While he likes to call himself the strongest there is, there have been several times in Marvel Comics where something has killed the Hulk. Since his debut in comic books in 1962, the Hulk has been Marvel Comics’ most popular monster, a hero based on classical movie and literary monsters like the Wolf Man and Jekyll and Hyde. However, unlike those classic horror monsters, Hulk is extremely overpowered and can realistically beat anyone in Marvel Comics, no matter how powerful they are. He has a regenerative healing factor and access to the Green Door, so nothing can ever really keep him dead.
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That said, just because he can’t stay dead doesn’t mean he can’t die. Here are seven times Marvel killed the Hulk, how he died, and how he returned.
7) What If…? Planet Hulk
Some of the times Marvel killed the Hulk occurred in alternate-world stories, such as the book, What If…? Planet Hulk. Released in 2007, this story takes place on Earth-7121, where the explosion on Sakaar doesn’t kill Caiera. Instead, it kills Hulk. In this case, it is his bride who sets out for Earth to seek revenge for her husband’s death in a very different World War Hulk.
Miek dies here as well, so his blame for the explosion is never revealed, which means there is nothing to stop Caiera from seeking the harshest vengeance imaginable, where she kills Reed Richards and Iron Man and forces Black Bolt to kill Doctor Strange and Sentry before taking out more of Earth’s heroes. She finally stops and forces Earth’s remaining heroes to construct a statue to honor her late husband. Hulk never returns in this story.
6) Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe / Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe
Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe is another alternate-worlds storyline set on Earth-95126. On this Earth, the Avengers and X-Men are fighting a Kree/Skrull invasion in Central Park when Frank Castle’s family is killed in the battle. Angered, he kills Cyclops, Hawkeye, and Shadowcat before he is stopped, arrested, and sentenced to life in prison. He breaks out and finds a group of people who also lost loved ones in superhero battles.
This leads Punisher to decide to kill all superheroes to stop these battles. Hulk was a tough case, as Frank placed a tracker on the giant monster. He then waits for Hulk to transform back into Bruce Banner and shoots him in the head. This makes no sense because Marvel has shown that Hulk will transform before a bullet can kill Banner, yet it doesn’t here, since Punisher needed to kill everyone.
5) Onslaught
This death didn’t really happen, but Marvel Comics wanted readers to think that Onslaught killed the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and the Hulk when the crossover event series ended. Onslaught was created when Professor X shut down Magneto’s mind to end his constant threat, only for Magneto’s anger and Xavier’s frustration at his dream remaining unfulfilled to create a new entity that set out to destroy all humanity.
No one could beat Onslaught. The X-Men survived, but the villain killed Hulk, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four. Only Hulk matched up since he had Jean Grey shut down Bruce Banner before the fight. That last fact caused an anomaly. These heroes didn’t die because Franklin Richards created a new Earth, sent them there with no memories of Earth-616, and it was a complete Marvel reboot. Since Hulk died with Banner shut down, he existed in both worlds, one with Banner in his mind and one without, causing that version to go savage. When the world’s reunited, Hulk’s two sides did, too.
4) Old Man Logan
Old Man Logan is yet another alternate timeline story, and the Hulk in this world was terrifying. In this storyline, taking place on Earth-807128, all the major Marvel villains teamed up to defeat most of Earth’s heroes. For the X-Men, Mysterio used illusions to make Wolverine think the Xavier Institute was under attack, and he killed all the villains there, only for Mysterio to lift the illusion and reveal he had just killed all the X-Men. The villains split the United States, but Hulk turned evil, killed Abomination, and claimed the West Coast. He called it Hulkland and demanded that anyone living there pay protection money to his family.
The frightening part is that Hulk married his cousin She-Hulk, and they had children, who had children who ended up mutated thanks to the incestuous procreation. While Wolverine was on a mission, the Hulk Gang showed up and killed his family. This led Old Man Logan to seek retribution, and he killed all Hulk’s kids before Hulk ate the mutant. What happened next was horrific. Logan healed and cut his way out from inside Hulk, killing the monster. Hulk regenerated and had his head placed on a robot, but Logan beat him again and then buried his head in the ground with seeds in it so the tree that grew would eat into his skull for all eternity.
3) SHIELD Orders Bruce Banner’s Murder
Heading to the main Earth-616 timeline, there were also a few times Marvel killed the Hulk. In Hulk Vol. 3 #8, Bruce Banner was working for SHIELD. However, an organization called the Ancient Order of the Shield believed he would cause an extinction-level event and ordered one of Banner’s assistants, Melinda Leucenstern, to murder him. She shot him in the back of the head from off-panel, and it seemed Marvel killed Hulk again.
Marvel made it look like Hulk was dead again, but they later revealed Bruce simply suffered severe brain damage. Iron Man is the one who came around this time and used Extremis to help cure Banner and bring him back. This had the side effect of turning Hulk into Doc Green, where he eventually went to depower all the Gamma mutates he knew.
2) Hawkeye Kills Bruce Banner
This death was a real one, and it was a shocking moment. This happened during Civil War II, when Captain Marvel decided she would arrest anyone a pre-cog Inhuman said would commit a crime. One of the things this pre-cog saw was Hulk involved in a devastating event. The Avengers went and found that Bruce Banner was working with Gamma radiation again. However, before they could arrest him, someone murdered Banner.
It turned out Hawkeye killed Hulk this time around. Hawkeye was arrested and put on trial for murder, but he was cleared of all charges when it was proven that Banner developed a special arrowhead that would kill him, and he asked Hawkeye to shoot him if he thought he was in danger of losing control as Hulk again. This time around, the Hand resurrected Hulk, but after he died a few more times, it started one of Hulk’s best storylines.
1) Immortal Hulk
The best Hulk storyline, especially for those who love the Hulk horror stories, is The Immortal Hulk. This story introduced the concept of the Below-Place, the Hell reserved solely for Gamma mutates. It is also the location of the Green Door, a metaphysical pathway for all Gamma mutates to pass through to return to Earth, which is why these characters never die.
However, what makes this such a great horror story is that Hulk kept dying in the series in terrible ways, and then the entire storyline turned into some grotesque body horror, and things just got worse for the Hulk from there. If anything, the story allowed Marvel to kill Hulk over and over again, putting the big hero through his own version of Hell.
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