heals. Hulk could have died with Banner or die at any time by reverting to Banner. But the Hulk's own stubbornness at admitting weakness ever, viewing dying as a form of defeat or weakness, the idea he needs someone else, or being anything less than the "strongest one there is" would in his mind mean his old, dead enemies triumphant over him means he is trapped in a hell he could escape at any time.
• Self-Made Orphan:
  • A rare heroic example: Before Bruce Banner became the Hulk, he semi-accidentally killed his abusive father, Brian. In their final confrontation, his father was trying to kill him and he had killed Banner's mother; Bruce lashed out as Brian got ready to attack him, sending Brian crashing into the gravestone of Bruce's mother and cracking his skull.
  • Narrowly averted with Betty Ross. She almost killed the Red Hulk, only to realize he was her father and stop in time.
• Serial Escalation: The Hulk often uses this trope to a lesser or greater extent depending upon the author. Just how mad/strong can he become?
  • The Red Hulk. How many popular characters can he effortlessly beat? How many ways can he violate the rules of the Marvel Universe just for something that looks cool?
• Series Continuity Error: Stan Lee wasn't good at remembering names. In some early issues that he wrote, the protagonist Bruce Banner was suddenly called "Bob Banner". Lee handwaved the error by revealing that his full name is Robert Bruce Banner.
  • This one is better remembered than it should be because subsequent Marvel writers, particularly in the editorial Audience-Alienating Era of the 70s, liked to cite it as a "nobody's perfect" precedent when fan letters called them out on their own heinous continuity errors. Marv Wolfman was probably the worst about this; he pre-emptively invoked it in an editor's note attached to a Dracula comic that he knew was going to tie the timeline of The Tomb of Dracula into a Gordian Knot.
• Sexy Silhouette: In issue #633, Hulk and Umar are shown are black silhouettes while in bed having sex.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Happens to the Hulk on occasion. Whether this is good or bad depends on the form he's stuck as. Hulk would love to be mode-locked and never turn into Banner again. Banner would love to be free of the Hulk, but at this point knows better. Both absolutely hate the idea of being mode-locked as the other.
  • Unlike the Hulk, the Abomination is completely incapable of returning to his original human form. He's none too happy about that.
• Sharing a Body: The Hulk has been retconned to be something similar with the Hulk being either a manifestation of Bruce's repressed psyche or a being created whole cloth by the Gamma bomb, this also goes for the various other personalities like Joe Fixit, the classic grey hulk & Doc Green, a newer personality that hates Bruce and Hulk. Peter David during the 80s experimented with fusing these like Firestorm for different sub personalities and narrative twist.
• Shirtless Scene: Bruce Banner always has his clothes conveniently ripped away when he transforms into the Hulk, meaning that when he turns back into Bruce we get lovely scenes of him wearing nothing except for a pair of baggy purple shorts which he has to hold up to stop them falling down. Of course, his trousers never tear off completely.
  • Well, sometimes they do, especially in the Ultimate universe.
• Shockwave Clap: A trademark move of the Hulk, where it's named the "Gamma Clap".
• Shooting Superman:
  • The Hulk's adversary General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross considers this standard operating procedure. Every time he finds Dr. Banner, he orders his battalion to open fire on his raging indestructible foe, conveniently forgetting the previous hundred or so times where this only served to piss him off. He made a grand return in World War Hulk and proceeded to... shoot the Hulk. It doesn't really work, even with adamantium bullets.
  • There is one story where a policeman shoots at him — Banner is in control of Hulk at the time and he hasn't done anything, but the policeman panicked — and Hulk disarms him and berates him because bullets bounce off him and there are lots of people around — the ricochets can easily kill them. Besides, if he has been his old self, bullets would have done nothing, as noted above.
• Sibling Team: The Hulk and She-Hulk are cousins and have often fought side by side.
• Signature Move: The Hulk's Thunderclap it's so strong the force can snuff out the Human Torch's fire, wreck foes like Gladiator◊ and Red Hulk◊ cancel out Songbird sonic scream◊, and it's especially painful for foes with sensitive super senses like Spider-Man and Wolverine◊. In his Crowning Moment of Awesome during Immortal Hulk he uses thunderclap to blow away the One Below All itself◊.
