Hulk

As Bruce Banner

As Monster Hulk

Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, also known as The Hulk is an American theoretical physicist, famed for his work in the fields of nuclear physics and gamma radiation. He was recruited by General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross and the U.S. Army to develop the first Gamma Bomb. During its first live test he was bombarded with a massive dose of gamma rays while saving Rick Jones, a kid who had made his way onto the test site. He was mutated into a green behemoth, the living personification of rage, fueled by pure physical strength and would come to be known as the near-mindless "Incredible Hulk". Fearful of the damage that the Hulk could inflict, as well as fleeing from the military, he went on the run.

In the years that followed, Bruce became a loner, occasionally joining together with other heroes but more often struggling to be left alone. He was a founding member of the Avengers, "Earth's Mightiest Heroes", as well as the group of outsider heroes known as the Defenders, but would not remain with either group for long. Over the years, the Hulk's personality changed drastically, owing to Banner's undiagnosed dissociative identity disorder. At times intelligent, other times savage, the one constant was his quest for solitude and peace in a world that would not leave him alone.

Robert Bruce Banner is the son of Dr. Brian Banner, an atomic physicist, and his wife Rebecca. Although Rebecca deeply loved Bruce, who returned her affection, Brian hated Bruce, and was driven by an insane jealousy of Bruce for being an object of Rebecca's love. Further, Brian believed that his radiation work had altered his DNA and given him a mutant son. These factors led to Brian abusing Bruce physically. One of the people who helped Bruce cope with Brian's tantrums was his paternal cousin Jennifer Walters, with whom Bruce used to spend summers in the public library reading for hours, losing themselves in books.

Bruce's life reached a turning point when Brian murdered Rebecca, and he was placed in a mental hospital. After that, Bruce was raised by his aunt and father's sister, Susan Banner, who understood his great pain and rage over his childhood sufferings. Susan raised Bruce with love and care, as if he were her own child. Susan never wanted to deal with her brother after what he had done to Bruce and Rebecca. Bruce grew up as a highly withdrawn, intellectually gifted youth; in fact, a child prodigy. His father's abuse caused Bruce to start to develop dissociative identity disorder which would go undiagnosed for years, partly due to the fact that his D.I.D. was suppressed.

The first sign that Bruce was developing mental problems due to his childhood abuse manifested when Bruce began talking to an imaginary friend he called the "Hulk", as a way with coping with his childhood abuse, his mother's death and his loneliness. He had even begun to mutter to himself in conversation with his imaginary friend. Concerned, his Aunt Susan took him to mental health professionals who assured her that these were merely coping mechanisms and they would eventually go away. Unfortunately for the world, they never did and the Hulk endured as Banner's imaginary friend for years. Bruce also began secretly working on explosives in an abandoned warehouse as the Hulk suggested that they blow up the school as a means of venting his frustrations. Bruce, however, changed his mind and refused to blow up the school, which did not sit well with the Hulk. Over the next few nights, unknown to Bruce, when he slept, the Hulk took control of his body and planted a bomb in the school that was set to go off in the morning. When Bruce realized what had happened, he rushed to the school to try and disarm it but found that no one would listen to his warnings. Crashing into the boiler room, Bruce managed to get down into the basement in just enough time to disarm it. Caught down in the boiler room by some of his fellow students, they immediately figured out what Bruce had done and jumped him. The principal then closed the school for the day and locked Bruce down in the boiler room where he was beaten until the authorities arrived. After Bruce was released from the hospital, Bruce's aunt moved him and her out of town in order for Bruce to avoid jail time. Unknown to Bruce, his aunt was approached by Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross, a representative of the military who pointed out to her that the bomb, while sophisticated, was not constructed properly, but the work impressed the military who informed Susan Banner that they would invest in his education in the hopes that he could become a great weapons designer who could work for the military.

After graduating from Science High School, Bruce studied nuclear physics in Navapo, New Mexico, at Desert State University as the star student of Professor Herbert Josiah Weller. Later he dated a girl named Susan Jacobson, but their relationship soon became rocky when Bruce lacked any sort of intimacy and she broke it off after one night where he tried to force himself upon her. He also studied for a time at Harvard University. He later transferred to Pennsylvania State University where he briefly worked with Canadian student Walter Langkowski finding a similar interest in gamma radiation. He also worked with Peter Corbeau, and Raoul Stoddard. It was during his time at Penn State that Banner found inspiration from noted scientist Albert Einstein and, like the famous scientist, bought a wardrobe consisting entirely of purple suits.

As a young student, Bruce first met another student with a brilliant mind: Tony Stark. Ever since, they both attended Dr. Derenik Zadian's "Forward Thought Conference" at Oxford University. This would lead to a life-long scientific rivalry between the two. They also became best friends. They eventually teamed up and joined the Avengers.

Bruce obtained his doctorate in nuclear physics at Caltech alongside Philip Sterns, who later became the Madman. Eventually, as an adult and a genius in nuclear physics, Banner wished to pursue philanthropic brands of science, but couldn't receive any financial funding for his projects, and thus in lack of other options, went to work at a United States Defense Department nuclear research facility at Desert Base, New Mexico. There Banner met General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross, the Air Force officer in command of the base, and his daughter Betty Ross. Banner and Betty eventually fell in love with each other. Banner designed and oversaw construction of the "Gamma Bomb" or "G-bomb," a nuclear weapon possessing a high gamma radiation output.

After fifteen years of confinement, the doctors believed that Brian was ready to rejoin society. Despite his reluctance, Bruce let his father temporarily stay with him. During this time, Brian began acting strange, causing tensions to escalate between the two. After Brian lashed out at his son, blaming him for his insanity, Bruce left to visit his mother's grave since it was the anniversary of her death. Brian followed him and started harassing Bruce, calling him a mutant and a monster. The confrontation quickly became physical, and Brian knocked Bruce down. While on the ground, Bruce pushed him back with his foot. Brian stumbled back and the impact of his head on Rebecca's gravestone killed him. To cope with killing his own father, Bruce blocked the memories of Brian's stay with him and his subsequent death, making himself believe that, as the two of them fought at Rebecca's grave, Brian had simply beat him and left, later being killed by muggers.

Banner was present in the instrumentation bunker at the test site for the first underground test detonation of the Gamma Bomb. Observing that a civilian had breached security and entered the restricted test area, Banner told his colleague Igor Starsky to delay the countdown while he tried to escort the civilian to safety. Starsky, secretly a Soviet agent, did nothing, confident that Banner would die in the explosion, bringing the project to a halt. Reaching the civilian, a teenager named Rick Jones, Banner threw him into a protective trench.

Before Banner could get himself to safety, the Gamma Bomb detonated, and intense waves of radiation reached the surface. Banner was irradiated with highly charged radioactive particles. Bruce died, but the Gamma Bomb had created a metaphysical barrier called the Green Door that connected Earth with the Below-Place, the bottom layer of the Multiverse. The Green Door brought Bruce back to life, but the time span between his death and resurrection was so short, his death went unnoticed. The Gamma Bomb also mutated Bruce's body, causing him to frequently transform into the vastly powerful, gray-skinned, humanoid monster whom General Ross named "the Hulk."

At first Banner changed into the Hulk at sunset and reverted to his human form at dawn. However, Banner's body eventually changed so that his transformations into the Hulk were triggered by the release of adrenaline when he became intensely excited or angry, no matter what time of day or night it was.

Usually, the Hulk possessed little of Banner's memory and intelligence and was easily enraged. While the military attempted to contain the Hulk, he thwarted their every attempt, with Rick Jones, feeling responsible for Banner becoming the Hulk, trying to help keep him away from the military. The Hulk ultimately thwarted an attempt to destroy America by the Gargoyle, another man mutated by gamma radiation. The Hulk changed back into Banner and help cure the Gargoyle, who helped Banner escape back to the U.S. where, with the help of Rick Jones, he maintained his identity as the Hulk a secret and attempted to keep the Hulk contained at night.

When Bruce next turned into the Hulk, his skin was green, a skin tone that remained the most constant for the Hulk. Banner became a target of the so-called Toad Men, who sought to invade Earth. Although at first their attempts to exploit Banner's intelligence made him appear to be a traitor to his country, Banner was able to use his might as the Hulk to thwart the Toad Men's invasion and thereby clear his name.

In an effort to control his transformations, Banner began using a Gamma Ray Projector to force transformations into the Hulk and Banner vice-versa; however, his Hulk persona was reluctant to transform back into Banner. After the Hulk was shot into space and passing through a radiation storm Rick Jones briefly found himself able to control him. They worked together to stop the Circus of Crime. Jones' control over the Hulk faded away. The Hulk's transformations were not limited to nightfall after this adventure.

The Hulk next foiled a hoax perpetrated by the Russian agent Boris Monguski (Mongu) aimed at trying to learn the secrets of the Hulk's strength, saved Betty from the underground ruler Tyrannus, and battled the Chinese General Fang. When Desert Base was the subject of sabotage, the Hulk was blamed and the Fantastic Four were called in to deal with him. This led to the first of many clashes between the Hulk and the Fantastic Four's member the Thing. In the aftermath, the scientist Karl Kort was ultimately held responsible. Shortly thereafter, the Hulk prevented the Metal Master from invading Earth.

Hulk, along with other heroes from different time periods, were then abducted by "Doctor Doom" from an alternate future where Ultron had successfully taken over the world. Doom asked the heroes to help him free the world from Ultron's control to which they complied. While the Vision and Iron Man distracted the A.I. Avengers, Hulk, alongside the Black Widow and Captain America, infiltrated Avengers Tower, but were ambushed by Ultron's Black Widow and her Bio-Slaves, and managed to decapitate the Hulk using Captain America's anti-gravity shield. Despite that, Hulk was able to survive that through Bruce's head emerging from the neck. Banner explained that he had done experiments to rid the Hulk from himself, which might have caused further mutations. Banner then reattached Hulk's head to his body and the two heads began fighting the reactivated Bio-Slaves. As Ultron's factories began shutting down thanks to the heroes' effort, Doom recalled them and revealed that he had taken over Ultron's system, becoming the new ruler of the world. He tried to send the heroes to their respective time, but Thor managed to evade that and hide within this timeline. Arriving at Asgardia, Doom sent billions of Ultron Drones to attack them. They were hardly able to destroy one ship carrying the sentinels, as other ships arrived. Luckily, Iron Man managed to free the imprisoned Asgardians who then joined the battle. After that the heroes went to Doom, who was revealed to have been a Doombot and was convinced by the Vision to free the imprisoned humans and become their kindhearted leader. Afterwards, all of the heroes returned to their own times.

The Sentry met the Hulk and found that somehow his powers soothed the Hulk's raging temper. They were partners for a time, battling the Sentry's eternal enemy, the Void. Eventually the Sentry had to erase his existence from the minds of the world, and the Hulk forgot about his one-time partnership with the Sentry for many years.

The Hulk became a pawn of Loki, who tricked the Hulk into battling his half-brother, Thor. This plot was foiled, leading to the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp joining forces to form the Avengers and defeat Loki. The Hulk was a founding member of the group and together they clashed with Doctor Doom. The group's mistrust in him became apparent when they were manipulated by the Space Phantom and this, coupled with Mephisto in the form of a snake speaking lies to him, prompted the Hulk to quit. The Avengers began hunting down their unpredictable former ally. The Hulk found an ally in the Sub-Mariner, and clashed with the heroes, Thor in particular, but the Hulk was defeated and disappeared in the water.

The Hulk soon resurfaced in New York City seeking revenge against the Avengers, clashing with them as well as the Fantastic Four, leading to a rematch with the Thing. The battle ended with Hulk being swept away in New York Harbor. The Hulk resurfaced back in New Mexico, where he was tricked by the Avengers into aiding them in preventing the Lava Men's attempt to eradicate human life on Earth's surface.

While hiding out in a cave near Hollywood, the Hulk was disturbed when the Green Goblin's plot to use the Enforcers to kill Spider-Man encroached into his hiding spot, leading to a brief clash between the Hulk and Spider-Man before the Hulk fled the scene. Later, the Hulk was manipulated into battling his former Avengers comrades, Giant-Man and the Wasp, by their enemy, the Human Top.

