Video summary
The Hulk is fundamentally portrayed not merely as a superhero, but as Bruce Banner's punishment and a tragic embodiment of humanity's anxieties regarding nuclear power and unchecked scientific ambition. Created during the Cold War era, the character reflects fears of atomic destruction and the potential for scientists to become their own creations, much like Frankenstein's monster or Prometheus. The narrative explores the complex relationship between the military-industrial complex and civilian life, where Banner represents the scientist who inadvertently created a weapon of mass destruction, while figures like Thunderbolt Ross symbolize shifting attitudes toward military might. Ultimately, the Hulk serves as a warning about the dangers of seeking limitless power, illustrating how such desires often plunge humanity into chaos rather than leading to infinite good.
Beneath the surface of this radiation-induced monster lies a profound psychological tragedy rooted in childhood trauma and internalized self-loathing. Bruce Banner's transformation is deeply connected to his abusive father, who instilled in him a belief that he was inherently monstrous, a fear that manifested physically after the gamma bomb accident. This history creates a dissociative identity where the Hulk represents repressed childhood desires and rage, while Banner struggles with guilt over his mother's death and his own perceived responsibility for it. The dynamic between Banner and the Hulk is one of mutual hatred; Banner despises the Hulk as a manifestation of his worst traits and fears losing control, while the Hulk feels unwanted and trapped in a cage, leading to a cycle of violence where both identities fight for survival against a world that refuses to understand or forgive them.
The evolution of the character, particularly through runs like *Immortal Hulk*, shifts the focus from simple power fantasies to a deep exploration of redemption, forgiveness, and the nature of goodness amidst suffering. Various iterations of the Hulk, such as the childlike Savage Hulk, the hedonistic Joe Fixit, and the vengeful Devil Hulk, represent different facets of Banner's psyche and his struggle with trauma. The story culminates in a choice between vengeance and mercy, where the Hulk learns to forgive those who have wronged him, including his tormentors, and ultimately forgives himself. This journey suggests that true heroism does not come from overcoming one's mental scars or erasing them, but from integrating them into one's soul and choosing to do good despite a history of pain and destruction.
In conclusion, the Hulk's enduring relevance lies in his ability to mirror the everyday individual's internal struggles with trauma, upbringing, and the capacity for change. The character challenges the notion that victims of abuse are destined to be monsters, instead presenting a figure who, despite every right to rage and vengeance, chooses the path of goodness. This narrative offers a hopeful message that we cannot outrun our past or the ugliest parts of ourselves, but must confront them to heal and become better. By staring into the mirror and acknowledging our own "monsters," we gain the capacity for faith and hope, proving that even in the darkest circumstances, it is possible to choose a future defined by mercy and understanding rather than endless cycles of violence.
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In reading so many depictions of the
Gamma Guardian for the basis of the
character, Jeff Loe's Hulk Gray said it
quite interestingly. The Hulk is Bruce
Banner's punishment. quote, "Why does a
man who could have used his brain to
cure cancer to find a way to help
mankind build a weapon of mass
destruction?"
Before the accident, before his noble
action of trying to save a young Rick
Jones from the gamma bomb, Bruce Banner
was the inventor of the gamma bomb. He
worked as a scientist for the American
military. Banner ultimately created a
weapon of mass destruction. So, Lo sees
this monster as his punishment. Other
runs have Banner create the G-bomb as a
ruse for his actual work, which he
couldn't get funding for. Using gamma
energy to help the world with more
sustainable projects. The Hulk was
created by Stan Lee in 1962. The
Frankenstein Dr. Jacqueline Hydeesque
monster is a result of the anxieties of
the Cold War and the future of war
itself with atomic artillery and
radiation as the key to the future.
He is not the only hero with a radiation
origin. These responses to the atomic
future are present in Spider-Man,
Daredevil, and the Fantastic 4. The Hulk
is one of the only ones whose direct
abilities highlight the common man's
fear of becoming something else. To
quote Drosski, Genter points out that
Hulk was an explicit warning about the
dangers of scientific and technological
developments and was one of many pieces
of pop culture to use monstrous images
as warnings about nuclear holocaust. It
also explores the connection between
scientists and the military. Thunderbolt
Ross represents America's shifting
attitudes towards the military. Igor
represents the feared international
other, a character to contrast America's
superiority and fears about infiltration
and natural security. And Rick Jones
represents the youth who will inherit a
world of nuclear power. To quote Bruce
in Hulk, the end, someone has to pay for
the knowledge. Someone has to be
punished for the atomic creation of hell
on Earth. From another perspective, Neil
Curtis likens Hulk to one of Stanley's
inspirations when creating the character
Frankenstein. the modern Prometheus.