• Silent Scapegoat: The Hulk does this to thwart Omnibus's scheme to ignite World War III in the "Ghosts of the Future" storyline, though it's somewhat of a Subversion in that it's strongly implied that this act will start him on the road to becoming the genuinely and monstrously villainous Maestro.
• Single-Power Superheroes: The Hulk was originally just a very big, very strong behemoth. Soon, he gained an assortment of powers, some which were logical in relation to increased muscle ability, such as super-leaping, Nigh-Invulnerability, Super-Speed and Super-Reflexes. Then, over time, things just got crazy, and he gained other abilities such as immunity to mind control, ability to see supernatural creatures, ability to absorb radiation, a Healing Factor that rivals Wolverine's, a gland that lets him breathe underwater, and sometimes the ability to create new personalities as needed (each with their own power set).
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: According to one source, Hulk's ideal relationship is a hillbilly Masochism Tango with a woman so strong that he won't hurt her from beating her up, and vice versa...
• Slave Race: In Annual 12, the Hulk (with Banner's brain) visits a world where the Red people have enslaved the Green people. Hulk helps the greens to liberation, and before he leaves advises them to show mercy to the reds, otherwise they (greens) will be as bad as them (reds). After returning to Earth Hulk looks in his telescope and discovers that the greens have indeed enslaved the reds.
• Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness: The Maestro: Social Darwinist: "How did you get to be in charge Maestro? By talking your opponents to death?" "No, by beating them to death, and it all went so quickly that I'm sorry I didn't prolong it." "You're fighting the inevitable, Hulk. I'm simply the final product of natural selection. The strong survive. I'm the strongest. I survived. When you go against me, you go against the laws of nature."
• Smart People Build Robots: Bruce Banner once built a nifty little flying assistant robot named the Recordasphere. It tagged along on a couple of adventures... and then fell in love with him, tried to kill his girlfriend in a jealous rage, and then sacrificed itself to save his life. Because that's just the way Bruce's life goes.
• Smoke Shield: Happens to the Hulk quite a bit. In World War Hulk it happens at least twice; the first time, Tony Stark injects the Hulk with something meant to neutralize his healing factor, then launches a pair of missiles at him, which only reminded Hulk of the explosion that killed his wife. The second time, Storm and The Human Torch combined a lightning bolt and a massive fireball to blast the Hulk. Didn't work out so well.
• Some Kind of Force Field: In one Bronze Age story, the Hulk encountered a force field Tyrannus had set up to protect some evil machine he was using, and the Hulk got so mad he actually physically grabbed hold of the force field and ripped through it. The captions even lampshade that this should be physically impossible, but Tyrannus had just gotten the Hulk that mad!
• Songs in the Key of Lock: In one issue, the Leader's time machine is programmed by playing a piano keyboard.
• Spanner in the Works: The Hulk once witnessed a gigantic extraterrestrial energy beast materializing. Not knowing how to react, and being himself, he attempted to smash it and temporarily drove it away, thus preventing a properly equipped professional hunter from taking it down.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: During John Byrne's run, Bruce Banner and Betty Ross get their wedding interrupted at this point by Betty's father, General Ross — who's armed with a gun. He then shoots Rick Jones, but Betty tells him the only way he could prevent her from marrying Bruce is to kill her — and he stands down. Rick, meanwhile, not only survives, but refuses to be taken to the hospital immediately:
  Rick: Mr. Priest, take some 30 seconds and get this couple married at long last, and let's go to the hospital after that.
• Spell My Name with a "The": You might notice most times it's "The Hulk".
• Split Personality: One of the most famous in history.
  • Dr. Bruce Banner is a different person when transformed into the Hulk. The comics take it to extremes, with different versions of the Hulk with different personalities: in addition to the traditional "Savage Hulk", there also developed a sneaky, amoral version called Joe Fixit (who was grey, like in the Hulk's first appearance). Eventually, the personalities were integrated into the "Merged Hulk", but this was retconned to be just another personality, the Professor (who had Banner's brainpower, Fixit's cunning, and most of Savage Hulk's strength).^note The Professor seems to be based on Billy Milligan's ability to voluntarily integrate everyone in his system; he called this state "the Teacher". Other multiples report being able to integrate at will and don't recommend it, agreeing with Billy that "the whole is less than the sum of the parts." Some sources have interpreted these personas as representing different stages of Banner's life; the Savage Hulk is the immature child who wanted to be strong enough to protect Bruce's mother from his abusive father, Fixit is the moody teenager Bruce never let himself be, and the Professor represents the adult amalgamation of all his other experiences.