Banner continued his stint as a scientist at Desert Base. Meanwhile, General Ross suspected Banner of being a spy and having some sort of connection with the Hulk. The base soon became the target of the Chameleon who had been hired to steal a new experimental robot tank designed by Banner. Banner's attempt to stop the spy was complicated by the arrival of Lt. Glenn Talbot, who shared General Ross' suspicions, at Desert Base. When the military decided to move Banner and his tank to another base, the Chameleon's employer, the Leader, deployed one of his Humanoids to steal it. The Hulk battled the Humanoid and prevented it from stealing the device, but Banner himself was arrested by the military under suspicion of having something to do with this attempted theft. Banner remained a prisoner until Rick Jones revealed Banner's double identity to the President of the U.S., earning him a pardon.

Banner went to Astra Island with his new experimental Absorbatron device. The island was attacked by the Leader's Humanoids, but the Hulk defeated them. The battle ended with Banner being captured by Communist agents. Banner refused to work for the Communists and the Hulk freed himself and the other captured scientists. Thanks to the sacrifice of one of these scientists, the Hulk was able to fight his way out of Russia and ended up in Mongolia. There Banner was picked up by thief Kanga Khan, who attempted to hold Banner for ransom in exchange for safe return to America. Glenn Talbot, believing him to be a traitor, was sent to retrieve Banner, but the Hulk left Talbot behind and returned to the U.S., where Banner was arrested.

Banner was again pardoned by the President and was allowed to return to Astra Island for another test. The Leader's Humanoids attacked again, and the Hulk and the Absorbatron were once again captured. Banner used one of the Leader's devices to bring the army to the site. By the time they arrived, Hulk had sent the Leader fleeing. The military drove the Hulk back, only to find a seemingly dead Banner when they searched the site of the battle.

Rick Jones stole Banner's body and attempted to revive him in his lab. Another bombardment with the Gamma Ray Projector triggered a transformation into the Hulk, but for the first time ever, Banner's mind possessed the Hulk. This came at a cost: if the Hulk ever reverted to Banner, he would die due to a shrapnel fragment lodged in his brain. The Leader showed the power of the stolen Absorbatron to potential buyers by sending a gigantic Humanoid to attack Gamma Base. The Hulk and Rick Jones were knocked away from the battle when General Ross fired his new "Sunday Punch" missile destroying the giant Humanoid. When the Hulk and Rick sought refuge in one of Banner's secret labs the military followed them. Banner sent Rick out to hold up the military during an air strike. The Leader teleported the Hulk away, seeking to form an alliance with him. The military assumed that their assault had atomized the Hulk.

The Hulk refused to ally himself with the Leader. Realizing something was wrong, the Leader bombarded him with more gamma radiation and removed the shrapnel from his brain. He then sent the Hulk to the Watcher's home planet in order to steal the Ultimate Machine. There the Hulk clashed with the Amphibion, an alien who also sought the Ultimate Machine; after the Hulk had bested the Amphibion in combat, he was returned to Earth. The Leader took the Ultimate Machine from the Hulk and attempted to use the device. The Leader's plan backfired, as the machine seemingly killed him.

Learning that Rick Jones was a prisoner of the military for refusing to reveal the Hulk's true identity, the Hulk attempted to seek a Presidential pardon for his friend. In Washington, D.C., he was ironically attacked by the last weapon Banner had invented for the military: the T-Ray. The T-Ray transported the Hulk to the distant future of Earth-6676, a post-apocalyptic world ruled by King Arrkam. There, the Hulk battled his enforcer, the Executioner.

Rick Jones, believing Banner dead, revealed the Hulk's true identity to General Ross and Glenn Talbot. Learning that the Hulk was alive and well, Talbot hounded the Hulk again with Banner's replacement, Konrad Zaxon. This prompted Rick to also tell Betty about Banner's double identity. Ultimately, the Hulk killed Zaxon for trying to use the Hulk as a battery for weapons he hoped to use to take over the Earth. The military chased after the Hulk, not knowing of Zaxon's true plans.

The Hulk, fleeing from Captain America, had a brief clash with Hercules. Then, the Hulk was used as a pawn by Tyrannus who was then at war with another underground dweller, the Mole Man, over the Fountain of Youth. Later, the Hulk was caught in the middle of the Secret Empire agent Boomerang's attempt to steal the new Orion missile, taking Betty as his prisoner. The Hulk managed to defeat Boomerang and then repeatedly battered him to an unrecognizable stoop while saving Betty. The Hulk sought out the Avengers in New York, only to be hounded by the authorities. While in New York, the Hulk was hounded by Spider-Man who sought to capture him in an attempt to earn membership in the Avengers, a mission in which he would fail due to his sympathy for the Hulk.

Number One of the Empire attempted to use the Sub-Mariner to destroy the Hulk; however, this plot failed, and Number One accidentally blew himself up. A spy for the Empire sent the Orion Missile off its testing course to impact with New York City. Banner redirected the missile to explode harmlessly in the ocean. Getting into a battle with the Leader's Hulk-Killer android, the Hulk eventually short circuited the Hulk-Killer, although Rick Jones was injured in the fight. For his part in stopping the Orion Missile from destroying New York, the Hulk was hailed as a hero and received a full Presidential pardon; however, the media frenzy frightened the Hulk off. The Hulk was attacked by Boomerang, seeking a rematch that ended with Boomerang's apparent death.

The Stranger attempted to use the Hulk to wipe out most of humanity hoping that the survivors would build a better world before leaving for the stars. Not wishing to be a menace, Banner attempted to kill himself with a powerful burst of gamma radiation. Banner was arrested by Glenn Talbot and locked up, leaving the spy Emil Blonsky to be mutated into the Abomination. The Hulk battled the Abomination, whom the Stranger found more useful to his goals.

The Hulk attempted to force the Silver Surfer to take him into outer space. The Hulk was next captured by hunters in the employ of the High Evolutionary. The High Evolutionary attempted to advance Banner's evolution by 10 million years to use him to keep his invading New Men at bay.

The Hulk was then tricked into helping the Lords of the Living Lightning capture Desert Base. The Hulk turned against them for threatening Betty and put an end to their organization. In the aftermath the Hulk was once again believed to be dead. The Hulk fell under the control of the Puppet Master who had him attack Rick, estranging him and the Hulk for a time, and then sent him after the Sub-Mariner. Coincidentally, this was at a time after Namor had been exiled from Atlantis and was seeking an alliance with the Hulk. The clash between the two ended in a giant tsunami that ruined the Puppet Master's base and reverted the Hulk to Bruce Banner. Not recognizing the Hulk in his human form, the Sub-Mariner returned to the sea.

Loki once again attempted to use the Hulk as his pawn, transporting him to Asgard, leading to a clash with the Warriors Three, the Executioner, the Enchantress, and an army of trolls. Odin banished the Hulk into the deep reaches of space where he clashed with the Space Parasite.

The Hulk was captured by the U.S. military, now fully backed by his longtime ally, Rick Jones. Banner was targeted by the newly restored Rhino, who was seemingly killed in a fuel truck explosion. Briefly back in human form, Banner was shot by crooks, but he transformed back into the Hulk when being chased by police. The Hulk next battled the Missing Link, an irradiated prehistoric man sent to attack America by the Chinese Communists. The Link was seemingly destroyed in an explosion when it reached critical mass despite interference from Glenn Talbot, Nick Fury and his Russian counterpart Yuri Brevlov. During this battle, Rick Jones was injured by the Hulk and then taken in by Captain America to become the new Bucky.

Attracting the attention of the Mandarin, the Hulk was tested by the villain who hoped to work with him, but the Hulk rejected the offer, trashed the Mandarin's castle, and escaped. The Hulk accidentally freed the Evil Inhumans led by Maximus, who attempted to overthrow Black Bolt's rule of Attilan. The Hulk wanted nothing to do with their rebellion and easily trounced them. Black Bolt offered the Hulk a place with the Inhumans, but after realizing that the other Inhumans feared him, the Hulk left the Hidden Land.

After a battle against Fin Fang Foom, the Hulk was dogged by the Chinese military. The Hulk hitched a ride on an experimental rocket which crashed in the Antarctic. Banner awoke in the Savage Land and got captured by the Swamp Men who attempted to sacrifice him until he was rescued by Ka-Zar. Hulk clashed with the alien robot Umbu the Unliving and destroyed it with Ka-Zar's help and saved the Earth. Banner suffered from exposure to Umbu's radiation. Having detected the destruction of Umbu, the Galaxy Master captured the dying Banner and revived him. The Hulk battled the Sagittarians on a distant world and then seemingly destroyed the Galaxy Master, freeing its slaves.

The Mandarin sent the Sandman against the Hulk, resulting in the Sandman being fused into glass. The Hulk was once again captured by General Ross. With the Hulk in captivity, the Leader returned alive and well and offered his services to neutralize the threat of the Hulk once and for all. To this end he trapped the Hulk in a Plasticine prison. Betty freed the Hulk, but by then it was too late to stop the Leader from attempting to use the base's nuclear weapons to jump start World War III. Although Bruce Banner stopped the first missile that the Leader launched, he then launched a second one, prompting Banner to become the Hulk again to stop it.

When the Hulk was rescued and restored to health by Lady Dorma, a rival for Namor's affections, the Sub-Mariner defeated the Hulk in underwater combat when Mistress Fara convinced Namor that Dorma was romancing another man. Washing up on the shores of Costa Salvador, Banner found that the island had been taken over by Maximus and his Evil Inhumans. The Hulk clashed with them, and Maximus retreated. Fleeing to Florida, the Hulk ended up battling the Glob, a creature that the Hulk would destroy before realizing that it was much like him.

Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four developed a cure for Banner's condition that worked to a degree. Banner gained the ability to transform into the Hulk at will while maintaining his intelligence. Vowing to never become the Hulk again, Banner proposed to Betty, who accepted. Sadly, the Leader recruited the Rhino and fired a gamma gun during Bruce and Betty's wedding, again causing Banner to turn into the Hulk, but returning him to his savage state. The Hulk clashed with the Rhino and the Leader, hospitalizing General Ross and destroying his home. The Hulk escaped, and Glenn Talbot vowed to Betty that he would destroy the Hulk if Ross died.

Returning to the desert, the Hulk was sought out by the X-Men who were seeking one of Banner's inventions that could heal their injured leader, Professor X. Although they briefly clashed, Banner returned long enough to give the X-Men what they needed to save their leader.

Banner agreed to work with Glenn Talbot to try and stop a radioactive comet threatening Earth. This meteor turned out to be the Absorbing Man, whom the Hulk defeated. Banner's body was captured by a cult that sought to release their demonic masters, the Undying Ones. The Hulk was sent into the realm of the Night-Crawler along with Barbara Norriss. Doctor Strange came to the Hulk's aid to stop the Undying Ones. Barbara Norris sacrificed herself so that the two heroes could escape.

The Hulk once again became a pawn in the ongoing war between Tyrannus and the Mole Man. This time Tyrannus attempted to win the Hulk's cooperation by making him befriend his robot Mogol. When the Hulk learned that the creature was really a robot, he considered it a betrayal and destroyed him, and left Tyrannus' realm. Trying to get to the surface, the Hulk nearly caused a massive earthquake by affecting fault lines on the West Coast, leading to a clash with his old team, the Avengers. The Hulk was targeted by the Leader who revived the Glob and sent him after the Hulk in a plot that ultimately ended in failure.

Rick Jones sought out his old friend to find a way to separate himself from the Kree soldier Captain Marvel, but a student protest set Banner off, leading to a clash with Captain Marvel. Another former colleague, Dr. Raoul Stoddard, succeeded in splitting the Hulk from Banner, sending the Hulk on a rampage to destroy Banner. The Hulk fled the military and hid out in the slums of Los Angeles and befriended the young Jim Wilson while Banner, the military and Iron Man attempted to track down the Hulk in order to re-merge Banner and the Hulk. After again merging the Hulk with Banner, the military asked Jim Wilson to stay with them to keep the Hulk under control. Wilson was also targeted by the terrorist organization Hydra who also sought to control the Hulk. This plot ended in failure; however, Jim was seriously injured. Betty Ross suffered a nervous breakdown from the stress of dealing with Banner's double life as the Hulk.

