In the s, mankind launched Hulk into space, where he became ruler of an alien planet that later invaded Earth, though he eventually settled back into a hero role. His stories are formally ambitious, but easily accessible, largely because he has so much fun in the telling; his ensembles are full of personality with a sharp sense of humor. The drastic growth of Immortal Hulk over 32 issues is like sleight of hand, with the team building stakes and seamlessly shifting between superhero, horror, mystery, and sci-fi genres.

Immortal Hulk started small with three standalone stories about Bruce Banner and Hulk encountering different threats in small towns, creating a claustrophobic suspense thriller vibe while hinting at the supernatural threats underneath the surface. Horror took over once fellow gamma mutate Sasquatch entered the picture for a showdown between monsters. These fantastic horrors are accompanied by more believable scares involving Shadow Base, a clandestine branch of the U.

The plot brings in more superhero action and expands the Hulk squad with old friends like Doc Samson, Betty Banner-Ross, and Rick Jones, who add complex character dynamics and decades of history for Ewing to mine. In the latest arc, Hulk is still making his way to this celestial future, and his current mission targets the forces that are threatening Earth right now like politicians, media outlets, and billionaires that want to uphold a destructive status quo.

Ewing makes inspired use of comic book history for this Hulk-vs. With a heavy emphasis on body horror, Immortal Hulk requires an art team that understands how to morph anatomy in abnormal ways while still maintaining weight and texture that grounds these forms in a tangible reality. The best creators understand how to use page turns to build and resolve tension, and Ewing structures his scripts to maximize suspense.

For a myriad of reasons , we didn't get to see another solo Hulk movie after 's Incredible Hulk. Fans of the character had to settle for Avengers flicks and his co-star spot in Thor: Ragnarok unless you count the Iron Man 3 post-credits cameo, and you shouldn't.

And hey, that's pretty good. A president of, say, the Moon Knight fan club might understandably tell a complaining Hulk fan to be grateful and stop whining. The problem is that as a result of the character not getting his own solo vehicle, he's never the focus. In Ragnarok , the spotlight's mainly on Thor which is fair, since his name is half of the movie's title.

In the various Avengers entries he needs to share time with the rest of the team, and even when Hulk takes center stage, things are usually revolving around his relationships with them.

In Avengers , a lot of his time is focused on his growing friendship with Stark and his questioning over whether he belongs with the team at all. We barely see the "Other Guy" in Infinity War , and while he was an integral part of Endgame , so much was left unexplained and unanswered.

Watch the behind-the-scenes features on the home releases for 's Incredible Hulk and 's Hulk , and you'll learn a lot about the technology used to make the CGI renderings of the Hulk's face look as much like the actual faces of the respective actors involved.

If you then go back and watch those movies, maybe you'll see some resemblance between the Green Goliath of the film and Eric Bana or the Hulk and Ed Norton. Maybe , if you squint at the right time and imagine a slightly different With 's Avengers , for the first time fans got a Hulk whose face genuinely looked like the guy he starts out as. Mark Ruffalo is clearly there, in every shot of the Hulk's face. The technology improved with time as it always does and we saw even more of Ruffalo in the Other Guy's visage in Thor: Ragnarok.

That's why when we finally see the Professor Hulk of Avengers: Endgame , we aren't completely shocked by the resemblance. We've watched this character evolve mentally and physically movie-by-movie, and by the Hulk's physical changes seem almost like they were inevitable. While the filmmakers have done an admirable job of making the most out of the difficulties in bringing Hulk to the screen, that doesn't mean the bumps in the road haven't shown themselves.

In Ragnarok , Banner tells Thor that if he turns into the Hulk again, he might never be able to change back.

This is completely forgotten. The Hulk is largely absent from Infinity War , and while the directors answered the question of why, it's never directly explained in the narrative of either Infinity War or Endgame.

By the way In Endgame he's dabbing for fans in a diner. Did Thanos' snap kill everyone's memories too? Thor: Ragnarok is not Planet Hulk. There's no evil tyrant against whom the Hulk leads a revolt, no Warbound to pledge their undying loyalty to him, no powerful warrior woman to take the victorious Hulk's hand in marriage. Bruce Banner is no stranger to sharing his body with a powerful, malevolent entity. There are three Hulks in his mind: Grey Hulk , Savage Hulk , and Immortal Hulk, and they get a say in whether to let the symbiote into their system.

He has an underground fortress. He has powerful allies. He even has henchmen. He has everything he needs to declare total war on human society. Bruce Banner is the most dangerous man in the world! But it also ties into the generational divide affecting regular, working-class families. The duo are replacing series artist Joe Bennett on this issue.

Series writer Al Ewing's story will be a single story told from two different perspectives, with each artist drawing one of side of the tale. Bennett is slated to return for The Immortal Hulk The Immortal Hulk 26 sees Bruce Banner announcing his intention to attack the main entities exacerbating major societal problems, and often profiting off of the very issues they create. His goal is to provide real consequences for the injustices of corporations and other organizations. In his monologue, Banner mentions climate change,.

There's no ambiguity here: Bruce's world is dying because of the actions of predatory members of the economic elite, and so is ours, with companies responsible for the majority of the emissions that place Earth at risk.

Hulk's first target is, and this is n0t a coincidence, Roxxon Energy Corporation. However, this isn't due to the villain thinking climate change isn't real. Instead, Agger believes the science about climate change, but he plans to profit off of the resulting "resource war. Agger is certainly an exaggeration of a CEO who prioritizes profit over the greater good although when the science is as irrefutable as it is in regard to climate change, the choice to ignore reality in favor of profits is certainly not much different.