    • Two other personalities in Bruce's lineup are the Devil Hulk, a reptilian creature that lacks any sense of guilt, and the Green Scar, who combines Fixit's cunning with the Savage's strength, and over time develops to become possibly the strongest Hulk incarnation of all.
    • Some have theorized that the Hulk is — and always has been — an embodiment of pent-up rage and aggression that Banner had felt all his life prior to the accident, mostly stemming from the abuse he and his mother suffered at the hands of his father. Who Bruce killed by accident, but later admitted it might have not been an accident. In short, Banner and the Hulk may be more alike than Banner is willing to admit.
  • The Hulk's son Skaar also has a split personality; "normal" Skaar is a Conan-style barbarian, while "puny" Skaar is an adolescent boy who hates his other self for his savage deeds.
  • Betty Ross as Red She-Hulk. The degree to which she retains control over Red She-Hulk varies a lot. Sometimes it's just an angrier Betty, while at others it is an entirely different persona whom she fears losing control over.
• Split-Personality Merge: Doc Samson once pretended to have done this to the Hulk and Bruce Banner, via Epiphany Therapy. But eventually the change in premise became too much of a problem for the Hulk's title, and the writers made use of the fact that Therapy Does Not Work That Way to establish that Samson had really just created a new, if more stable, alternate. Tossing out the fact that Doc Samson wasn't really in control of the process and didn't fully understand what was happening at the time. Since there are three "main" Hulk personalities (Savage Hulk, Child Hulk and Gray Hulk) and several secondary ones like Devil Hulk and the aforementioned Professor Hulk, it's a topic they have explored several times since, sometimes without including Banner in the merger at all.
• Split-Personality Switch Trigger: Some, but not all, of Bruce Banner's alters can only come out at night. This includes Joe Fixit and Immortal Hulk. In the latter's own series, it's said to be associated with how much Banner fears and distrusts that particular personality: As they start cooperating more, Joe flips to only being able to come out by day, and Immortal Hulk is shown becoming more and more resistant to the daylight...^note Hulk: Season One has Bruce speculating that it's actually the decrease in atmospheric compton scattering that triggers the change, instead of his mind processing the information that it's nighttime. But he isn't sure and thinks that explanation might just be a Hand Wave. The regular 'Jade Giant' version of the character has the more popular trigger of 'anger'.
• Split-Personality Takeover:
  • Betty Ross was in constant risk of this when she was Red She-Hulk.
  • The Hulk himself would like nothing more than to rid himself of "puny" Bruce Banner once and for all, as much as Bruce Banner wants to rid himself of the Hulk. Several iterations have tried, particularly Joe Fixit, and succeeded for extended periods of time, but one way or another Bruce Banner always resurfaces eventually.
  • Inverted, to some extent, with the Hulk's son Skaar, where the weaker, more vulnerable personality ('puny' Skaar) has recently managed to escape Skaar's suppression of him in their shared mind.
  • The events of Immortal Hulk come about from one of these. After Bruce's repeated deaths over the previous few years, a new Hulk personality appeared... at which point the titular Hulk of this series got lose, tore that one into shreds and took over control over the whole thing. To protect Bruce. Later on it turns out the other alters are only allowed out on his say-so (or in the case of the Savage Hulk, if he loses control enough). It's partway through the series it turns out this newer Hulk is the Devil Hulk.
  • Has happened to the evil future version of the Hulk called the Maestro. There's no more Banner, no more Hulk, or Joe, or any of the others. It's just the Maestro now.
• Square-Cube Law: The Hulk is known to get stronger and larger as he gets angrier (maximum height is roughly twelve feet); this might be justified, though, as his relative muscle (and presumably bone) mass increases as well as his height. Furthermore, Hulk is generally not depicted as merely scaling up; in most depictions, the cross-sections of his arms and legs increase out of proportion, which would balance things out some.