The Hulk ended up in the nation of Morvania and helped the resistance remove its dictator, Vaclav Draxon. Trapped in the future and seeking revenge against the Avengers, Kang the Conqueror sent the Hulk back in time to World War I to kill the Phantom Eagle. The Hulk foiled this plot and successfully returned to his own time.

The Hulk and the Abomination were enslaved by Xeron the Starslayer and traveled the stars to hunt down and kill the creature known as Klaatu. Although the Abomination attempted to kill Banner/the Hulk, the crew's captain Cybor seemingly slew Klaatu. The Hulk and the Abomination clashed, sending them crashing back to Earth. The Hulk clashed with the Sandman, who tried to force a blood transfusion with Betty to stop himself from turning into glass. The defeated Sandman was lost in a whirlpool, while Betty was transformed into glass as a result of the transfusion.

In the South American nation of San Diablo, the Hulk and the Silver Surfer were recruited by the Sub-Mariner into a group called the Titans Three to destroy a weather control device that threatened Earth. This led to a clash with the Avengers until the Sub-Mariner's scientist Ikthon could repair a flaw in the device. Confused, the Hulk fled the scene.

The Leader sought to exert the Hulk to the point where the monster would die of a heart attack. He created psycho projections and led him towards the hospital where Betty Ross was, threatening to shatter Betty's fragile glass form. Thanks to interference from Jim Wilson, the Leader's plot was foiled.

The Hulk was captured by the military with aid from Mister Fantastic and Professor X; however, he was teleported away by the insectoid Psyklop. Psyklop sought to shrink the Hulk down in size and use him as a power source to bring his masters, the Dark Gods, to Earth. The Avengers interrupted, causing the Hulk to shrink out of sight and get transported to the Microverse world of K'ai. On K'ai, the Banner persona was restored, and the Hulk joined a rebellion led by Jarella against the evil warlord Visis. The Hulk and Jarella formed a relationship, and they were prepared to wed when Psyklop found the Hulk and brought him back to Earth. With his savage state restored, Psyklop's base was smashed, and the Hulk escaped.

With vague memories of his adventure on K'ai, Banner was taken back to the military when psychiatrist Leonard Samson came up with a dual solution for curing Banner and restoring Betty to human form. Samson was successful in this; however, he used the siphoned gamma radiation to mutate himself into a gamma-spawned Adonis. Samson romanced Betty Ross, making Banner so jealous that he purposely bombarded himself with gamma radiation and again became the Hulk to fight Doc Samson. When Betty vocalized concern for Samson over the Hulk, the Hulk fled the scene.

The Hulk became the new pet project of the Parrington family. The Hulk was targeted by the Enchantress, who turned the Parringtons' daughter Samantha into a host for the Valkyrie to battle the Hulk. The plot ended in failure and Samantha reverted to normal. His next rampage through New York made Banner the subject of a military manhunt. He was rescued by Doctor Doom, who smuggled Banner into Latveria in order to exploit his brilliant mind and then sent the Hulk out with a bomb in order to annex neighboring countries into Latveria. This was opposed by Doom's childhood love Valeria and led to a battle between Doom and the Hulk. The Hulk fled when he realized Valeria could have been harmed if the fight continued.

Doctor Strange recruited the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Surfer to stop Yandroth from setting his Omegatron to destroy Earth. They formed a loose knit team of heroes known as the Defenders. The Hulk answered a call from the Avengers to help to stop Ares and the Enchantress from fulfilling a prophecy that would have given him mastery over the entire world. The Hulk later ended up in Egypt, where he was talked into taking a part in a movie being filmed there. Banner was fired from the movie set and was caught in the middle of the Horusians God-Spawn battle, destroying their champion, the Colossus.

The U.S. military-built Project Greenskin, a.k.a. Hulkbuster Base, as a specialized facility to capture the Hulk. Upon its construction, General Ross was replaced with a robot by the Leader. The Leader was disguised as Glenn Talbot in the hopes of not only destroying the Hulk but replacing the President and Vice President with robot duplicates. The Hulk foiled the Leader's plot, and in the aftermath of the battle, Doc Samson lost his powers. The Hulk fled into the desert, briefly encountering a mirage city that would vanish as quickly as it appeared.

The Hulk was again captured by the military and cured by Peter Corbeau. Jarella transported herself to Earth to seek the Hulk. She was followed by an assassin sent by Visis. To save her, Banner re-exposed himself to gamma radiation and again became the Hulk. When it was determined that Jarella's presence on Earth risked the planet's destruction, Jarella willingly returned to K'ai. Sedated at Project: Greenskin, the Hulk battled the High Evolutionary's exiled New Man, the Inheritor, when the creature came seeking radiation to prolong its evolved state. When the Hulk came across Lorna Dane, he confused her for Jarella and captured her. Lorna was saved by her fellow X-Man, Havok. Betty heard Bruce calling out for Jarella, prompting her to begin a romance with Glenn Talbot.

Banner sought out Henry Pym in Washington D.C. to find a means to shrink small enough to return to Jarella's world. There, Banner learned Pym's talk had been canceled; this enraged him so much that he transformed into the Hulk, who went on a rampage. The Hulk ultimately saved Washington from Senator Morton Clegstead who, while trying to find a cure for cancer via gamma radiation, had mutated into a massive pile of ooze. Returning to the Nevada desert, the Hulk was captured by Project: Greenskin and S.H.I.E.L.D. Banner was put on trial for the Hulk's rampage in Washington, D.C. Lawyer Matt Murdock (secretly Daredevil) represented Banner. It seemed likely that the Hulk would be sentenced to death until Reed Richards offered to try and cure Banner with his Nega-Gamma Gun; however, this only strengthened the Hulk further, allowing him to escape.

The Hulk broke into Pym's lab and consumed one of his shrinking formulas. This caused him to shrink to miniature size, and he was captured by the Chameleon, who was then working for Hydra. The Hulk attempted to escape Hydra's clutches with the help of Ant-Man; however. the unstable formula shrank him down into the Microverse. As he shrank down to size, he ruined the fantasy world created by the Shaper of Worlds for the former Nazi Kronsteig. Finally reaching Jarella's world, the Hulk, with Banner's intellect restored, again helped Jarella overthrow Visis. Pym's formula then wore off, sending him back to Earth.

The Hulk was reunited with his fellow Defenders to fight Dormammu in Rutland, Vermont, to stop the alternate-reality dictator Zemu's attempt to change children into members of his long-dead race, and lastly to foil a plot by the evil Necrodamus who was attempting to sacrifice Hulk's friend the Sub-Mariner.

The Hulk was reunited with Jim Wilson, after which he learned of Betty's coming marriage to Glenn Talbot. He was forced to battle a Leader-controlled Rhino. The Rhino and the Hulk were launched into space and ended up on the High Evolutionary's Counter-Earth, where they were embroiled in a battle between the New Men. During this adventure the Hulk met Counter-Earth's Bruce Banner, who was married to Betty Ross and had a son, Bruce Jr. The conflict ended with the Hulk and the Rhino being shot back to their own Earth. With their ship blasted out of the sky en route to Earth, General Ross forced the Abomination to go out and keep the Hulk away from Betty and Glenn's wedding. The Abomination lost the fight, but he succeeded in his task. Learning that Betty was heading to Niagara Falls, he pursued her.

The Hulk got sidetracked when he was recruited by Doctor Strange to rejoin the Defenders in searching for the Silver Surfer, clashing with Calizuma. The group ended up in the realm of the Undying Ones, battling their leader the Nameless One and rescuing Barbara Norris. They next clashed with the Enchantress and the Executioner, ending with Barbara being revived as the Valkyrie. The Defenders were then called to clash with the Omegatron, which, with the Valkyrie's aid, they destroyed.

Following his time with the Defenders, the Hulk continued to be hunted by the U.S. military and battled many other enemies, including Xemnu the Living Titan.

One day Banner went to visit his beloved cousin, Jennifer Walters, who had become a Los Angeles-based lawyer. At that time Walters had been defending a hood named Lou Monkton, whom gangster Nicholas Trask had framed for murder. While Walters drove Banner to her home, one of Trask's henchmen shot her. To save his cousin's life, Banner improvised an emergency blood transfusion. Jen died, but, thanks to the transfusion, she was thrown into the Below-Place, where she was able to enter the metaphysical Green Door and come back to life. The transfusion of Banner's blood mutated Walters, causing her to become the She-Hulk.

Leonard Samson captured the Hulk and succeeded in separating Banner's psyche and atomic structure from the larger atomic structure of the Hulk. The Hulk's body, with all personality and memory removed, was inert until Samson stimulated the brain within the body. This new incarnation of the Hulk escaped and became a greater menace than ever before.

Banner became leader of a new Hulkbusters task force which he headed from Gamma Base. Banner finally married Betty Ross, believing himself free of the curse of the Hulk. During the honeymoon, Bruce became gravely ill and was hospitalized. Due to his separation from the Hulk, Bruce's body began to lose molecular cohesion. The Hulk's body soon followed suit and he was defeated by the Avengers. With the aid of the synthezoid known as the Vision, Bruce was re-merged with the Hulk. The original Hulk persona assumed control of the body; however, the reintegration was unstable, and an attempt to stabilize, and possibly cure, Bruce in a nutrient tank resulted in the Hulk returning to his original gray incarnation who only manifested at night.

Rick Jones absorbed the excess gamma radiation and became a light green Hulk-like creature when he was pushed into the nutrient bath by General Ross, who was attempting to sabotage the experiment and kill the Hulk. Bruce reasoned the best way to cure Rick was to use the machine from the Hulk's Cave to change himself into the Hulk. Little did he know that this was a subliminal suggestion placed by the Hulk himself who, once free, smashed the machine to avoid turning back into Banner. Complicating matters, the Leader arrived, having followed the Hulk in hopes of regaining his faded intellect. When he found the machine destroyed, the Leader made a deal with the now-smarter Hulk to transfer Rick Jones' gamma radiation into himself. Shortly after, a dishonored Thaddeus Ross managed to take control of the energy creature Zzzax. Ross and Jones were defeated and the radiation energy was transferred from Jones to Sterns which caused an explosion in the lab leading to the Leader's supposed death.

Little did either the Hulk or Banner know that the Leader had survived and sent the vampiric Half-Life after him. The Hulk tore off Half-Life's limbs close to daybreak before the villain could pull himself together.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. Council decided they had enough Gamma Bombs so that Banner was no longer required and ordered Agent Quartermain to murder him. The mutant bounty hunters X-Factor managed to locate the Hulk and freeze him in place before placing a call to S.H.I.E.L.D. After transporting the Hulk back to Gamma Base, Quartermain went against the orders of the Council before blowing up several large explosive charges that wiped out Gamma Base. Quartermain took Banner and Rick Jones away from S.H.I.E.L.D. While on the way to the government stash of Gamma Bombs, Betty Banner was released from the Leader's captivity to help stall them. She revealed that she was pregnant with Banner's child. The Hulk decided to keep Betty safe, despite her being Bruce Banner's wife, not his. The quartet made their way to the government facility, but they found out - too late - that the Leader's henchmen Rock and Redeemer had already taken a Gamma Bomb. When the Leader detonated the Gamma Bomb in Middletown with the Hulk at ground zero, the Hulk was assumed to be dead.

In reality, the Hulk had been transported to Jarella's world of K'ai moments before the detonation. There the Hulk, now a deity to the K'aitians, helped a group of minor wizards to overthrow the "Grand Inquisitor" in return for a spell which was promised to rid him of Bruce Banner for good.

When the Hulk returned to Earth, he took a job as an enforcer at a casino. Calling himself Mr. Fixit, the Hulk spent several months without reverting to human form. It was during this time that he met and dated Marlo Chandler, who would one day marry Rick Jones. Banner eventually returned and the Hulk's life as Mr. Fixit soon came to an end through the machinations of the Maggia.

Banner found Betty working in a convent when he was attacked by Prometheus, an agent of a team called the Pantheon. The stress and anger of being unable to get to Betty caused the Savage Hulk persona to resurface and sent Bruce's psyche into turmoil. The Gray Hulk managed to keep the Green behind a mental door, but knew that since he had been unleashed once, it was only a matter of time before the Savage Hulk would take over.