Quote, "What this monster shows us then
is that the dangers in our desire for
limitlessness are rarely, if ever,
satisfied by the good infinite. Instead,
such a desire always plunges us
willingly into the chaos of the bad
infinite. Hulk is the monstrous product
of our desire for limitless power. Thus,
the Hulk is both Prometheus and
Frankenstein's monster. He is a tragic
reminder of what can happen when we seek
to claim what is divine.
The Incredible Hulk also embodies a
hegemonic masculinity. When you think of
the Hulk, when you see him despises
anything that is not masculine, he
despises Banner because he is
dimminionative in size. He is quote
puny. [music] He hates Banner's weakness
and he hates that he is quote soft. For
Hulk, domination and strength are the
only things that matter. Those are the
only things that make a man. Consumer
culture presented conflicting images of
what constructed true masculinity.
Simultaneously evoking the image of man
as a warrior and the image of man as the
responsible suburban husband. Yet there
was a cultural desire that both ideals
should be embodied in a single man. The
impossibility of this resulted in the
emasculation of the American male. A
crisis adeptly illustrated in the
personality split [music] between Bruce
Banner and the Hulk. Hulk is a power
fantasy for the powerlessness of nuclear
advancements. He is a power fantasy for
males. The fantasy being that Hulk
represents everything a man should be.
Physically, he is brutish and large and
muscular. The ideal image. [music] The
only emotions that are acceptable
amongst men are anger, rage. Any threat
to himself, to his home, to his
masculinity is dealt with through
violence. A subsect of the acceptable
response is as a man. He doesn't cry. He
doesn't feel sad. He responds with the
weapon that he has been taught to wield
his entire life, violence and anger. He
does what he wants when he wants to do
it. At the same time, he is a critique
on masculinity. His frequent rampages
show that this type of masculinity is
ultimately destructive towards
civilization. In this version of Hulk,
the destruction that he brings is
catastrophic. In Tales of Astonished,
they detail Hulk's rage as the fury and
mindlessness of a thousand demons. In
startling stories, Hulk levels a city in
anger and the casualties are incredibly
high. From Gner, the fact that Banner
transforms into the Hulk after the gamma
bomb detonation reveals the man of
action to have become repressed beneath
the corporate organization and consensus
politics of the 1950s.
But Bruce Banner's problems begin well
before the bomb was set off. The Hulk
was always dormant in The Scientist.
From the time that Bruce was as young as
three years old, Brian constantly abused
his son, he would end up convincing
Bruce that he truly was a monster.
Ramming home this idea over and over
again, coupled with death threats and
physically assaulting his son. Brian
Banner was a terror to Bruce and [music]
destroyed his self-image. And then Brian
Banner killed Bruce's mother. These
interactions would manifest in the Hulk
in his many versions. The Green Hulk,
the most popular version, is the
angriest and strongest there is. That is
Bruce Banner's innermost childish
desires turned green. It's this child
version of Bruce. It's why he doesn't
speak properly, why he is only focused
on being left alone, on shielding
himself from pain and violence, because
that is all that his father did to him.
Bruce was so traumatized by his father's
anger that for him getting upset and
angry was synonymous with violence. So
Bruce even before his transformation
becomes somebody who is so desperate to
control his emotions so that he does not
become like his father. He never wants
to be someone like that and it harms all
of his relationships because he cannot
properly display and regulate his
emotions. He sometimes even refuses to
show emotions because he fears that his
anger will turn into violence, thus he
will become his father.