However, he's an expression of present anxieties and frustrations about the ultra-rich and the CEOs of massive companies and whether they're doing enough to save our world.

In The Immortal Hulk 27, Agger explains he won't be hiding his true form anymore, remarking nobody will care that he's literally a monster.

People also seem to have forgotten Agger sided against humanity in the War of the Realms. For Agger, there are no consequences for publicly being a monster. Roxxon's stock price is actually rising when the story begins, meaning Agger is making more money than he was before. Even though the CEO behind the company is a. Like in Hulk's explanation, there are no consequences for Agger's actions to enrich himself at the expense of others. Most importantly, The Immortal Hulk 26 features a conversation between Amadeus Cho and Banner examining whether the latter's destructive plans are correct, and if he'd transformed from hero to villain.

Cho serves as the voice of hope, believing that there are other potential ways to make the world better. The intersection of Banner's race and rage also play a role in the conversation, as it has in previous entries in the run. Although Banner's rage is a powerful tool, the aforementioned security guard is also angry. That doesn't mean he's right or that his attempts to make a better world mean one will come about.

Amadeus subtly warns Bruce to check his privilege in how he's approaching his next endeavor, as he's "an angry middle-class white guy talking about revolution. That doesn't always end so well. This conversation doesn't change the fact that what Roxxon is doing is wrong or that destructive, self-perpetuating systems are risking everyone on Earth for profit.

This then leaves the question of how best to fix the problem which, if left unchecked, will lead to catastrophe. Bruce's experience reflects the frustration so many feel about watching the world around them collapse and feeling powerless to act, which is why Hulk's actions inspire a new Teen Brigade: The young and disaffected finally have someone who can do somethingabout the problem. Immortal Hulk wants readers to question the title character and his methods while making the problem he's addressing clear and unambiguous.

Giant monsters have been unleashed in Phoenix, Arizona. With the Avengers in space and the X-Men creating their own nation. The Roxxon Corporation is unavailable for comment. The people need help. They need the crusading outlaw with a heart of gold they read about in the Herald. They need their secret hero. The first Gamma Bomb unleashed a terrifying creature with impossible strength who waged.

The authorities gave the beast a name, a name the whole world knows. Bruce Banner has an underground fortress. Plus: Years ago, the first Gamma Bomb unleashed a terrifying creature with impossible strength who raged against the world.

The Immortal Hulk 30 This thing, The Living Hulk was something else when it made its grand entrance as the hero to Arizona. They wasted very little time getting into what made this new enemy formidable. One would have assumed that The Living Hulk was something that could go toe-to-toe with the Hulk, but that would have. Instead they opted out for an enemy who knew a better game to play.

The only game which neither Hulk nor Banner knew how to play. We needed to know why something people have clearly never seen before is suddenly widely recognized and appreciated more than the Hulk.

The answer to that was chilling because Roxxon found themselves a winner who does what they do on a whole new level. This setback was interesting for the fact that it also shakes up the dynamic of the Hulk personalities. For all the control they had, in just one moment you could see where things could go wrong once more. Maybe it was because of this The Living Hulk, or maybe it was a matter of inevitability, but you have to admire the new challenge which they have now been presented with. For better or worse, the game changed for the Hulk by the end of this chapter.

If you thought that this was ever going to be a war that could be won through brute force alone, then the team-up of the Minotaur and The Living Hulk say otherwise with the conclusion of The Immortal Hulk Al Ewing and Joe Bennett's Immortal Hulk has seen the titular hero declaring war on various organizations he sees as a threat to the world, starting with Roxxon.

Hulk stuck a major blow against the corporation by attacking its servers, which sees reports of a new organization called the "Teen Brigade" donning masks with the gamma-irradiated hero's face on them. The Teen Brigade has its roots in some classic,. The group was originally led by Rick Jones, Hulk's sidekick.

This version of the group seems more dedicated to protest and will likely take a much different form, though exactly what that will be isn't revealed. The Immortal Hulk 28 reinvents a classic team of young heroes. The Immortal Hulk 28 also explores the idea of dissent getting repackaged and undermined for the sake of profit.

Before heading off to get his own Hulk, one of Dario Agger's lackeys reveals that Roxxon is actually using a shell company to sell Hulk masks with the intent of eventually leaking the company's involvement and the environmentally unstable nature of the masks so as to "dampen enthusiasm with the s. This is why Hulk and Banner are different people.

Hulk is the rage that Banner could never express and that rage is limitless, which makes Hulk impossible for anyone to beat. The biggest reason that Hulk is the strongest Avenger of them all is that he is immortal. The closest that anyone comes to Hulk is Thor. However, even Norse gods can die, as Odin has shown and when a god dies, the next in line steps up.

Hulk can't die. There is a realm called the Below Place where the gamma mutates go when they die, and there is a Green Door that allows them to return to life.

In Hulk: The End , he showed he will one day be the last living thing on Earth, and even when Bruce Banner dies, Hulk will continue living, the most powerful being on Earth. Shawn S. Lealos is a senior writer on ScreenRant who fell in love with movies in after going to the theater to see Tim Burton's Batman as his first big screen experience.

He has worked as a journalist for over 25 years, first in the world of print journalism before moving to online media as the world changed. Shawn is also a published author, with a non-fiction book about the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers and has begun work on a new fiction series as well.

Visit Shawn Lealos' website to learn more about his novel writing and follow him on Twitter sslealos. By Shawn S. Lealos Published Aug 31, Share Share Tweet Email 0. Related Topics Lists hulk.