When the Hulk was needed to fight the Super-Skrull, the Gray Hulk convinced Banner to bring him out instead of the Savage Hulk. The Gray Hulk managed to outsmart the Super-Skrull and managed to save Betty. Inside Banner's mind, the Gray Hulk and the Green Hulk were fighting for dominance. Through hypnosis, Samson created the green intelligent "Merged" Hulk - an integration of Banner's separate personalities.

This incarnation of the Hulk joined the Pantheon. The Pantheon were led by Agamemnon, an immortal offspring of an Asgardian and a human. Unknown at the time was that centuries earlier, Agamemnon had offered any of his offspring to the alien Troyjans in exchange for the ability to pass his godhood down to his descendants.

As a favor to their friend Jim Wilson, the Hulk and Rick agreed to help out at an AIDS benefit concert with Rick headlining and Hulk providing security. The concert was disrupted by the drug-addicted assassin Speedfreek, who was sent to kill one of the concert attendees. Jim was stabbed defending the man, and the Hulk got rid of Speedfreek before he could kill anyone.

During one of his missions with the Pantheon, the Hulk fought alongside a rebel force in Trans-Sabal against both S.H.I.E.L.D. issue Mandroid and the government mutant team X-Factor. Tran-Sabal's dictator, Farnoq Dahn, had promised the U.S. government energy assistance if they helped him keep his place as unchallenged ruler. He was exposed as a psycho when he tried to win the war by tying a mother and child to two separate missiles and threatened to launch them if the Pantheon did not withdraw. The Hulk and X-Factor, working together, stopped him. The tyrant was forced to face his people for the crimes he had committed, but most of them still saw him as a god and bowed at his feet. He was then shot and killed by a traumatized Rick Jones.

Pantheon member Atalanta was shot down in the Himalayas by the Troyjan warrior Trauma, so the Hulk, Ulysses, and Hector were sent to find her. Trauma found Atalanta and confessed his love to her before the Hulk showed up and brought down an avalanche on top of him.

During this time Marlo was killed by a woman posing as Rick's mother. Because the Leader shared a mental bond with Rick, he offered to bring her back to life. The Leader attacked the Pantheon's headquarters, The Mount, using both his gamma soldiers and the U-Foes to distract the Hulk so that he could ask Agamemnon for help against Hydra. Agamemnon agreed to help, and the Hulk left in anger. Agamemnon betrayed the Leader by sending the Hulk to Freehold in order to kill him. The Hulk crashed into Freehold during the middle of the Hydra invasion and when the Leader was trying to resurrect Marlo. Overcome with anger, the Hulk ignored Rick's pleas to stop and destroyed the machine because he thought that the Leader was lying and taking advantage of his grieving friend. The Leader was seemingly killed in the battle. The Hulk knocked the helmet off of Redeemer, saw the resurrected General Ross, and realized his mistake.

When Agamemnon felt it was time to venture out into the world to reconnect with the common people, he appointed the Hulk as his replacement. On his first mission as leader, he traveled to the Amazon to investigate a new company that was cutting down the rainforest. There, he was jumped by the Juggernaut, who was working as an enforcer for the New World Order (NWO), and their leader the Red Skull. The Hulk was captured and brainwashed into fighting the Avengers, believing that the Juggernaut was Banner's own abusive father. The Hulk was able to shake off the mind control when the Juggernaut praised him, and he realized that Banner's real father would never have shown such kindness. The psychic backlash released the creature Piecemeal from his holding container.

The Hulk began showing signs of instability when he began referring to himself as "Hulk" or "the Hulk" instead of "Bruce." As a favor to a former Pantheon member Perseus, the Hulk traveled to Loch Ness to investigate reports of a monster in the lake, which turned out to be Piecemeal. The Hulk was about to defeat him when the Madman interfered. After Perseus was killed, the Hulk killed Piecemeal and appeared to kill the Madman, but no body was found. Using his new power as leader of the Pantheon, the Hulk led a strike against a maximum-security prison to free an ex-girlfriend who had been falsely imprisoned.

Trauma returned and kidnapped Atalanta to make her his bride. With the help of the Silver Surfer and the Starjammers, the Hulk and the Pantheon attacked the Troyjan home world. Upon arriving they were all shocked when Trauma's father, the Troyjan leader, Lord Armageddon, told them the truth about Agamemnon. If they tried to take Atalanta back, then the Troyjans would take back the extended lives of the entire Pantheon. The Hulk, not caring about the deal, attacked Trauma, accidentally impaling Trauma on his own shoulder spike. With his last words, Trauma pardoned the Pantheon and asked his father to let them all leave in peace.

The Hulk was taken into the future by Rick Jones' granddaughter Janis to fight his future self, the Maestro. The Maestro was a tyrant who had killed all the heroes and villains on Earth and named himself emperor of the post-apocalyptic world. He had the intelligence of Banner and was twice as strong as the Hulk, their first fight ending with the Maestro breaking the Hulk's neck and keeping him prisoner for the next few days as his wound healed. After the Hulk confirmed that he couldn't defeat his future self in a straight fight, the Maestro was killed when the Hulk sent him back in time to ground zero at the moment the Gamma Bomb that created him had gone off, having determined that only a ground-zero nuclear blast would be enough to kill him. After killing the Maestro, the Hulk was sent back to the present, haunted by the thought of losing control and becoming the Maestro.

Soon after this, Rick and Marlo were married. At the wedding, Betty told the Hulk that she wanted to move into the Mount to be with him. After the wedding, the Hulk was attacked by the disgraced Skrull warrior Talos the Tamed. In an effort to gain back some honor, Talos wanted to be killed by Earth's strongest warrior. The Hulk refused to fight because of how well his relationship with Betty was going and he did not want to risk losing his temper again. Later, the Hulk received news that his old partner Jim Wilson was at an AIDS protest that was getting out of control. He took him back to the Mount to give him treatment, but despite the advanced technology, Jim still died.

Having discovered the truth about Agamemnon, the Hulk and the rest of the Pantheon made him stand trial. Agamemnon resurrected all of the dead Pantheon warriors to kill everyone in the Mount. Agamemnon tried to escape, but he was instead killed by Atalanta, which brought an end to the undead warriors. Achilles, still loyal to Agamemnon, tried killing teammate Ulysses, but the bullet ricocheted and hit Betty. The Hulk became so angry that he reverted to Bruce Banner's body with the Hulk's brain, apparently the result of a psychic failsafe that he had created during the initial merging of his personas to prevent the return of the Savage Hulk. Even in his human form he gave off enough gamma radiation to make Achilles vulnerable, and Ulysses killed him.

The Pantheon fled their former base, and the still-mindless Bruce was taken into custody and temporarily placed in the care of Doc Samson while Betty was treated for the bullet wound. Nick Fury took Banner into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody because he was a fugitive. During Bruce's transport, Betty died, and her soul was given the chance to go to heaven. First, she wanted to visit Bruce to see if he still loved her. He calmed down when he saw her and was able to transform and escape. After seeing how important she was to him, Betty decided to live and returned to her body. The Hulk visited the destroyed Mount and saw a hologram set up by Paris, telling him that he was now the leader of the Pantheon and that the Hulk had been fired from it.

Living under the last name Danner, the Hulk and Betty moved to a small town in Florida. To hide his green skin, the Hulk wore bandages all over his body and claimed to be a burn victim. Soon after their move a child was killed by a gigantic shadowy figure, and the Hulk was suspected of the crime because of his size. Upon investigation, the Hulk found out that the true killer was a deranged old man living in the Florida Everglades with the Man-Thing, and rescued a child. A few days later the Hulk and Betty offered their help to a young pregnant homeless girl. While at the clinic protesters attacked, and the girl was shot and killed. The Hulk offered the girl's father his help in bringing her killer to justice. They learned the killer was just a kid who had accidentally shot her when someone pushed him. The father revealed himself to be Speedfreek and tried to kill the kid. The Hulk hurled a car battery at Speedfreek, which covered him in battery acid, burning most of the skin off his face and causing him to flee.

The Hulk learned that the Abomination was fighting cops in the sewers of New York and decided that it was his problem. The homeless were being cleared out because the police commissioner was working for a drug lord who needed the sewers for new drug routes. While the Hulk confronted the Abomination, the cops used the opportunity to clear out the homeless by killing almost all of them. The Abomination snapped and started killing all the cops, then took his battle with the Hulk to the surface. They crashed through the Daily Bugle before the Abomination jumped onto a news helicopter and crashed it. He used the opportunity to escape while the Hulk was distracted.

An army squad led by Matt Talbot captured Betty. After the Hulk saw Matt shoot Betty in both legs, he went so far over the edge that he reverted to his Banner form, and Banner was taken into custody. During a jailbreak Bruce, still with the mind of the Hulk, ran towards a grenade and nearly died when it went off. He was able to transform into the Hulk before he could be killed, but a shrapnel fragment was left in his brain, extremely hindering his intelligence.

Seeking a device to remove the shrapnel, the Hulk traveled to the Leader's Freehold. With the Leader dead, the hidden Arctic sanctuary Freehold had been placed in the care of Omnibus. Omnibus believed that there would eventually be a nuclear war that would kill everyone on Earth, so he decided to speed it up by ordering terrorist attacks across the world to cause strain on global relations. He had also mentally controlled many high-ranking government officials, including Talbot, which explained his insane behavior. Jailbait overheard Omnibus' plan and exposed him to the people of Freehold and he was sentenced to death. The Hulk decided that the best way to save the world would be to pose as the Maestro and claim to be the man behind the terrorist attacks. A psychotic Thor was sent to defeat him. It was a close battle until an atom bomb was dropped on top of them. The Hulk was believed dead by most of the world, but he had actually used a hidden Pantheon base to survive.

Traveling through Alaska, the Hulk ran into Janis and took her to an unused Pantheon base, he was then mentally ordered by Onslaught to find and kill Cable. Cable and Storm were able to free the Hulk from Onslaught's control, and they joined the rest of the heroes in New York for the battle against Onslaught. The Hulk and Banner were separated after he destroyed Onslaught's body. Banner was among the heroes who sacrificed themselves to destroy Onslaught, and the Savage Hulk was again unleashed on the world. Banner was seemingly killed when Onslaught was destroyed, but like all the other heroes who had seemingly sacrificed their lives, Banner had actually been transported to the Counter-Earth pocket dimension created by Franklin Richards.

In this new pocket universe, Banner and the new heroes were reborn. He lived a new life where he had gone to State University with Reed Richards, Victor von Doom, Tony Stark, and Hank Pym. Along with Tony's friend Conner "Rebel" O'Reilly, they formed the Atomic Knights of the Round Table. Banner worked with them on an exosuit project; however, none of them could decide how to use it. Banner shifted his focus to gamma radiation research instead. After university, he began working for Stark Industries.

Stark Industries became a target of the terrorist organization Hydra, secretly funded by Victor von Doom. At the time, Banner was creating a Gamma Bomb for the military which Hydra set off with Banner inside. The resulting explosion mutated Banner into a new incarnation of the Hulk. He clashed with Stark in his new persona as Iron Man. The Hulk escaped and was later manipulated by Loki to attack the newly formed Avengers at their Avengers Island headquarters. The battle injured many of their members, decimated their base, and caused a breach in its power supply, the powerful gamma core. The Hulk aided the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and the Avengers in containing the breach and saving the Eastern United States from destruction.

The Hulk and his cousin, Jennifer Walters, sought the aid of Leonard Samson to find a means to stabilize the Hulk's mutation. Samson, also mutated by gamma rays, received a blood transfusion to stabilize his mutation, and Jennifer impulsively took a transfusion as well, mutating herself into the She-Hulk. They joined together as the Hulkbusters and offered their services to Tony Stark.

The Hulk aided the world's heroes in stopping Galactus. The Hulk also aided the world's heroes when the Counter-Earth dimension was briefly merged with a universe from a distant cosmos (designated Earth-50) to create Earth-13031 and prevented an invasion from the Skrulls and the Negative Zone before the proper status quo was restored.