This becomes a common point with his
longtime girlfriend and wife, Betty
Ross. Bruce being so afraid of his
emotions, believing that he is this
walking bomb has made him emotionally
numb. Out of fear of the Hulk and his
own guilt, Betty oftent times does not
receive the full emotional breadth of
Bruce Banner. She once said that he
didn't marry her out of love, but
instead out of an obligation, a
checklist. Additionally, Betty has
suffered tremendously because of the
Hulk and Bruce. She's been made a
heartbeat, a She-Hulk. She's been hurt
by Hulk's radiation. and she's been
pregnant with his child. She's had a
miscarriage, been cheated on, and vice
versa, amongst other things. Their
relationship suffers greatly because of
the Green Giant, and consequently,
because of Brian Banner. Alice Miller,
psychologist and psychoanalyst, notes
that child abuse becomes
self-punishment. Quote, "The child hates
itself for surely it has done something
to deserve the abuse, and then they take
that hate out on themselves." So much of
the conflict within Banner is driven by
guilt. We've already mentioned from
Loe's Hulk run about how he pioneered a
weapon of mass destruction and how he
feels about that. And there is also a
level of responsibility that Bruce has
always felt when it came to his mother's
death at the hands of his father who
abused them both. He wishes he could
have done something to save her, but he
didn't. I think even further than that,
he feels a level of responsibility
because Brian Banner changed the second
Bruce was born. When the radiation
affected Brian's mind, Bruce, for him
became the problem. I think a part of
Bruce holds himself responsible for what
Brian became.
There is so much self-loathing inside
Bruce Banner, inside the Hulk. So much
so that he doesn't feel like he deserves
to live in some stories. He is in part a
creation of the people and yet hunted
down like an animal and treated like a
monster.
Bruce Banner internalized everything his
father said about him. And the Hulk
internalizes that plus everything that
people say about him. The military hunt
him with guns, rockets, and nukes.
People look at him and they fear him.
They hate him. The world hates him and
he hates himself. Hulk says in Tales of
Astonish, "He is no good to anyone," he
laments. From crime and prisons and
viscous culture, the monstrous acts and
lashing out that are features of Hulk's
behavior are down to panic and confusion
and a response to a society that though
complicit in his creation not only fails
to understand him, but also mistreats
him. And unfortunately, there's nobody
that mistreats Hulk more than Bruce
Banner.
Banner hates everything that Hulk
represents because to him, Hulk is
everything that his father was.
Extraordinarily violent, [music] and he
brings the emotion that accompanies
violence, anger. Bruce likes to be in
control of himself, so he doesn't have
to think about what those emotions
represent to him or how they make him
feel. But with Hulk, Bruce has to deal
with the aftermath of Hulk's rampages.
He has to deal with that in his personal
life and morally as well. Hulk is Bruce
Banner at the end of the day, but he is
also separate from the Green Giant. It's
not Banner who destroyed the city. It's
Hulk. It's not Banner who hurt
exindividual. It was the Hulk. But at
the end of the day, Banner has to take
responsibility for these actions. It's
why so many of these stories begin with
or are centered around Bruce being
homeless or on the run or just in an
area where he doesn't want to be because
Hulk leapt there in a fit of rage or
confusion. and Bruce has to deal with
the aftermath.
On the other hand, Hulk hates Banner.
Puny Banner, so many of the Hulks refer
to him as first and foremost. Hulk hates
Banner because Banner wants to get rid
of the Hulk. The Green Giant feels
unwanted, unloved, and unheard. So many
of the early Hulk stories were exactly
that, Banner just trying to get rid of
him and Hulk loathing him for that. Hulk
even mentions that Banner is a cage for
Hulk, that Banner would rather die than
let Hulk live. And it's not just the
physical consequence, it's the emotional
consequence. In Starlight's stories,
Banner tries to shoot himself, and Hulk
eats the bullet.
In other stories, he's tried jumping off
a cliff, cutting himself, asking Hawkeye
to kill him, all in efforts to get rid
of the Jade Giant. Hulk is constantly
fighting Banner, fighting himself for
the right to exist as his own autonomous
individual. The two often wrestle for
control, both despising and fearing the
other. Hulk has his own relationships
and stories and dilemmas where he is in
control and not hunted. He also desires
friendship and love just like Banner
does. Hulk's catchphrase, especially the
Green Hulks, quote, "Leave Hulk alone,"
exists because he so often becomes the
target of military pursuit, a banner's
pursuit, or somebody just trying to take
him down. He is relentlessly attacked
when all Hulk wants to do is to live.
More than that, he wants to be allowed
to live, and all that that entails. He
wants friendship and love.
