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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Ultimate Hulk's thing is that he is Banner's ID given life, being the representation of Banner's darkest traits and emotions made manifest, rebelling against every restraint Banner imposed on himself.
Banner is a vegetarian, so Hulk is a cannibal. Banner is repressed, Hulk is horny and an attempted rapist. Banner feels emasculated and totally lacking in self-esteem, Hulk does not like being called gay.........
He is every much the monster people assume the normal Hulk is.
Prolly among the worst Hulks ever.
Edited by slimcoder on Jul 9th 2022 at 2:22:47 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Much like everything else in that continuity, Ultimate Hulk took a neat idea too far for the sake of edginess. I do believe there's merit for a more Jekyll and Hyde interpretation of Banner and Hulk where the latter is a manifestation of the rage and toxicity the former is desperately trying to repress for fear that he becomes just like his dad.
(Oh wait, Ang Lee's Hulk did that already and it was great, more people should give it another shot.)
Who is talking about intentionally killing anybody? But nobody in their right mind can tell me that causing masses of buildings to collapse via Class 7 Earthquakes never ever kills anybody.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianUltimate Hulk has exactly one good line in the Ultimates, I should know I recently reread volume 1 a couple days ago.
"Betty, don't leave Banner alone!!!!"
There we go, that's the Hulk we all know and love. That despite the rage and muscles, he is ultimately just this broken lonley thing.
Shame that's only said after the cannibal threats, telling us how horny he is, and the sheer risiculousness of trying to kill Freddie Prinze Jr.
Plus the fact when he previously found Betty he very heavily implied he was gonna rape her.
"Banner to much of a woman for you Betty maybe its time you give Hulk a try huh. Hulk's gonna get you no matter who they send Betty! Hulk hornier than a-"
Edited by slimcoder on Jul 9th 2022 at 2:56:54 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."No one dies when the Hulk rampages the same way that, when someone's knocked unconscious, that person will always wake up ten minutes to an hour later with no aftereffects beyond a bad headache.
Edited by RavenWilder on Jul 9th 2022 at 3:32:07 AM
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I don't know. In universe that's probably the best explanation, but given the damage we see it's a whacky one. Out of universe, it's probably because the only place we get casualty counts is in Civil War, and that decided it wanted to be a Both Sides Have a Point conflict focused on Wanda and bringing up the whole 'terrorist who mind controlled Hulk into murdering a bunch of people' would have unbalanced it.
If the Hulk gets a solo movie, it should be a very dark horror movie akin to The Mist. It allows the Hulk to embrace the horrific, destructive aspects of the character usually glossed over in the MCU. It would be a return to roots, in which the Hulk was more of a horror comic character than a kid-friendly green giant.
Hulk has kinda reached the end of his character arc, disapointingly almost entirely offscreen. I dont think you can really do a classic Hulk story with him anymore without regressing his character. Especially now that William Hurt is no longer around to play General Ross and Abominations story now continuing in Shang-Chi and She-Hulk instead.
If there will be another solo Hulk story they might want to draw from Immortal Hulk and reframe his powers as something more eldrich. That book was extreamly acclaimed after all but I'm not sure if they'd be willing to fully commit to the cosmic horror that made it as memorable as it was.
But as things are currently I would expect the Hulk to just stay a supporting character from now on.
Well a regression could be simple via Bruce undergoing some kind of immense trauma, its a common thing in the source material to activate a snapback.
Like Immortal Hulk had Leader triggering a gamma explosion in Hulk that lead to a lot of people dying and turning public opinion against him. Or the current run by Donny Cates where its revealed that Bruce was taken over a new Hulk personality called Titan and had him beat a bunch of people to death in a bar once again shattering him.
Bonus if we get a new Hulk personality so its not the same exact thing if we re-traumatize Bruce. Joe Fixit or Devil Hulk would be massive game-changers for being highly intelligent morally ambiguous ambitious Hulks compared to Bruce's lethargic personality and Savage Hulk's simple mind.
Edited by slimcoder on Jul 10th 2022 at 12:07:16 PM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Yea, I think if they do mix up the Hulks current status quo it should not be just reverting him back to how he was in his first movie but by bringing some new elements to his condition. The Hulk having multiple personas would of course now lead to comparisons to Moon Knight so it would be interesting how exactly thy would approach the subject compared to how it was handeled there.
It helps that barring the multiple personalities there isn't much comparisons with the actual personalities of the alters especially in what the alters represent.
Joe Fixit is an amoral charismatic gangster born from Bruce's childhood idea of a male role model and Devil is akin to a violently protective proactive father born from Bruce's desire for a dad to protect him.
Okay granted there is the bit that Bruce's issues stem from a horribly abusive parental figure.
Edited by slimcoder on Jul 10th 2022 at 12:47:41 PM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."As I've said before, I just don't think Immortal Hulk would work in the MCU. The comics are a long and varied shared universe so they can pull off wild tone shifts, but the movies generally can't. Even before Professor Hulk I think it's just too different. Maybe an adult animation or something.
In theory the MCU's rough Hulk plan made sense; they can't make a Hulk solo movie, so give him a character arc via team-up movies. Their choices in Infinity War and Endgame however, were just weird and bad.
It's more likely a standalone canon film series similar to Joker (2019) would be better. It would allow directors to tell standalone stories of superheroes independent from the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon.
Magneto: In chess, the pawns go first.
(Logan's gets twisted and burned to a crisp)
Magneto: That's why the pawns go first.
That seems really counter to the Avengers’ teamwork ethos though
So it’s yet another reason why Wolverine doesn’t make sense when they try to justify him
Trying to justify why someone is an Avenger is generally the wrong step because you become an Avenger by standing nearby when they need more members. They don’t go “we need someone who will kill lol” or “we need a chew toy”
Forever liveblogging the Avengers

Yeah, in standard depictions the Savage Hulk never, ever kills anyone who he doesn't mean to: this is a completely intentional means of keeping the character sympathetic. The "Hulk calculates yadda yadda" is just an attempt to give a canon reason to something that, regardless of whether the reason exists, would always happen regardless. If that explanation wasn't there, then he still wouldn't end up killing innocent people - it would just be that it was because of luck.
Ultimate Hulk kills innocent people because he isn't meant to be sympathetic. Ultimate Hulk isn't a superhero. He's explicitly a monster straight out of a horror film.
Likewise, whenever 616 Hulk does kill innocent people, you can bet it's specifically because the author is trying to go for their own darker, more horror take on the character. It's atypical either way.
In the MCU, it's noticeable that the movies have been pretty vocal about the Hulk's body count against people who were attacking him, but have been dead silent about Johannesburg.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 9th 2022 at 2:25:07 AM