While Bruce Banner was reborn into a new life on Counter-Earth, the Savage Hulk, again freed from Banner, still existed independently on Earth. The Hulk's body began giving off radiation equivalent to a nuclear bomb. The army found that anything that came within five feet of him would be melted by radiation. Betty showed up and the Hulk broke free. Moments later Jason the Renegade stepped from the shadows and shot the Hulk with a Pantheon gun which caused the soldiers to panic and begin shooting. The Hulk laughed off the bullets and escaped with Janis, leaving Betty in tears.

The Pantheon had become a democracy and had outvoted Paris to bring the Hulk back into the group. Paris approached Henry Gyrich with a proposition to take down the Hulk for good. The Pantheon attacked Janis and appeared to kill the Hulk, but what he really destroyed was actually nothing more than a mindless cloned body that the Pantheon had created. The Hulk destroyed their ship and headed towards Washington, D.C., with Janis, where she told the military that the Hulk would not run any longer. If they attacked him, then he would attack a major city in retaliation.

While he was traveling through the Midwest, the Hulk and Janis were attacked by the Thunderbolts, whom he easily defeated. He then destroyed a dam to fulfill his promise of retaliation. The Hulk began having chest pains that would force him to keel over in pain, although at the same time he was physically becoming more powerful. Doctor Strange found that because of his split from Banner, excess energy from an alternate universe was channeling through him that could destroy the universe.

Under extreme emotional stress, the Hulk returned to the Gamma Base where he had been created. He was ambushed by the newest person placed in charge of capturing the Hulk, Colonel Cary St. Lawrence. The Hulk considered this the ultimate invasion of privacy because he considered the Gamma Base "his place." He was about to kill her when he had the idea to take over an island in the Florida Keys which he renamed Hulk Island. He saved the inhabitants from a hurricane, and they grew to respect him.

A few days after the hurricane, Janis showed up with an alternate incarnation of the Hulk who had come to Earth when the Hulk was teleported away by Doctor Strange. He offered his help to the Hulk, but the shrapnel in his brain was making him angry at everything; thus, he fought him until he was taken back to his own time.

The Hulk was manipulated by Apocalypse into becoming one of his Horsemen. The Hulk agreed to serve Apocalypse if he would remove the shrapnel from the Hulk's brain. As War, he battled the Absorbing Man and the Juggernaut, but they had been sent by the New World Order with Rick and Janis Jones to stop this new incarnation of the Hulk, who was using the power of the Celestials. He nearly killed the Absorbing Man and the Juggernaut, but Rick jumped in and the Hulk swung at him. Seeing the crippled body of his best friend caused the Hulk to break free of the mind control and flee in shame.

The alien Mercy sensed the Hulk's desire for death and sent him on a path to fight Mr. Hyde, but the Hulk wanted a good death and refused to be killed by what he considered an unworthy foe. Wanting to help put the Hulk out of his misery, Mercy sent him to one of his deadliest enemies, the Abomination. Sulking through New York, the Hulk found the Abomination, but because of all the damage done to his own brain, he hallucinated that he was in the Abomination's place and began letting out all his built-up rage from the last few months on him.

By this point, the Celestials had come to judge which universe would live and which one would die: Universe-616 or Franklin Richards' Counter-Earth pocket dimension. They sent their agent Ashema to Earth to show Franklin Richards his handiwork and force him to choose between one world and another.

At this point, the Hulk on Earth-616 was on a rampage through New York City, bringing Doc Samson, Hercules, Spider-Man, and the Thunderbolts together to try and stop him. Meanwhile on Counter-Earth, the Banner-Hulk was on a rampage through New York City as well clashing with the Thing and Thor. Doctor Strange found a link between the trans-dimensional energies coming from the Hulk's body and from Franklin Richards' mysterious blue ball. Bringing the ball into close proximity to the Hulk caused both him and Spider-Man to be transported to Counter-Earth; there, the two Hulks clashed, attracting the attention of the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Doctor Doom. It was decided that to save both realities from destruction, all the Earth-616 heroes would have to return to their native world. Both the Hulk and Banner were brought back with them. When they breached the gulf between both worlds, the Hulk and Banner were merged back together again.

After finally being reunited with Banner, the Hulk was transported to the site of his birth, the Gamma Bomb test site. The strain on his body was slowly killing him, and he was giving off massive amounts of radiation that were sufficient enough for the Maestro to absorb and return to life. The Maestro was taken by trolls to be the newest mind to inhabit the Destroyer.

Bruce and General Ross were attacked by the Destroyer and its troll minions. During the battle, the Destroyer stepped in a pool of the Hulk's blood. It recognized that the Hulk and the Maestro were the same being and drew the Hulk's mind inside of it. The Hulk was able to outsmart the Maestro and crush him under a rockslide. Bruce was brought back to Gamma Base, where he established some kind of control over the Hulk, started rebuilding his life with Betty, and made peace with her father, General Ross.

Later, the Troyjans attacked and Bruce and agreed to meet with their leader, Lord Armageddon. After seeing Bruce leave with the aliens, the press believed that he had heroically sacrificed himself to save the president's daughter. Armageddon wanted the Hulk's help in resurrecting his son Trauma with the device that the Leader had previously used to bring Marlo back to life. The device needed a very large gamma power source in order to work and he planned on sacrificing the Hulk to do it. Bruce refused, but the Hulk agreed and stepped into the machine. During the process, however, the Hulk gave off too much radiation and incinerated Trauma's body. Armageddon agreed to live in peace out of fear of punishment from the Silver Surfer, but after the Hulk left, he leveled Freehold and killed everyone living there, including the gamma beings Jailbait and Hotshot. Bruce was given a secret pardon for his crimes as the Hulk for saving the President's daughter.

Just when everything started going right for the Hulk, Betty nearly died due to gamma radiation poisoning that resulted from her time with the Hulk. Banner was able to find a cure using his blood in a transfusion. But then she was pushed over the edge by the transfusion when the Abomination secretly switched it with his blood instead as revenge. Banner went insane and tried to kill himself seconds after Betty was pronounced dead. Doc Samson stopped Banner, but he later transformed into the Hulk and escaped from Gamma Base. Banner began coming up with elaborate scenarios to kill himself, but he would always transform into the Hulk seconds before death.

With Betty dead and Banner believed to have killed her, General Ross again started to hunt the Hulk. Banner figured out the truth behind Betty's death when he went to the homeworld of the Watcher and was given infinite knowledge. He returned to Earth to get revenge on the Abomination, but he let him go. Confronting General Ross, Banner told him that they were both to blame for Betty's death.

Due to the deteriorating effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and the chaos ravaging his mindscape, Banner struck a deal with the Hulk's three dominant personalities - the Green Hulk, the Gray "Joe Fixit" Hulk and the "Professor" Hulk - essentially to time-share their existence in return for stabilizing his fractured psyche and providing him with release from his disease. Despite the intervention of General John Ryker, Bruce was able to retain control until the Leader provided the means to cure Bruce, using genetic samples taken from the corpse of Brian Banner and added to the Hulk's DNA by Ant-Man. The transformation back into Bruce Banner triggered a catalytic reaction that repaired the damage to Bruce's cellular structure and cured the disease.

The original Defenders, including the Hulk, re-formed when Yandroth surfaced again to menace the world. Though the heroes defeated his plan, Yandroth used his sorcery to levy a deathbed curse upon their heads, binding them to come together in times of crisis. The curse magnified the egos of the cursed quartet until they became mentally unstable. They became the Order, seeking to end all threats to the Earth by taking control of it. Other heroes fought them, and the energies unleashed by the battle were harnessed to resurrect and further empower Yandroth. Coming to their senses, the Defenders stopped fighting and Yandroth was reduced back to his human form, defeated, and imprisoned.

Banner sought refuge and peace in Alaska, where he lived as a hermit loosely connected to the town community. He was eventually tracked down by Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D., who required his help in defeating the Hydra space weapon called the Godseye, which could detonate all the nuclear bombs in the world. Sent up as the Hulk, he discovered that the Godseye was actually a rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. weapon that could match the strength of any enemy. In the ensuing battle, the Godseye found that though it could try, it could not match the increasing power of the Hulk, since it was unable to duplicate Banner's unique ability to channel gamma energy even if it could duplicate the energy itself, and it exploded.

A S.H.I.E.L.D.-commissioned space shuttle was sent to retrieve the Hulk, or so he believed. Seizing the opportunity to be rid of the Hulk, a group of super-heroes known as the Illuminati decided to jettison the shuttle into space to a planet with no intelligent lifeforms. Unfortunately, there was a navigation error, and the Hulk landed on the planet Sakaar, a world filled with barbarian tribes and gladiator battles and ruled by a corrupt empire. The planet was situated near a portal, which gave it access to several different cultures and technologies. The Hulk was captured and became a gladiator. The Hulk subsequently ushered an uprising, overthrowing the current regime.

Installing himself as king, the Hulk met and fell in love with a queen named Caiera the Oldstrong. Together, they ushered in a new age of peace and prosperity for Sakaar. Caiera became pregnant with the Hulk's child but died when the shuttle that brought the Hulk to Sakaar suddenly exploded, killing millions of people. Driven to new heights of rage and fury, the Hulk swore revenge against the Illuminati, whom he held responsible for the death of Caiera the Oldstrong. With his allies, the Warbound, the Hulk rode atop the prow of an alien warship as it set course for Earth.

Reaching the Moon, the Hulk defeated the Illuminati member Black Bolt - who was actually a Skrull impersonating Black Bolt - not the real one. The Hulk then proceeded to New York City, where he demanded that the city be evacuated and the presence of the Illuminati. As the time limit for the evacuation of New York had passed, the Hulk defeated Iron Man, and Avengers Tower was destroyed in the process.

The heroes engaged the Hulk and his Warbound, but were defeated. After the Hulk became allied with Hercules, Namora, and the Angel, General "Thunderbolt" Ross called in the U.S. Army to dispatch the Hulk. Despite the Army's best efforts, including the use of adamantium bullets, the Hulk instead defeated them. Alongside his Warbound, he transformed an area near Madison Square Garden into a gladiatorial arena.

Doctor Strange, mystically invoking a powerful old enemy, Zom, battled the Hulk. Barely holding back the demon Zom, Doctor Strange began to exhibit some of the demon's own traits. Strange sent the Hulk crashing into a building that crumbled upon him and the innocent bystanders who had gathered to watch the fight. The Hulk had protected the innocent bystanders. Distraught by his actions almost killing innocents, Doctor Strange stopped fighting and, uncaring, the Hulk gave Strange a lesson on control and pummeled him into the ground.

After implanting "obedience disks" in all of the captured heroes, the Hulk set Black Bolt, Mister Fantastic, Doctor Strange, and Iron Man into the arena. The Hulk had them fight each other. In the end the Hulk spared them, declaring he intended justice and not murder. The Hulk planned to destroy New York City and leave the Illuminati to their shame. Soon, a nearly insane Sentry arrived on the scene and a cataclysmic battle ensued between him and the Hulk. Sentry unleashed forces that nearly destroyed what was left of New York, but ultimately, it was a stalemate between the two. The Hulk then briefly reverted to Bruce Banner, and the Sentry reverted to Bob Reynolds. In their human forms, Bruce Banner was able to knock out Bob Reynolds.

Warbound member Miek impaled the Hulk's longtime friend Rick Jones and revealed that he had intentionally allowed the mass deaths on Sakaar to happen, knowing they were caused by former followers of the Red King and not the Illuminati. The Hulk and the Brood No-Name attacked Miek in retaliation. Betrayed and enraged, the Hulk unwillingly began releasing energy that threatened the Eastern Seaboard and prompted Tony Stark to activate a series of satellite devices that opened fire and eventually left the Hulk in his Bruce Banner form, whom the devices rendered unconscious. S.H.I.E.L.D. imprisoned Banner in a facility three miles underground, and the other Warbound members were placed under U.S. custody.

While Banner was incarcerated at Gamma Base, a new mystery revealed itself when the Abomination was found murdered in his homeland of Russia. The perpetrator soon revealed himself as a massive creature referring to itself as the Red Hulk. This new incarnation of the Hulk decimated the likes of She-Hulk, Iron Man, Rick Jones in his new powered-up identity of a creature named A-Bomb, and even Thor.