Many writers have emphasized this aspect
of it, but the ones that stand out the
most to me are Jenkins's run as well as
Peter Davids and Aluing's Immortal Hulk,
all which investigate the Hulk's
psychology and his duality.
Banner has had dissociative identity
disorder since before the gamma bomb.
And these altars, these alternate hulks,
show up in Mantzun and then carried on
by Peter David and most other writers.
The most common green Hulk, Savage Hulk,
represents Bruce as a child. He's
single-minded, instinct-driven,
incredibly emotional, and volatile.
Greyhulk, Joe Fixit, is the teenage or
college-aged version of Banner. A
pleasure- seeeking, perverted,
hedonistic version of the Hulk, the Las
Vegas bodyguard. This one carries a
level of disinterest or distance
compared to the other Hulks. He is
almost too cool, too nonchalant for
emotions. And he is definitely someone
who sees them as a major weakness, right
up his alley as a teenager. He is a Hulk
that is more apathetic, maybe a bit more
morally gray, no pun intended. This Hulk
was created because Banner watched
gangsters on television and believed
that this was how a man protected
himself.
There is also Green Scar, the Hulk that
the Illuminati sent into space after
being deemed a danger to the world. When
Hulk landed on Sakar, Hulk had to adapt
to the dystopian planet, and he
eventually becomes a noble freedom
fighter, a champion for all those who
are oppressed.
And finally, there is the Devil Hulk,
who begins as the main Hulk of Yuing's
immortal run, the one who is extremely
protective of Bruce, the father he
always wanted, although warped.
Alun's immortal Hulk lays out the most
complex portrayal of the Green Giant
while acknowledging his fascinating
comic history.
Survival becomes Bruce Banner's main
goal oftent times in his stories, but he
has to balance that with personal and
moral obligations. The Doctor desires to
do good despite his upbringing and
despite the chaos and destruction that
he can enact. Does Bruce desire to do
good simply because he desires it? or
does he do it because he feels like he
needs to assuage his incredibly guilty
conscience? Hulk's concern is not
morality, it's survival. Both Hulk and
Banner do have an aptitude for anger and
violence, and Hulk represents the
repressed desire for vengeance that
Banner and Hulk hold for a reason. For
years and years, Hulk has been treated
as a monster. The fact that he was given
that name Hulk versus an actual name
already pointed the root of the issue
for him. For Hulk, this is dehumanizing.
This is othering. He is hated and
disrespected and not even considered
which makes him justifiably angry. He
wants to smash everything because people
do not take the time to understand him.
Bel Hooks wrote in the will to change
that anger is the agony of believing
that you are not capable of being
understood and that you are not worthy
of being understood.
People degrade Hulk because they do not
take the time to understand him and it
weighs heavily on him. So the question
is, should Hulk respond with anger or
further, can he respond with anything
else? Euing's immortal Hulk elaborates
on that by making Hulk an avatar of
God's wrath. Euing's run questions
Hulk's nature as Gamma is presented in
this story as something even greater
than a scientific or political force.
Gamma becomes something mystical as the
story incorporates the one below all and
the one above all invoking both God and
the devil and heavily hammering in the
idea of duality and dichotomy that
inherently exists in Hulk's stories. The
stories serve as Hulk's ultimate test.
How can he reckon with himself? What
does he make of himself of all of
hiselves? And the grander question, why
does Hulk exist?
As stated, Devil Hulk begins as the
dominant Hulk in this run. It is a Hulk
that emerges when his self-loathing
becomes overwhelming. Jenkins wrote back
in his run that Devil Hulk is a coping
mechanism when he feels like he is not
strong enough to deal with his guilt.
Betty wouldn't have died if it wasn't
for you. Daddy didn't love you. He told
you that every day. And he kills mommy
and you didn't lift a finger to save
her. Devil Hulk is the only part of him
that can ignore all that guilt. Now, in
Immortal Hulk, anyone who crosses banner
has to [music] deal with this uniquely
intelligent, regenerative, and powerful
Hulk. Devil Hulk is vindictive, and he
internalizes all the hatred that he's
received as Hulk, into hatred for
humanity and their proclivity for harm.
Devil Hulk doesn't just speak about it.