  • It's been implied that he draws his strength from outside of his own body, and therefore muscle mass would be irrelevant.
  • The size changing as he gets angrier and stronger thing is depending on the writer and the artist; some have his height stay consistent once he transforms, though this itself can be an informed ability as an artist will alter his height between panels for various reasons. Officially the Hulk's transformed height is just under eight feet tall. He'll often be shown as over ten, but that's usually stylistic or for dramatic effect.
  • Where Hulk comics fail to justify or avert is in that we frequently see him standing on floors that should not be able to support what his weight must be. Hard wood would splinter under him, for example, as he probably weighs about as much as a four-door car. Floors would take an even greater beating when you realize that all that weight is being concentrated on two relatively small areas.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. His uncontrollable transformations into the Hulk have made him a fugitive wanted by the United States military. Not to mention Betty's father, General "Thunderbolt" Ross, harbors an intense hatred of him.
• Starter Villain: The Hulk's starter villain was The Gargoyle, the spy who arranged the sabotage of the gamma bomb test that turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk.
• Statuesque Stunner: The Hulk's ill-fated wife Caiera from the Planet Hulk arc is approximately 2 meters tall. When side-by-side with her husband, she's shown to be only about a head shorter than the Hulk (who on his worst days is between 7' and 8').
• Status Quo Is God: Poor Bruce Banner will always be the Hulk. He will never find a permanent cure, and because of that, he and Betty Ross will most likely always be Star-Crossed Lovers. Things might have changed with Betty Ross becoming the Red She-Hulk, but she permanently lost her powers.
• Stealth Pun: Death from The Sandman made a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo during Peter David's run. She visited Marlo Chandler's wedding and gave her a brush as a wedding present. Marlo had recently died and come back to life. Get it? She had a brush with death.
• Stripped to the Bone: The Hulk has done it on occasion.
• Strong and Skilled:
  • Hulk himself becomes this in Planet Hulk. Partaking in the Gladiator Games on Sakaar, he soon understands strength alone is not enough to make it by and quickly becomes more crafty to ensure his victories, especially since he was suffering from Drama-Preserving Handicap. Cut to World Breaker Hulk and Hulk is outwitting as well as overpowering his opponents on Earth, like exploiting The Juggernaut's inability to stop and explaining to Wolverine that taking Hulk-punches to his Adamantium skull isn't healthy for his poor rattling brain. Other Hulk forms such as Grey Hulk, The Professor, and Immortal Hulk also have skill and smarts to back up inestimable strength.
  • His cousin She-Hulk also qualifies. She has received combat training from Captain America and Gamora and even in her human form has enough skill to dispatch several would be muggers. After being defeated by the Champion of the Universe, She-Hulk exercised for several months in her Jennifer Walters form, resulting in a significant gain in strength and muscle mass in her She-Hulk form and allowing her to soundly defeat the Champion in a rematch. She defeats Abomination in her Heroic Rematch with pressure point attacks and nerve strikes.
  • Caiera, the Hulk's wife in Planet Hulk. She was a trained martial artist, swordswoman and knife fighter. She also possessed the Old Power, an energy force native to her home planet, which granted her super strength, speed and stamina and control over tectonic energies. This power was passed on to the Shadow Priest Hiriom and alter Skaar, the son of Caiera and Hulk. Both are well-trained combatants just like Caiera.
  • Lyra, Hulk and Thundra's daughter from another timeline. She has received training in battle since she was a child and has super strength just like her parents.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Hulk basically has this ability as an actual power. In one moment he's punching out a cosmic entity, and the next he has trouble with Captain America or Wolverine. If Hulk needs to be X strong to lift Y object or punch Z bad guy, he magically is because he just happens to be that angry.
  • In at least one encounter with Cap, the star-spangled Avenger himself notes (via Inner Monologue) that, though Cap is thoroughly outclassed in sheer strength, the Hulk still has all the weak spots and vulnerable pressure points inherent in a human body, and Cap is just strong enough to be able to strike those with enough force to affect the Hulk. It should be noted though, Hulk laughed off his attempt. Other much more powerful opponents like Temugin, Valkyrie and Black Bolt have had much better luck doing so.