Banner was set free when the clash between the Red Hulk and A-Bomb caused an earthquake that damaged his prison. The potential threat to Banner's life triggered his transformation into the original green Hulk, and he wasted no time in confronting his new nemesis. The Hulk, caught unprepared for Red Hulk's fighting style, was defeated in their first meeting and suffered a broken arm in the process, but the outcome was much different during their second meeting where the Hulk found a potential weakness in Red Hulk and exploited it. Once Red Hulk was beaten, the Hulk left without finding out Red Hulk's true identity; however, Banner began spending his time trying to track down Red Hulk before he could do more damage. On his journey, Banner ended up in Las Vegas where the Hulk had to team up with the Sentry, Ms. Marvel, the Moon Knight, and even Brother Voodoo to quell a pack of Wendigo from devouring everyone inside a casino.

Meanwhile, on Sakaar, the Hulk's thought-dead son, Skaar, had risen. Skaar was progeny of the Hulk and Caiera the Oldstrong. After Caiera's death, a cocoon containing Skaar fell into the lake of fire. After a period of time, Skaar emerged from the cocoon, appearing to be the age equivalent to a human preteen. He quickly grew into what seemed to be an adult. Skaar wanted revenge on the Hulk because he felt the Hulk had abandoned him and his world to death.

Skaar was exiled from his planet and was warped to Earth. Skaar confronted his father, who was then in his savage persona. Skaar was disgusted with his father's diminished intelligence. The Hulk engaged Skaar in a fight, which created a fissure that endangered a nuclear power plant. The Warbound were trying to prevent a nuclear catastrophe when they were unexpectedly aided by the Hulk and Skaar. Skaar, using the Old Power, sealed the containment building and saved the workers at the plant. Skaar subsequently impaled the Hulk and left, claiming he would come back when he was worth killing.

Sometime later, the Grandmaster came to the Hulk with a proposition: if the Hulk chose to participate in a game and won, Grandmaster would bring his love, Jarella, back to life. The Hulk agreed and was told he could pick a group of allies to aid him in the game. The Hulk chose his former teammates in the Defenders: Namor, the Silver Surfer, and Doctor Strange. When the time came to meet their opponents, the Collector appeared with the Hulk's nemesis, the Red Hulk, and his team -- consisting of Baron Mordo, Terrax the Tamer, and Tiger Shark and known as the Offenders. The Grandmaster gave the Savage Hulk Bruce Banner's mind and had each team member transported to the times and places from which the Hulk had gathered the Defenders. The Hulk faced off against Red Hulk in Atlantis, where Red Hulk pierced the Hulk's heart with a cosmic energy-charged trident. The Hulk was eventually revived by the Grandmaster, after which he knocked out Red Hulk with one punch.

Afterwards, Banner was captured by A.I.M. and was detained underneath Gamma Base to be used to create a gamma-powered super-soldier program, headed by M.O.D.O.K. and backed by General Ross. M.O.D.O.K. was responsible for the creation of Red Hulk, Rick Jones' transformation into A-Bomb, and the evil split personality of Doc Samson. The plot was uncovered by She-Hulk. To infiltrate an A.I.M. base, Jennifer recruited reporter Ben Urich to help uncover the truth, and Urich, in turn, recruited Peter Parker to aid in the photography. A battle soon ruptured the tank containing Banner, causing him to transform into the Hulk. When the two Hulks clashed, Red Hulk used his radiation absorption abilities to steal the gamma energy from inside the Hulk, preventing him from ever becoming the Hulk again. As the base reached critical mass, the defenseless Bruce Banner was rescued by a now-intelligent A-Bomb.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Norman Osborn sent Ares to learn if Banner could still turn into the Hulk. When Ares attacked Banner, Rick rushed to his defense, but was quickly defeated. Ares was soon outsmarted by Banner, and he was locked inside a room built to hold the Hulk. After evading Ares, Bruce and Rick parted ways.

Banner confronted Skaar in the Mojave Desert. After much deliberation, Skaar grudgingly agreed to allow Bruce Banner to train him on how to defeat the Hulk, should he ever return. Bruce lured the Juggernaut into fighting Skaar, and then Wolverine and Daken. Soon after, the pair encountered Norman Osborn's Femme Fatales, Victoria Hand and Ms. Marvel. Bruce discovered Betty Ross was alive, and was immediately attacked by a Harpy who turned out to be Marlo Chandler. The pair come to the aid of the Fantastic Four, who were in the middle of a battle with the Mole Man and later Tyrannus. Later on, Bruce saved Skaar from Doctor Doom. Bruce and Skaar tried to protect Hank Pym from the Leader, but in this they failed.

Bruce then assembled his own group of Avengers to try and save Betty. Betty, who was angry with him for having married another woman, was used by the Leader to distract Bruce so that he could "Hulkify" many A.I.M. marines and heroes. Bruce was captured by the Leader and hooked up to a virtual reality machine. He was unwilling to leave the virtual world until he was convinced by Doctor Doom, who was also trapped. When Bruce escaped, he was saved from Doctor Doom by the Red She-Hulk, who was stabbed by Skaar and turned out to be Betty herself. The Leader escaped and the Cathexis Ray Generator machinery was reversed, and all the radiation from the Hulked-Out Heroes returned to the Helicarrier. Bruce then absorbed all the energy to contain it at the behest of Reed Richards. Doc Samson died trying to help. The Helicarrier crashed, and from the rubble, there emerged a new incarnation of the Hulk, who came to be called the Worldbreaker.

Skaar had his chance to fight the Hulk at last. During the confrontation, the Hulk rescued innocent bystanders endangered by their fight. Skaar reacted to this act of compassion by ceasing his assault, but the Hulk continued his, causing Skaar to revert to human form. The Hulk was reminded of Banner's own abusive father and reverted to human form as well, recognizing that he would never be able to continue that fight without Bruce becoming Brian Banner. Banner apologized and embraced his son, and Skaar accepted his love.

The Red Hulk set himself up in the White House, planning to take over America. However, the Hulk showed up to foil his plan. After having Ross imprisoned in Gamma Base, Steve Rogers released him to stop the Leader and M.O.D.O.K.'s joint contingency plan called Scorched Earth. Banner was put in charge of countering the program and learned how to shut it down with clues from the depowered M.O.D.O.K. Banner assisted the Red Hulk and shut down the Living Supercomputer running Scorched Earth, not knowing that this was actually a distraction created by M.O.D.O.K to cover the trail of his cloned successor, M.O.D.O.K Superior.

The Hulk family, composed of Skaar, Korg, A-Bomb, the Hulk, the She-Hulk, the Savage She-Hulk, and the Red She-Hulk all went into seclusion, ignoring the attempts of the government to bring them out of hiding. The Hulk's other son, and Skaar's twin, Hiro-Kala, set his sights on Earth, planning to destroy it with the planet K'ai. Hiro-Kala was confronted by his father. Skaar used his own old power to seal Hiro-Kala in a sphere of stone. Hiro-Kala was merged with the Worldmind to create a miniature sun, to use the Old Power to warm K'ai.

After a wishing well's power was unleashed, the Hulk found himself facing some of his mightiest foes. One of them was the alien warlord Arm'Cheddon. He defeated and depowered the She-Hulk and A-Bomb as part of his revenge scheme against the Hulk. He then revealed that he had reconfigured his power-channeling abilities so that he could channel the Hulk's energy; the stronger the Hulk got, the stronger he got. When the Red She-Hulk interfered with the conflict, he hit her with the full force of his power. In a rage, the Hulk defeated Arm'Cheddon.

When the Serpent was freed by Skadi, he called seven hammers to Earth. The Hulk was transformed by one of these hammers, becoming one of the Worthy: Nul, Breaker of Worlds. Rampaging through South and Central America, which led to a conflict with the Avengers, Nul was eventually transported to New York City where, teaming with the Angrir-possessed Thing, the two began battling a lonesome Thor. After defeating the Thing, Thor stated that he never could beat the Hulk, and instead removed him from the battle by launching him into Earth Orbit, after which Thor collapsed from exhaustion. Landing in Romania, Nul immediately began heading for the base of the vampire-lord Dracula. Opposed by Dracula's forces, including a legion of monsters, Nul was seemingly unstoppable. Only after the intervention of Raizo Kodo's Forgiven was Nul briefly slowed down. Ultimately, Nul made his way to Castle Dracula where the timely arrival of Kodo and Forgiven member Inka, disguised as Betty Ross, was able to throw off the effects of the Nul possession. Throwing aside the hammer, the Hulk regained control, and promptly left upon realizing "Betty's" true nature. Claiming that he wanted to be alone, the Hulk somehow appeared to separate himself from Bruce Banner and disappeared.

In truth, the Hulk resorted to Doctor Doom to separate himself from Bruce Banner, resulting in him removing the portion of the brain controlled by Banner and moving it to a gamma-free cloned body of Bruce Banner. The Hulk moved underground, where he lived with a tribe of Moloids until Commander Amanda von Doom contacted him for help to hunt down an insane Bruce Banner.

The Hulk helped the Mad Squad (Doom's team) to assault an island which Banner used as a base, where he was creating gamma-mutated animals in a series of experiments to become the Hulk again. The attack resulted in Banner's vaporization in a Gamma Bomb, which resulted in Bruce Banner again sharing the Hulk's mind, but still with his insane mind, and the Hulk refused to have any memories of his time as Banner. With the transformation shifted so that the Hulk was the "dominant" persona, reverting to Banner when he became too calm, Banner led the Hulk to a journey in different locations around the world, including an old Russian space station, the City of Sasquatches; there, he protected the Sasquatch from Kraven the Hunter, and an old S.H.I.E.L.D. base, which ended with the Hulk waking up strapped to a chair with a needle pointed above him and Banner talking on a video screen. The recording of Banner revealed that he had finally discovered the cure for the Hulk, the components of which being what the Hulk had been gathering throughout his "journey;" however, Banner also revealed that he was no longer interested in controlling the Hulk, having come to recognize that he was a better person with the Hulk than he would have been without him. This prompted the two personas to join forces again to investigate Doom's latest plan, using the gamma cure that Banner had devised to restore the animals on Banner's former island headquarters back to normal.

Bruce's reunion with his persona as the Hulk caused a reversion of the Hulk's intelligence. While spending time alone in the American desert, the Hulk was caught in the middle of a conflict between the army and Aquarius of the Zodiac. The Hulk brought the Avengers a piece of Aquarius' suit that he had torn from the villain to investigate his identity, and he remained with the Avengers to confront the Zodiac, as well as Thanos the Mad Titan, who revealed himself to be the group's master. The Hulk additionally assisted the Avengers during their war against Cyclops and the Phoenix Five.

After officially returning to the Avengers' ranks, Bruce Banner approached S.H.I.E.L.D. to offer them a new way to put both his and the Hulk's abilities at their service. Bruce's intelligence could be used to create new technology for the betterment of humanity, and the Hulk's strength would be used against S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enemies. During his tenure working for S.H.I.E.L.D., the Hulk battled the Quintronic Man and the Byzantine. The Hulk even became part of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret splinter branch named T.I.M.E. to fight a group of time-travelers called the Chronarchists, who intended to reknit history in their image.

While serving with the Avengers, Bruce began to grow suspicious of Tony Stark. During an incident with an alternate reality team of Avengers, Bruce learned of the impending death of the multiverse. Finally putting all the pieces together, Bruce realized that the Illuminati had reconvened, despite all they had done to him. Furious, he confronted Tony Stark, using tranquilizers to prevent himself from transforming into the Hulk. Backed into a corner, Tony was forced to reveal all he knew about the incursions and the Illuminati's actions in fighting them. Seeing no other solution, Bruce agreed to join the Illuminati in their work, protecting the Earth in secret while looking for the answers to saving the multiverse.

While with the Illuminati, Bruce designed a device that would allow him to control when and to what degree he turned into the Hulk. Shortly after joining the group, they faced an incursion with Earth-4290001. The heroes of this reality, the Great Society, had also been fighting the incursions, but like the Illuminati, had run out of ways to avert an incursion without bloodshed. The two groups met to discuss what to do next, but tensions between the two groups flared up, and a battle for the survival of their respective Earths began.