He destroys institutions, Roxson
specifically, that profit off the
exploitation of other people and of
natural resources. While Devil Hulk was
a charismatic and fascinating insight
into the horrific, vengeful parts of
Banner and the noble parts of him, Devil
Hulk is ultimately a crutch, a blanket
that allows Bruce and Hulk to avoid
facing himself. So when the antagonist
of this story, the leader, the one below
all, Samuel Sterns, joins the fry, he
removes both Green Scar and Devil Hulk
from the picture. Ewing leaves Hulk with
the two oldest depictions of the Gamma
Guardian. The two youngest Hulks, Joe
Fixit and Savage Hulk. He leaves the
most pleasure- seeeking Hulk with the
kid.
Hulk becomes a prisoner of his own
trauma, a prisoner of his father's
abuse.
Tally in Mass Effect 3 says, "When do we
stop reacting to our parents and start
living for ourselves?" Hulk's
rehabilitation, Banner's need to face
his own self and selves in order to
escape the hellish events happening to
him, is the only way he is able to
navigate his way out of this problem, no
matter how painful facing himself might
be. Because Hulk's constant
unwillingness to settle what is
happening inside of him, his
unwillingness to accept himself and the
wrongs that he's done has an inverse
effect on everyone around him and even
those that he doesn't know. Rick Jones,
Betty Marlo. These are all people who
have been affected personally by Banner
and the Hulk. And the story introduces
Jackie McGee, a reporter who had her
life destroyed because of one of the
Hulk's rampages. So yes, his tormented
upbringing along with how horrible
people have been to the Hulk bears
responsibility on his coping mechanism
of protecting himself. But Banner
himself also bears responsibility
because time and time again Banner runs
away from his problems. So now he is
faced with an opponent that he cannot
punch or smash his way through. Now he
has to truly reckon with his mental. He
has to face the fact that he is both a
victim, yes, and perpetrator. [music]
The Hulk's story has always been one of
duality. And this story amplifies that
to the max. Golicab or Gavura, the left
hand and the right hand, destruction and
creation. Is he a man or is he a
monster? The Hulk and the Fantastic 4
are foils for each other. And the most
pressing one in this story is the one
above all and the one below all.
Over the course of the story, Savage
Hulk, the child, constantly breaks down,
sobbing at how much he's been made to
suffer. And he is hurt quite a bit in
this story. And what I love about this
story is that Immortal Hulk is one that
is massive in scale. It looks at Hulk as
a creation of the divine, a being bathed
in myth, and at the same time, it is an
incredibly grounded and human story and
at the core of it, a human question. Why
does Hulk have to suffer? Why does Hulk
hurt so much? It looks at the nature of
the monster and at his heart, and it
asks him if he is willing to pass on
that hurt and that pain to others. Does
he want to rage and continue to be angry
given his traumas and upbringing?
Because he has every right to. He is
nothing but a victim. Brian Banner
destroyed him from before he could even
speak.
The gamma bomb creating this monster
inside of him. In essence, he has every
right to be hurt, to be vengeful. This
story asks him, "Is he a man or is he a
monster or both?"
As the story goes on, The Thing finds a
very sullen, savage Hulk, and the two
brawl, as they've done for decades.
Yansy Street's finest gains the upper
hand on the Hulk. The two hurl insults
at each other until the child begs Thing
to stop hurting him. He sits down with
who is now Joe Fixit and they have a
drink. Ben likens the Hulk to the
biblical story of Job. Job was one of
God's servants. with his approval. He
was tested [music] by Satan and he took
everything from Job. He lost his home,
his wife, his family. Again, a test to
see the makeup of his soul.
Job eventually asks God the meaning of
his suffering. And he gets a response
that is outside the realm of human
understanding.
Thing sympathizes with Hulk, saying that
Hulk is Jo, and he ends up helping Hulk
in his journey.
Hulk eventually does the same thing as
Joe. Upon encountering the one above
all, Hulk asks the meaning of his
suffering, the meaning of his existence.
The Gamma Guardian learns that the one
below all is the one above all's Hulk.
The one above all notes that Hulk is a
counterweight, a contrast, but his
suffering is not all that he is, not all
that he can be. The One Above All asks
Hulk, "What have you become?"
As mentioned, Hulk has the choice of
continuing the cyclical nature of
strength, power, and vengeance.