  • Memorably displayed during Marvel's Secret Wars (1984) limited series, when the heroes are trapped under a mountain range with the Hulk (barely) keeping them from being crushed. As the Hulk starts to weaken, Reed Richards begins insulting him for being useless Dumb Muscle, which irritates the Hulk to become stronger. Of course, considering that he nowadays (somehow... look he can punch through reality, just go with it) holds together collapsing planets even when calm...
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: According to his profile on Marvel.com, the Hulk has a gland in his lungs that requires very little oxygen to function. This is not only why he can hold his breath for a long time in space (in fact, he can TALK in space when he needs to), but he can also extract enough oxygen from water to breathe under the water's surface!.
• Superpowered Evil Side: The Hulk is the canonical super-Hyde. The Hulk, over time, has been softened down from "evil" to "pure id". Not that that stops him from racking up the damage bill every time he shows up.
  • Banner does have the Devil Hulk personality inside him, which is pure evil... possibly. Immortal Hulk makes it a little ambiguous, with the Devil Hulk (an Appropriated Appellation) hating the human world, but being genuinely protective of Bruce and the classic, Savage Hulk, and being downright horrified by the One-Below-All.
  • As well as Gray Hulk and Guilt Hulk — though Grey Hulk isn't really "evil"; he's another closer to "id".
  • Bruce Banner's wife Betty Ross was once transformed into the villainous Harpy. Later she became Red She-Hulk, who's more The Atoner, and currently is the Red Harpy, whose looks and mentality are a mix of the former two.
• Superpower Lottery: The Hulk has unlimited strength, accelerated healing, the ability to breathe underwater, dynamic durability, and the ability to leap as high as Superman, and unlike Supes he has a high resistance to Mind Control. He also has a number of minor abilities like absorbing gamma radiation and seeing ghosts and astral forms. As a bonus, Bruce Banner is one of the smartest men in the Marvel Universe, to the point where Norman Osborn decided he preferred fighting the Hulk. Come Immortal Hulk, he adds Resurrective Immortality to the list. Note that most of these powers are directly proportional to his anger level, which will normally steadily increase over the course of a fight. The standard rule of thumb when fighting the Hulk is to hit him with everything you've got immediately and hope you can end the fight before it starts, because his powers will increase with every passing second that the fight continues.
  • The Red Hulk had a very similar power set to the green Hulk as well as the ability to absorb any type of energy such as cosmic rays. When he was infected by Cable's techno-organic virus, he was able to control his body heat to burn the virus out of his system. He also does not revert to human form when rendered unconscious unlike the green Hulk.
  • Skaar and Hiro-Kala, the sons of Caiera and Hulk, inherited their father's gamma mutate powers and their mother's ability to control rock, known as the Old Power to the people of Sakaar. Hiro-Kala took it to even more absurd levels, being able to fire energy blasts, project force fields and manifest a water-like substance. Eventually, Skaar had his Hulk powers taken from him by his father in his Doc Green persona and Hiro-Kala has since forsaken the Old Power in favor of using his Hulk form.
• Super Prototype:
  • In a way, the Hulk is this for the other gamma mutates. While created by accident, Hulk was the first gamma mutant, and most following gamma beings (The Leader, The Abomination, Madman, Ravage, Red Hulk, etc) were created either by recreating that accident or copying his DNA. While some (Abomination and Ravage) have higher base-line strength than the Hulk, and most other gamma beings retain their higher intelligence (though not necessarily their full personality) while transformed, whereas the Hulk is most often shown to be a savage, which could be considered improvements, the Hulk's potential strength (increasing with anger) and secondary powers (Healing Factor, psychic resistance), as well as a somewhat intangible quality that makes the Hulk seemingly impossible to permanently cure, has shown that the Hulk, while flawed, is the most powerful gamma being created.
  • Another factor in the Hulk's Super Prototype-ness is the fact that Bruce Banner's psyche is so damaged, because of abuse he suffered as a kid, that it allows him to do whatever he wishes. Becoming a gamma beast meant unleashing a particular repressed trait. The reason the Hulk is stronger than the others? Because they're not as screwed up as Banner!