The Great Society quickly took the upper hand. Bruce fought their leader the Sun God, but despite fully unleashing the Hulk, he was defeated and knocked unconscious. The Illuminati won the fight when Doctor Strange unleashed an eldritch horror which killed the Great Society. With no other choices left, the Illuminati debated whether to destroy the other Earth. None of them were willing or able to pull the trigger, until Namor took the matter out of their hands and did it. Tensions between Namor and the Black Panther spilled over, with the two nearly killing each other before Bruce separated them. After confessing that he had been behind the destruction of Wakanda at the hands of Thanos' forces, Namor left the group.

Facing another incursion immediately afterwards, the Illuminati resolved to die with their world. Bruce travelled to the place where he had first become the Hulk, buying a six-pack of beer and declaring that this was how he would finally be rid of his alter-ego. When their world survived despite the timer reaching zero, the Illuminati reconvened, debating what this meant. They were unaware that Namor had released the Illuminati's prisoners, formed the Cabal, and razed the other Earth.

One of Bruce's own S.H.I.E.L.D. assistants, Melinda Leucenstern, shot him in the head on orders of the Ancient Order of the Shield because they determined he was going to cause an extinction-level event. Having suffered severe brain damage, Bruce was eventually cured by Tony Stark using the Extremis virus, which further increased Bruce's mental capacity as a side effect. Not long afterwards, the Hulk and many other heroes were exposed to countless secrets kept by the late Uatu the Watcher. The vision he witnessed made Bruce mistakenly believe that Stark was responsible for him becoming the Hulk, since he had secretly tampered with the shielding of the Gamma Bomb on behalf of General Ross. As part of his misguided revenge attempt against Iron Man, Bruce used his new intellect to tweak the Extremis dose in his body and unleash a new persona for the Hulk, the super-intelligent Doc Green. Doc Green made peace with Tony after learning that the Gamma Bomb's original shielding had been over-bolstered, and thus Tony's tampering had actually refined the bomb's explosive potential so that it would not disintegrate everyone within the blast radius, with the result having been that Tony's actions had actually saved Bruce's life.

After coming to the conclusion that the world was in danger due to its many Gamma Mutates, Doc Green determined that they needed to be neutralized. He developed a serum made from Adamantium nanobots that absorbed gamma energy and used it to depower A-Bomb, Skaar, the Red She-Hulk, the Gamma Corps, and finally, Red Hulk. The only Gamma Mutate Doc Green did not depower was She-Hulk, since he determined she was the only Gamma Mutate whose life had been genuinely improved by her condition. Doc Green additionally realized that his intellect was slowly declining and would eventually return to its normal levels, those of the original primality of the Hulk.

Despite his transformation into Doc Green, Bruce remained a member of the Illuminati, now joined by his old friend Amadeus Cho. After their actions became known to the Avengers and then the world at large, the Illuminati were forced to go on the run. While the Cabal dealt with the incursions by violently destroying the other Earths, the Illuminati explored several avenues to find a permanent, bloodless solution to the incursions.

After coming to an agreement with Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D., who had been hunting them for months, the Illuminati put a plan into motion, helping Namor betray the Cabal and leave them stranded in a dying universe.

Realizing that it was futile to stop the death of the Multiverse, the Illuminati refocused their efforts to surviving its collapse. They built a Life Raft that would allow a number of chosen people to survive the end of the Multiverse. When the final incursion took place between Earth-616 and Earth-1610, Doc Green fought alongside the other heroes of his world, but ultimately perished in the final incursion.

He was resurrected, along with the rest of his universe, when Reed Richards used the powers of the Molecule Man to rebuild the Multiverse.

When an experimental fusion reactor started melting down, Bruce used the Hulk to absorb all of its radiation. However, the new type of radiation being used on the plant threatened to cause the Hulk to detonate. The Hulk's friend Amadeus Cho assisted the Hulk, and in the process of saving his life, he used special nanites to transfer Banner's powers to himself. Even though he had become effectively gamma-free, Bruce started experimenting on himself with gamma-irradiated cells at his laboratory in Utah. Bruce's experiments caused him to become the target of one of the visions of an Inhuman precognitive named Ulysses Cain, who foretold that Bruce would eventually transform into the Hulk and cause an onslaught. When a contingent of super heroes confronted Bruce Banner about the vision, they learned of his experiments. Banner became agitated, and Hawkeye shot him in the head with an arrow equipped with a specially custom-built tip. It was eventually revealed during Hawkeye's trial that the arrow tip had been provided by Banner himself, and he had requested Clint to shoot him if it even became apparent that he would again transform into the Hulk.

Bruce's dead body was stolen by the ninja clan known as the Hand shortly after his funeral. The Avengers Unity Division attempted to stop the Hand's resurrection ritual, but arrived too late. Following a brief confrontation, the rampage of the Hulk, now again mindless, was finally contained within a magical doorway of Voodoo's creation, which allowed the sorcerer to enter Banner's soul and cleanse it from the Hand's corruption. Banner reverted to his human form and died in the process. When Hydra took over the United States by the hand of an evil doppelganger of Captain America, head scientist Arnim Zola resurrected Bruce Banner to use the Hulk in an assault against the resistance known as the Underground. Even though Banner refused to assist Hydra, the side of him that was the Hulk complied with pleasure. As a result of a time-delayed device Zola had implanted, the Hulk's resurrection was temporary. Shortly before the destruction of the Underground's base, The Mount, his body deteriorated, and he again died. Banner's body was left behind beneath the ruins of the Mount.

The Hulk's third consecutive resurrection came by the hand of the Challenger, an exiled Elder of the Universe who had returned for a rematch against the Grandmaster. He related to the Hulk's rage, and brought him back to life to act as his ace in the hole during the final round of a contest between each of the Elders' teams, the Black Order and the Lethal Legion, whose objective had been to seize the Pyramoids deployed on Earth by their masters during each round. The Hulk agreed to help the Challenger retrieve the final Pyramoid since the Earth was going to be destroyed as soon as the contest ended, and the Hulk saw it as a way to free himself of the nuisance of humanity. By this time, Bruce Banner's persona, who had been overwhelmed by the Hulk's psyche, came to the realization that this succession of resurrections was not a coincidence, but simply a manifestation of the Hulk's innate immortality.

During the final round, the Hulk rampaged to the Avengers Auxiliary Headquarters, where Voyager, the Grandmaster's own secret agent within the Avengers, had teleported the final Pyramoid. The Hulk quickly defeated the Avengers that tried to stand on his way, and he even destroyed the Vision. Even though the Hulk managed to make his way to the vault where Voyager was hiding the Pyramoid, Wonder Man convinced him that the Challenger was as much at fault as the rest of humanity of not leaving him alone. When the Pyramoid was within his grasp, the Hulk destroyed it instead, costing the Challenger his victory. Following the Challenger's defeat, Banner went under the radar, with the resurrection of the Hulk becoming nothing more than a rumor to the general public. Bruce started travelling the country aimlessly looking for ways to put the Hulk to use as a tool to bring justice in order to atone for his own sins. Around this time, the predominant personality of the Hulk became that of the Devil Hulk, a repressed alter of Bruce who was articulate and spiteful, but was entirely devoted to protecting Bruce, whose transformation was triggered mostly only when injured or killed, and after sunset.

Following his return, the Hulk was targeted by enemies in two fronts. The U.S. Hulk Operations, rebranded as Shadow Base and led by General Fortean, set out to capture and analyze the Hulk, while the demonic and otherworldly entity known as the One Below All began to use the soul of Bruce's father Brian to influence the land of the living from the Below-Place, the deepest layer of reality below even Hell itself, and the secret source of gamma radiation. It was because of this connection to the Below-Place that Gamma Mutates could be reborn, since they were plunged into the Below-Place after death, and could return to the real world through the metaphysical Green Door that connected both planes of existence.

Due to the machinations of the One Below All, Brian's soul possessed Bruce's former colleague Walter Langkowski, the gamma-mutated Sasquatch. The Hulk managed to stop the rampaging Sasquatch by draining him of his gamma energy, inadvertently absorbing Brian's possession as well. Under Brian's influence, the Hulk traveled to the Los Diablos Military Base where he came to blows against the Absorbing Man, who had become a Shadow Base operative. By absorbing the Hulk's gamma energy, Creel became possessed by Brian, who used him to absorb all the residual gamma radiation from the gamma bomb's detonation, opening a Green Door that plunged him and the Hulk into the Below-Place, as well as a third party interested in the Hulk also present at the scene, the task force Gamma Flight. In the Below-Place, the Hulk and Bruce Banner were split apart, and Brian attempted to make of Bruce the One Below All's new vessel to bring the Below-Place to Earth. After making his way through the One Below All's demons, the Hulk managed to foil Brian's plans once Gamma Flight member Puck convinced the Absorbing Man to make things right. The Absorbing Man funneled gamma energy into the Hulk, giving him the strength to disperse the One Below All with a single thunderclap. Afterward, the Hulk merged back with Bruce and closed the Green Door, returning everyone to Earth.

Due to the traumatic experience in the Below-Place, Bruce reached out to Betty Ross, with whom he had not established contact since returning from the dead. The Bushwacker, a Shadow Base operative on Bruce's trail, killed Betty when she was reunited with Bruce, triggering a transformation into a red form of the vicious Harpy. In the turmoil of Betty being shot, the Hulk was approached by Doc Samson, who had also returned to life through the Green Door and sought Bruce for answers about it. Together with Samson, the Hulk investigated Shadow Base and the disappearance of the body of Rick Jones, who had died during Hydra's short-lived empire. In a confrontation with the Bushwacker, Bruce manifested his Joe Fixit persona, albeit with no accompanying physical transformation. While hiding from Shadow Base, Bruce was attacked by a mutated Rick Jones, turned into the Abomination by his pursuers. With the Harpy's help, the Hulk managed to evade Shadow Base and dig up Rick Jones from the mutagenic shell that had turned him into the Abomination. While in hiding, Bruce investigated the disappearance of General Ross' body, suspecting it to be the work of Shadow Base. As a result, he became tangled in the efforts of Venom to stop Carnage from awakening an ancient symbiote god named Knull by retrieving the traces of symbiotes left in the bodies, dead or alive, of anybody who had ever been bonded to one. For a brief time, the Venom symbiote chose the Hulk as a host in an attempt to stop Carnage, but his gambit failed and Carnage managed to defeat him. Carnage would be subsequently killed by Venom.

When Rick awoke, he shared with Bruce and his allies the location of the Shadow Base's headquarters. They assaulted Shadow Base, joining forces with Gamma Flight in the process, who were coincidentally raiding the facility at the same time. The Hulk confronted and killed General Fortean, who had used the Abomination tissue on himself. In the aftermath, Banner seized command of Shadow Base's assets, and set out to use its resources to wage war on the human world for their abuse of the environment, sparking a counterculture movement in the process that embraced his ideals.

Unbeknownst to Bruce, the Leader had been studying the Below-Place and managed to replace Brian as the host of the One Below All. Sterns had additionally infiltrated Bruce Banner's circles, having taken control of Rick Jones' mind and having infiltrated Bruce's mindscape by taking over his Green Scar alter. During his war against the human world, the Hulk combated Roxxon. In an attempt to rid of the Hulk, Roxxon's CEO Dario Agger enlisted the help of Xemnu the Living Titan, who used his hypnosis to brainwash the world into believing that he was the one true Hulk and everybody's hero. In order to stop Roxxon's interference, the Leader, as the Green Scar, helped the Hulk fight back and put an end to Xemnu's brainwashing, while also caging the Devil Hulk persona within Banner's mindscape. Due to this, Savage Hulk became the Hulk's main manifestation again.

The Leader eventually made his move when he used Rick Jones to overload the Hulk with gamma energy, causing him to decimate a town where he was present. While the Hulk was fending off Gamma Flight to avoid capture, the Leader tightened his hold over Banner's mindscape, subduing Bruce and Fixit as well. Devil Hulk managed to break free when the Leader attempted to bring Bruce to the Below-Place, but the ill-timed intervention of the childish Savage Hulk to stop the conflict resulted in Sterns seemingly killing the manifestation of the Devil Hulk alter. Savage Hulk and Joe Fixit were left behind in Banner's body, which was being held prisoner by Gamma Flight aboard the Alpha Flight Low-Orbit Space Station. In the Below-Place, Leader hooked Banner and the remains of the Devil Hulk to plant-like structures for some unrevealed purpose.

