The Hulk has always been Marvel’s most monstrous hero. While many people look at the Hulk like the Jolly Green Giant with anger issues, Banner’s infuriated alter ego actually originated as something far more villainous. The first Hulk transformations were far more Jekyll and Hyde coded, with the Hulk representing the worst impulses a man could be capable of. Time and adaptations, however, changed the green behemoth into something far more nuanced. That’s generally been accepted as a universal win, but sometimes the hero-washing goes too far, and the Hulk that’s left over feels too sanitized to bear that name.
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The Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially, is known for stripping the Hulk of his nuance and growth, instead having most of Banner’s journey to control his savage half take place off-screen and occasionally be treated like a joke. Rumors swirl that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will bring back the Savage Hulk we all know and love, but even if the movie doesn’t, the comics already are. Marvel just implemented the Hulk’s biggest status quo change in years by making the villainous Eldest become the new Hulk, and leaving the powerless Bruce Banner to find some way to stop her.
The Infernal Hulk Is Born
The entirety of Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Incredible Hulk run focused on the monster known as the Eldest trying to steal the Hulk’s flesh. She needed his strength and connection to gamma energy to pry open a seal that the One Below All used to trap the Mother of Horrors, the mother of all monsters. She chased the Hulk across the entire country, sending monsters to tear into him at every turn, but the Hulk is called the strongest there is for a reason. In a last-ditch effort to steal his power, the Eldest stole the body of Abomination to duke it out with him in a winner-takes-all match.
The Hulk had a clear power advantage and decimated Abomination, but the Eldest wouldn’t go down easily. She tried continuously to possess the Hulk, but a protection spell from Doctor Voodoo prevented her from taking Banner’s flesh. Finally, she realized that she didn’t need Banner; she just needed Hulk. She used her power over flesh and form to separate Hulk and Banner, allowing her to finally take control of the Hulk. The Hulk had been trying to free himself from Banner this entire run, and only in his final moments did he realize how much he needed his puny half.
The Eldest used Hulk’s power to finally tear open the seal to the Mother of Horrors, but instead of finding her doting mother prepared to usher in a new age of monsters, she found a long-dead corpse. The Eldest refused to accept that everything she worked towards was for naught, and consumed her mother’s flesh, adding her unholy power to her and the Hulk’s own. She burst from the cage that long held the Mother of Horrors, ready to bring ruin to the world with her own infernal fists.
A Return to Monstrous Form
With the grey skin and antagonistic role in the story, the Infernal Hulk is a perfect mix of new and old for Hulk fans. It returns Marvel’s rage-beheamoth to his unstable, villainous roots, adding tension with the strongest being there is actually wanting to kill and tear the world down. It also serves as the perfect return to form for Bruce Banner. In the earliest comics, Banner was a gentle and genuinely great man who was haunted by the Hulk like a ghost. He was a victim of circumstance, but did everything he could to help others. Heck, even the gamma bomb was purposefully designed to be non-lethal.
Over the years, however, as the Hulk grew more heroic, Banner grew more grey. He became a deeply troubled man, taking the role of the villain of the story just as often as he would the hero. Banner’s morality seemed more like a coin toss than an actual character for many years, but now he’s firmly on track to be the hero once more. This comic returns us to the most classic Hulk formula there is; Hulk is wreaking havoc all around, and it’s up to Banner to rein him in and save the day.
The dedication to making the Hulk more horror-themed allowed for the perfect setup for his unwilling return to villainy. It’s up to Banner to save the Hulk, but he’ll have to get through the most evil version of the Hulk ever to do it. Hopefully, the comics taking this stance with the Hulk means we can at least get a more savage or uncontrollable version of the Hulk in the movies sometime soon.
Incredible Hulk #30 is on sale now!
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