  • Although in Hulk (2014) Doc Green (yet another Hulk persona) once stated that She-Hulk is the Hulk's Superior Successor. The rest of the gamma crew are all a mess in one way or another, with their power and potential squandered by their psychological issues. But Jennifer has proven to be the most stable and heroic of them, which is why she is the only one he doesn't De-power.
  • It's hinted in Immortal Hulk that the Hulk may hold a different position vis-a-vis gamma radiation than the mutates who came afterwards, being associated with the idea of the keeper of the gamma door.
• Super-Reflexes: Apparently, unmeasurable Super-Strength isn't enough for the Hulk, since he has incredible speed and reflexes too. In modern comics, he's caught RPG rounds in mid air, and even in the early comics, Hulk could someone as fast as Quicksilver.
• Super Rug-Pull: This is one of his special moves in any Capcom fighting game he's in. He actually did that once in a comic to a battalion of tanks.
• Super Smoke: U-Foes member Vapor can transform into any known gas, usually the most lethally poisonous she can imagine while invading an opponent's body. Vapor can transform into her fully human state for only brief periods, and is vulnerable to having her gaseous form scattered by strong winds or explosive force.
• Super-Speed: While he may not look like he can, the Hulk is able to travel at Super Speeds as S.H.I.E.L.D found out the hard way, also like Thor he can also catch missiles with Super-Reflexes.
• Super-Strength: The Hulk is the standard to which other Super Strength wielders are compared in the Marvel Universe, and he only gets stronger as he gets angrier however, he's only the strongest in theory. In practice, because his strength is never the same at any given moment, there are tons of people whose physical strength can far exceed Hulk's own at the time, as Zeus demonstrates while at other times he can easily overcome people who are explicitly stronger than those who previously handed him his ass, like Juggernaut, Thor, or Zeus' own son, Hercules. Marvel guidebooks and people In-Universe label Hulk's strength "incalculable◊"

  • Originally Hulk could at best smash through a wall and destroy a car but was stopped by a mere cement wall. Eventually Hulk could rip apart a titanium steel nuclear bunker◊ and his feats kept getting bigger.
  • In a team up with Spider-Man, Hulk hammered a landmass into place◊.
  • Giant monsters are nothing to the Hulk◊, in a more recent comic Hulk could one-punch a lava dragon◊ and other comics have shown even the Kaiju Fin Fang Foom gets easily swatted◊ by Dr. Banner's big green alter ego. In Immortal Hulk Hulk took on a massive eldritch beast and killed it from the inside out.
  • In Marvel Secret Wars (1984) Hulk could hold up a 150 billion ton mountain◊ Molecule Man dropped on them. It also counts as The Power of Friendship since Hulk was focusing more on protecting his fellow weakened heroes from being crushed rather than just lifting the mountain off himself.
  • Another time he lifted a whole mountain range of granite◊ (probably similar weight to the mountain above) and threw it effortlessly.
  • Jean Grey once unlocked Hulk's full potential (by using telepathy to turn off the rational part of Hulk's mind that contained Bruce Banner), which caused Savage Hulk to go wild and smash Onslaught's armour destroying his physical presence.
  • In one of the battles against Thanos's Black Order Hulk withstands the weight of a star◊. Your average star has weight ranging from Octillions to Decillions of tonnes.

• Super-Strength: In World War Hulk after he loses his family and despairs Hulk gives nearly every Marvel Hero on Earth a beating (while still holding back so he won't hurt civilians). When he turns into Green Scar Hulk nearly destroyed the eastern seaboard with a couple of footsteps, but most impressively at the peak of his anger, Green Scar Hulk literally shatters a planet in the dark dimension when clashing with his former love Betty Ross aka Red She-Hulk.