The Hulk was later met by Henry Gyrich, who was acting commander of the Alpha Flight Interstellar Defense and Diplomacy Initiative, which included authority of Gamma Flight. Gyrich informed the Hulk that he would get to decide what happened to him. He also told the Hulk that the manacles that held him could adjust in size, thus becoming Banner wouldn't get him free. Joe Fixit, however, was able to transform into Banner by emerging from the Hulk's body like a cocoon. Joe then knocked out Gyrich and the guards that were with him. While trying to escape, Joe was confronted by Gamma Flight and Doc Samson, resurrected in Walter Langkowski's body. Joe then used a gun he took from one of the guards to break open the space station's window and flee into outer space. Joe transformed into the Savage Hulk, allowing him to withstand the reentry through Earth's atmosphere. The Hulk landed near Coney Island, where he was confronted by the Thing as he got ashore. The Thing battled the Hulk until the Hulk transformed into Banner and the Joe Fixit persona convinced the Thing to stop. The two then talked it out, and the Thing decided to let the Hulk go.

Joe Fixit and the Savage Hulk went into hiding in New York City. Savage Hulk had been greatly weakened after having his gamma energy drained by the Leader after he took Banner and the Devil Hulk. So, Joe Fixit used thievery and scams to survive and tried to avoid becoming a hero, so he didn't draw attention to himself. After witnessing two police officers harass a member of the Teen Brigade, however, Joe Fixit decided to be a hero and transformed into Savage Hulk to aid the teen. After scaring off the police officers, Hulk was attacked by the U-Foes who were hired by Henry Gyrich to take him out.

The U-Foes took turns attacking Hulk, but when Vector accidentally sent Hulk flying all the way to New Jersey with a telekinetic attack, the U-Foes searched for him. After finding Hulk, X-Ray finished Hulk off with a blast of anti-gamma rays (cosmic rays), killing him. Savage Hulk and Joe Fixit both were sent to the Below-Place and found themselves staring down an enlarged Leader, who was possessed by the One Below All.

The Leader trapped Savage Hulk and Joe in the Below-Place by turning the Green Door into the Red Door and then sent various Qlippoth against Savage Hulk and Joe in an attempt to assimilate them. Unexpectedly, as X-Ray of the U-Foes bombarded Hulk's corpse with cosmic rays to prevent him from resurrecting, Joe Fixit was transformed into a Red Hulk and used his newfound power to smash through the Red Door, allowing him and Savage Hulk to escape. Joe then resurrected in the body of the Savage Hulk, no longer emaciated and with cosmic power running through him, much to the shock of the U-Foes.

With his strength restored, Joe easily overwhelmed the U-Foes to the point where Vector was forced to send Joe flying toward Manhattan with his telekinesis to save him and his team. After learning the U-Foes had let the Hulk get away, Gyrich swallowed his pride and asked the Avengers for help. The Avengers confronted Joe at a bar where he was having a few drinks. As the Avengers were about to battle Hulk, Betty as the Harpy appeared to aid Hulk. Later, Gamma Flight appeared to aid Hulk as well. During the fight, She-Hulk unexpectedly turned on her fellow Avengers to aid her cousin after learning from Betty that she also seen the Green Door. Gamma Flight eventually teleported away with Betty, She-Hulk, and Joe to a warehouse in Brooklyn formerly operated by the Kingpin. Joe and Betty then decided to make up and kiss.

Later, Joe and Betty had intercourse in a hotel room. The two then had a heart-to-heart talk where Joe admitted he left Bruce Banner in the Below-Place and Betty revealed that she liked how Joe never hid anything from her but became upset after remembering that he used to be a criminal enforcer in Las Vegas. Tired of Bruce and his personas keeping secrets from her, Betty decided to leave again. Joe then talked with She-Hulk and Jackie, telling them he was done hiding and planned to rescue Bruce Banner from the Below-Place.

Joe, Jen, and Jackie went to the Baxter Building to meet with the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. After a brief fight between Joe and the Avengers and other heroes, the Fantastic Four intervened and escorted Joe, Jen, and Jackie to the Forever Gate, which had the ability to send Joe to the Below-Place to rescue Bruce Banner. Joe was reluctant to pass through at first, but he was motivated to by Jackie who passed through the Forever Gate with him.

After arriving to the Below-Place, Joe Fixit and Savage Hulk separated into different beings and journeyed with Jackie through the Below-Place until they came across a fortress the Leader built to protect himself. Savage Hulk entered first and later Joe and Jackie. Joe and Savage Hulk fought a monstrously transformed Leader but were quickly overwhelmed. After coming to terms with her past, Jackie unleashed a beam of energy from her eyes that hurt the Leader, allowing Joe and Savage Hulk to separate the Leader from the One Below All and rescuing Bruce Banner. After confronting the One Below All who turned out to be an aspect of the One Above All who cryptically told them the purpose of the Hulk, Joe, Savage Hulk, and Jackie fled the Leader's crumbling fortress with the Leader and Banner. They were then met by the Thing and Walt Langkowski resurrected in Doc Samson's body and traveled back to Earth using the Forever Gate. Banner merged back with Joe Fixit and Savage Hulk, and after receiving clothing from Reed Richards snuck out of the Baxter Building and into the outside world.

Despite making peace with his alters, Bruce was deceived by D'Spayre (who disguised himself as Doctor Strange) and decided to take partial control of the Hulk, using magic that allowed Banner to take control of his subconscious for the service of an unnamed party. The next day, while in El Paso, Texas, a new malevolent persona called the Titan took control of Banner's body and killed a bunch of people, horrifying Banner and forcing him to go on the run. To ensure this didn't happen again and discounting on his alters, Banner used technology stolen from A.I.M. to fracture his psyche into parts, allowing him take full control of the Hulk. He fueled the Hulk's body with the Hulk's rage, which he generated in a section of his mind by pitting Hulk against various opponents, with specific opponents generating different levels of power. Banner also added nuclear bombs in Hulk's head to kill him in case he died but the Hulk lived on.

After taking control of Hulk, Banner made his way toward an old Stark tech armory in Wundagore where Tony Stark had created Project A.R.K., an interdimensional portal that Stark planned to use to evacuate people to safety during a crisis. After Banner defeated Stark and a contingent of remotely controlled Hulkbuster armors, Banner passed through the portal, despite warnings from Stark that it was too dangerous so Banner could find someplace peaceful to live in peace and solitude.

While traveling through the Arterial Dimension Between-Space, Banner was forcibly pulled into Earth-122 by its version of Bruce Banner who asked for his help.

After Banner-122 explained his world's history to Banner-616, a military force sent by President Ross appeared at Banner-122's hideout to apprehend Banner-122. Banner-616 went on to devastate it. He then fought and defeated Banner-122's former student Spider-Hulk when Ross tried and failed to hold him hostage. Finally, President Ross sent his team of gamma mutates, the Abominations. When the Abominations arrived, the equipment Banner used to control the Hulk was damaged, allowing the Titan persona to seize control of Hulk.

With the Titan in control, the Hulk devastated the Abominations. In desperation, Ross ordered that a Gamma Bomb be used on Hulk. Because this would kill thousands in nearby cities, Banner-122 killed Ross with his revolver. After Banner-616 regained control of Hulk by using the Savage Hulk persona, Banner-122 warned him of the incoming Gamma Bomb. Using Banner-122's interdimensional portal, Hulk sent the gamma energy released by the Gamma Bomb away and then entered the portal to continue his trip through the Between-Space.

Thor intercepted Banner on a mission to kill him after the Titan's rampage in El Paso. Shortly after Banner and Thor landed on the planet of Sakk-Reen, Sif transported Banner and Thor to the Black Hand of God, an arena where gladiatorial bloodsports was held. When Banner began overwhelming Thor, the spirit of Odin who resided in Mjolnir flew the hammer high into the air and struck the arena grounds, causing Banner and Thor to crash down into the area below. Thor then tossed Mjolnir at Banner so Odin could enter Banner's mindscape.

Odin and Banner briefly fought until a headbutt from Thor caused Banner to bump his head and relive the Titan's rampage in El Paso. Odin hoped to help Banner, but he was withdrawn from Banner's mindscape when Thor recalled Mjolnir. Then Iron Man arrived in a Hulkbuster Armor built using the body of a Celestial to stop Banner once and for all. However, Banner was no longer in control of Hulk, causing the Hulk's rage to go out of control. While Iron Man battled Hulk, Odin tried to intervene to help Banner. Eventually, Hulk's rage reached a critical point, causing him to unleash a gargantuan gamma energy explosion that wrecked Iron Man's armor and transformed Thor into a Gamma Mutate. Due to the influence of the Titan persona, Thor became violent while Banner became trapped in Mjolnir, causing the Savage Hulk to take control and battle Thor. To save Thor, Odin helped Banner retake control of the Hulk by giving Mjolnir to Hulk, causing Hulk to become empowered with the power of Thor. Thor and Hulk then clashed.

As part of Odin's plan, Hulk transported Thor to Asgard using Mjolnir. After receiving a brutal beating from Thor, Hulk forced Thor into Yggdrasill to purge Thor of the gamma energy that plagued him. However, Thor was too strong and yanked Yggdrasill from the ground. As a last resort, Odin was able to talk Thor down long enough for Hulk to use Mjolnir to purge the gamma energy from Thor, returning him to normal. Now aware of the truth of Banner in El Paso and having seen a glimpse of Banner's rage, Thor let Banner leave while lying to Tony Stark that Banner had died.

To avoid a repeat with the Titan persona, Banner was counseled by Doc Samson from afar through a simulation two hours each day. Banner one day discovered a coded gamma distress signal from an unknown planet. To decode and find the signal, Banner divided his consciousness into separate constructs to crew his spaceship-like subconscious. Upon reaching the planet, Banner discovered the planet's surface had been heavily modified by super-strong beings. After landing upon the planet, Banner fought hostile creatures before being greeted by a purple-skinned woman named Monolith who apparently knew who he was and who welcomed him home. Banner learned from Monolith of the history of her people who were descendants of gamma-mutated human subjects from Earth-122 that terraformed the planet from their fights and whose intelligence was augmented by gamma energy sent there by Banner by accident.

After earning the affection of the planet's people through their Godball ritual, Banner planned on leaving the planet out of fear the Titan persona would reappear and devastate the planet. However, Monolith wanted Hulk to remain on the planet to rule it. So, she forcibly began removing the cybernetics Banner placed on the Hulk's body to kill the Banner persona. This happened as the Titan persona retook control of the Hulk by locking Banner in the room where he kept the Hulk. The Titan tried to make the Hulk angry, but Banner convinced the Hulk to ignore Titan's attempts to enrage it. So, Titan unleashed the program that angered the Hulk to dangerous levels, resulting in Hulk unleashing a massive blast of energy. The blast devastated the planet and killed many of its inhabitants. While the surviving inhabitants fought Titan, Doctor Strange entered Banner's subconscious using astral projection but was quickly forced out by Titan. Realizing that D'Spayre was responsible for the changes in Banner's subconscious, Strange forced the demon to undo his work. However, Titan remained in control of the Hulk. Monolith had secretly been siphoning Titan's gamma energy, but when she tried to destroy him with it, he simply absorbed it all back. In Titan's Mind-Palace, Bruce convinced the Hulk to awaken and seemingly tore Titan apart from the inside, causing him to revert back to Bruce on the outside while losing all of the cybernetics that he had attached to himself. When Bruce regained consciousness, he found a letter from Doc Samson explaining that Hulk Planet was being rebuilt, that Monolith had pardoned Bruce of Titan's crimes, that he had explained what really happened at El Paso to Earth's heroes, and that Bruce had returned to his Hulk status before D'Spayre's meddling, but warned that Titan still remained dormant inside of him.

In The Legacy of Chris Thorndyke,

As Bruce Banner, he is reprised by Robin Atkin Downes in the English dub and Manabu Muraji in the Japanese dub.

And the Hulk, he is reprised by Fred Tatasciore in the English dub and Kenichiro Matsuda in the Japanese dub.