The leader, Samuel Sterns, has tortured
Hulk. He's used one of his oldest
friends, Rick Jones, to taunt him. He's
weaponized some of his father's worst
abuses to mock and ridicule and have him
relive the most traumatizing times of
his life.
And finally, at the end of this story,
Hulk has the chance to enact all of the
hatred that he feels towards the leader,
towards his father, to let it all out.
And it's important that this is Savage
Hulk, the child, because he is the one
who feels the most, and he is the one
who is the most self-loathing, the one
who felt the most pain at the hands of
Brian Banner.
Hulk has to choose between vengeance and
forgiveness. Golicab or Gurora, the left
hand of strength or the right hand of
mercy.
Hulk makes the decision to forgive
Samuel Sterns, the leader. He chooses to
protect Sterns just like he was once
protected. Hulk should forgive Hulks, he
says.
Finally, Hulk learns [music] to live
with himself.
And throughout this latter half of the
story, Joe Fixit takes responsibility.
Whether it is to Jackie McGee and the
way Hulk destroyed her family, whether
it is to Betty and the way he ruined
their relationship,
and most of all to himself, he forgives
himself. All because at his core, Hulk
and Banner desire [music] to be good on
all levels, from the macro to the micro.
Joe fix it. The most selfish sees a
young kid getting brutalized by the
police. He tries to look away. He tries
to ignore it. But something compels him
to go and help that child. Hulk and
Banner remain heroic not because they
overcome mental scars, but because they
learn to incorporate them into who they
are, into their very soul. It's not
about Hulk overcoming his mental
illness. It's not about writers erasing
that. No. Banner and Hulk working
together to work with all of his altars
to work through the system to perfect
the system.
Monster has a couple different
definitions in the way that we use it.
[music] They are usually large,
frightening, and mythical, but at the
same time, when we use the term monster
against another person, it is meant to
describe someone who is devoid of
empathy, someone immoral.
Hulk might be monstrous in the way that
he is large and frightening and
mythical, but as this story has
illustrated, he is someone who is in the
pursuit of good. Banner is someone in
the pursuit of goodness. This is a
character who has been defined by
torment and suffering, but still he
always comes back to goodness because
that is what he desires most.
Hulk is a fascinating character in all
of his iterations.
But Immortal Hulk is the greatest Hulk
comic for me for a multitude of reasons,
but for the most part, it is because it
is so hopeful.
Hulk began as a representation of
anxieties to a changing world, a world
engulfed in an everchanging landscape,
of war, and environmental change. And
here, 50 years later, Hulk is still a
character who is relevant in the sense
that he represents the anxieties of the
everyday individual.
Bruce Banner has become everything he
feared. He tried so desperately to avoid
becoming his father and became the
avatar for destruction as he ran away
from himself. Hulk has destroyed homes,
cities, worlds in some stories. How can
he reckon with that? How can Banner
imagine himself as someone with a
choice? The only way is by facing
himself.
I think for all of us, there is someone
looking back at us in the mirror. a
version of us that we try our best to
ignore. We don't have a raging monster,
per se, but there are parts of ourselves
that we are afraid to confront because
they are the ugliest sides of us. But
what Hulk illustrates is that we cannot
outrun ourselves. We cannot outrun our
upbringing, our traumas, our baggage. We
have to carry that weight. We have to
confront these parts of ourselves and we
have to forgive ourselves if we want to
be better.
Immortal Hulk's story being intertwined
with faith and the universe is a stroke
of genius because so much of faith has
to do with hope with the possibility of
getting better of being better even in
the darkest of times. Professor Liz
Bukar says that quote faith gives you
the capacity to believe this current
state isn't the end without needing a
peer-reviewed study proving the future
will be better. It's not a rationality.
It's a different kind of rationality
altogether. One that can juggle
complexity and ambiguity and hope all at
once without dropping any of them. A
framework that lets you acknowledge at
how bad things are while still working
towards how things could be.
And in Hulk's quest for goodness, in our
quest for goodness, we need to be able
to imagine that possibility. We need to
be able to afford ourselves that choice.
We need to choose better and do [music]
better. That's the only way we will be
better. And we can't do that without
staring down that person in the mirror.
That's the only way we will be better.
It's as simple as that, I think.
What do you think?