  • Immortal "Devil" Hulk, Banner’s most recent transformation while not quite on the level of Green Scar is still easily in his top transformations when it comes to strength. This Hulk is able to knock Thor's teeth out◊, punch his cousin She-Hulk when she was at full strength a mile away◊, overload Black Panther’s Vibranium habit effortlessly defeat Red Hulk◊, Vision, Wonder Man, Jane Foster Thor, Hercules, and Enigma◊ who is quote "made to defend this world against any threat". Oh and best of all, Immortal Hulk took out The One Below all an Eldritch Abomination with a Shockwave Clap... Hulk truly is the strongest.
  • Ironically Hulk's greatest strength feat comes from a little known The Defenders issue where Hulk produced "infinite strength" to prevent him and the Defenders from being sucked into an unstoppable black hole. Well either that or the time Hulk quite literally punched through time itself.
  • The Ultimate Universe version of Hulk is no slouch, although he lacks his 616 counterpart's history. In one famous moment Hulk tore Wolverine in two◊, although this is due to the fact that Woverine's bones may be unbreakable, but the flesh holding them together isn't.

  • Unlike her cousin Bruce, She-Hulk doesn't get stronger when she's angry. However, her strength when she's "hulked out" is exponentially proportional to her strength as a normal human. She-Hulk's original limit was 85 tons but like other examples she's been shown to lift far greater weights. A month of exercise and an extra pound or two of muscle mass can make her as strong as the Hulk at baseline; too bad for her she never goes to the gym except to show off when she's already big and green. She-Hulk's feats include using the maximum setting◊ on a weight machine designed for The Thing, flipping◊ a giant over, swinging a T-Rex around like Bowser to protect a little boy, holding a bridge◊ together, ripping The Vision apart◊, beating up Thor, slamming Sentry rugby tackling Thanos◊. In Immortal Hulk Jen manages to hold her own against her cousin longer than Thor did.
  • Titania. She-Hulk's Arch-Enemy frequently◊ rivals her being able to lift massive weights◊, cars◊, vans◊, tractors◊ and bus-sized steel beams. Titania once obtained the Power Gem and was able to lift a mountain-sized rock◊ and drastically◊ overpower◊ her green rival. In Immortal Hulk Titania defeats one of the massive monsters by throwing massive debris down it's gullet. Even when weakened and skinny All-Might style, Titania could still lift rubble off herself◊.
    • Her husband Crusher Creel aka Absorbing Man has his Super-Strength fluctuate all time depending on the material or power he's absorbing. He's successfully beaten Thor◊ after absorbing Magneto's electromagnetism and Scarlet Witch's magic. Another time when he absorbed the Cosmic Cube, Creel overpowered The Sentry.
  • Betty Ross when she's transformed into the Harpy. As Red She-Hulk her super strength goes off the charts; in Incredible Hulks #634 Betty battles her former love Bruce/Hulk, shattering a whole planet in a clash with him. As Red Harpy! in Immortal Hulk she's strong enough to rip out Hulk's heart and carry Abomination through the air.
  • Red Hulk, though he can't reach the levels Banner can when not enhancing his powers by absorbing energy. At top strength he's destroyed a comet coming towards earth◊, punched A-Bomb so hard it caused a earthquake◊, beaten up Thor◊ and did a Neck Lift to Silver Surfer◊, however after getting his ass kicked by Galactus he suffered from Badass Decay and hasn't been as strong since.
  • In general many of Hulk's allies and family such as A-Bomb, Doc Samson◊, Lyra◊ and Skaar (his son) have plenty Super-Strength scaling to Savage Hulk level.
• Super Supremacist: In his more aggressive or villainous forms, Hulk himself is this trope, as the "Banner" portion of his mind is typically portrayed as the side that drives him to save and protect humans. When absent of Banner, Hulk often hates humans (and many other species, such as Human Aliens) and finds them puny and not worth his time. In the Bad Future of Hulk: Future Imperfect, this mentality eventually led to him becoming The Maestro, a superhuman despot.
• Super-Toughness: The Hulk is famously durable◊, as are many of his gamma-irradiated allies and foes. Helped by the fact that like his strenght, his durability increases with his anger◊. One time Hulk and Fantastic Four's The Thing were having an arm wrestle and got nuked by the military and weren't even slightly bothered.◊
• Superheroes Stay Single: The Hulk ran on this for decades. Even after he was married in the early 1980s, most of the time he was estranged/separated from his wife (and then she died). But now he's got a whole family of Hulks.
• Superhuman Transfusion: How Jennifer Walters got her powers, from a transfusion of Bruce's blood.
• Superpower Russian Roulette: The Leader (who is also gamma irradiated, but his power is a highly developed mind) once set off a gamma bomb in a small city, in order to make more Hulks and Leaders, but 99.99% of the population just died of radiation poisoning. This is because only people who possess a certain genetic trigger inherited from a single common ancestor (or copied the trigger) can become gamma mutates.
• Superpowered Alter Ego: The series centers around a human who transforms into the powerful Hulk. The Hulk is portrayed as being an independent entity, and the extent to which Hulk and Banner share perceptions and experiences changes depending on the author. Some authors depict Banner as being aware of the Hulk's actions, but others do not. Some authors, such as Peter David, have attempted to combine Hulk's various personalities but these never last long. More recently, there were "team ups" between Hulk and Banner where their mental perspectives aligned for various reason, letting Hulk and Banner switch at will of the one "driving" but not combining.
• Superpowerful Genetics: The Hulk's kids are an interesting case. His son, Skaar, inherited both his parents' power sets — giving him the power to control the earth in addition to the Hulk's powers. His twin brother Hiro-Kala only got the tectonic powers. His daughter Lyra, created via genetic engineering, got only a measure of the Hulk's superstrength; instead, she developed the ability to attune herself to gamma radiation — in combat, she can almost always position herself exactly where she needs to be. Unfortunately, thanks to deliberate tampering in her creation, the angrier Lyra gets, the weaker she gets.
  • It's later revealed that Hiro-Kala is a Hulk as well, but has never hulked out. And his transformation is triggered by love. Also, his tectonic abilities are absurdly powerful by his race's standards.
  • And it turns out all Gamma mutates are descended from a single common ancestor who had the latent genetic trigger that causes gamma radiation to grant superpowers as opposed to nasty radiation sickness.
    • Not all; Bruce Banner's mentor, Professor Gregory Crawford, who discovered said genetic trigger while examining Bruce's blood, found a way to copy it through genetic manipulation, which he used to turn himself into the Gamma mutate Ravage. It's also suggested that the Red Hulk and Red She-Hulk didn't have the genetic marker themselves, and were only created and stabilized after significant genetic modification.
    • Betty Ross (Red She-Hulk) has the genetic marker, as Modok had previously turned her into the gamma-mutate the Harpy to use her against the classic Green Hulk (her Red She-Hulk status being a result of combined gamma and cosmic ray exposure).
• Sweetheart Sipping: Indulged in by Bruce Banner/The Hulk and Jarella (a Green-Skinned Space Babe from a subatomic world) in issue #205.
• Swiss-Army Tears: One story (Incredible Hulk #302-303) has the heroic monster stuck in what appears to be a typical Fairy Tale world: an evil ruler holds a princess (whose tears create flowers) hostage while his minions enslave the populace. Not only is Hulk completely helpless in this world (it is never explained why) but the princess realizes she can use her tears to create plant monsters... and uses them to massacre the bad guys.
• Sympathetic Murderer: One issue features Doc Samson dealing with the vigilante Crazy Eight/Leslie Anne Shappe, who has been sentenced to the electric chair after murdering a senator. Not until after she has been executed, does Samson discover the motive for the murder. She killed the man because he had been beating his wife, who was an old friend of Crazy Eight from high school. The wife actually killed (or helped kill) her husband, the vigilante actually took the blame and died in her place, knowing it was unlikely that the wife would get a fair trial given her husband's position of power and the powerful friends he had that helped cover up the abuse. Crazy Eight sacrificed her life for her friend.
• Synchronization: A What If? issue had Bruce fail to push Rick into the ditch to save him from the gamma bomb. Instead the blast was effectively filtered through Bruce's body before irradiating Rick, which telepathically bonded the latter to the former in both his egos. When General Ross tries to exploit their connection to entrap the Hulk, he neglects to treat Rick's radiation poisoning until it's too late and Rick dies. This drives the Hulk murderously insane, and he ends up killing the Fantastic Four and Iron Man in his rampage before Thor can finally put him down.