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The Incredible

Monster, Man, Hero

Dana McKnight Texas Christian University

hen introduced The Incredible Hulk in 1962, the following was displayed prominently within a bold yellow question mark on W the front page: “Is he man or or…is he both?”1 Today, it seems easy to dismiss questions about the Incredible Hulk being a monster by merit of the popular films, which brought the Incredible Hulk to a wide audience. I suspect that most Americans recognize the Incredible Hulk as a member of the : a hero, not a monster. However, when the Incredible Hulk first made his debut, expected his readers to wonder whether or not the Hulk would be a villain or a hero.2 Drawing from the first six issues of The Incredible Hulk I will discuss how the Incredible Hulk is simultaneously a hero and a monster, both an allegory of the military might of the United States in the atomic age and of the tenuous relationship between security and safety manifest in the uncontrolled destructive power of nuclear weapons. I will close with a glimpse into the contemporary post-9/11 Hulk.

Man or Monster? First, it is cogent to get back to the “man or monster” question posed by Stan Lee in the very first issue of The Incredible Hulk, because the Hulk was both a man, Bruce Banner, and a monster, the Hulk. The “man-or-monster” question is not new and was

1 Stan Lee and , “The Coming of the Hulk,” The Incredible Hulk, no. 1, May 1962, in Epic Collection: The Incredible Hulk, Man or Monster? ed. Cory Sedlmeier (Marvel Characters Inc., 2016, Comixology Digital Release), 4. 2 Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, Inc., 2003), 92.

Copyright © 2020, Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs. Confluence asked and answered of other famous to which the Hulk shares more than a number of similarities. One does not have to reach back very far to draw parallels between Bruce Banner’s transformation from a congenial scientist to a large and terrifying being, to note the transformation of Dr. Jekyll into the monstrous Mr. Hyde.3 The hedonistic desires that Dr. Jekyll repressed were manifest in Mr. Hyde as a result of an intentional transformation experiment of which Dr. Jekyll quickly lost control. The other monster that parallels Hulk is Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Dr. Frankenstein didn’t intend to make a monster; although he was not quite sure what he would be creating, the implicit warning is that Frankenstein was toying with a realm of science that breached the sacrosanct.4 Dr. Frankenstein, like Dr. Jekyll and Bruce Banner, is genius enough to create, but not savvy enough to control or understand, the monster his creation becomes. Therefore, drawing parallels from the out-of- control Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein’s monster to Banner’s scientific creations, the gamma-bomb, and the Hulk is not too difficult of a step. The problem with the comparison arises in the nature of the creatures themselves, because Frankenstein’s creation is not a man but a monster and a murderer, as is Mr. Hyde. Both Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Frankenstein become tragic victims of their created horrors. Neither the monsters nor their creators are heroes, so how is it that the Incredible Hulk is both?

Atomic Hulk, the Monster In the first issue of The Incredible Hulk the reader is quickly dropped into the familiar scene of scientists working on a huge explosive: the “G-Bomb.”5 In 1962, as now, Frankenstein’s monster and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were familiar folklore, but so was the theme of scientists working for the government in secret labs. The image of genius scientists working in a military laboratory on a powerful bomb would have reminded readers of scientists secretly working on the Project, ushering in the atomic age with the first successful detonation of an atomic

3 Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Newburyport: Open Road Integrated Media, 2014) 4 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2014) 5 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 1, 4-28.

160 Vol. XXVI, No. 2 device on July 16, 1945.6 Seventeen years later, at the publication of the first issue of The Incredible Hulk, nuclear weapons were still a new and fearsome technology. To be fair, nuclear weapons are still fearsome, but scientists and the laity have a better understanding of the destruction that they cause, both in the initial explosion and radiologically. During the 1960s the United States and the Soviet Union were embroiled in the Cold War and the corresponding nuclear arms race. The assumption that the horrific destructive power of the nuclear weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 would be enough to deter military aggression ended the day that the Soviet Union tested its own atomic device.7 The United States and the Soviet Union scrambled to make higher-yield nuclear weapons in greater numbers than their adversary. The United States and the Soviet Union both claimed self-defense, but the Cold War idea of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) reigned, and hence the party that maintained the most destructive nuclear would be the party that won the arms race.8 What Stan Lee and Jack Kirby managed to address were 1960s fears “over scientific discoveries and technological devices through a narrative that literally embodies those discoveries and device.”9 Through Dr. Bruce Banner, Lee and Kirby were able to contend with the culpability of genius scientists working on secret devices of uncontrollable and ill-understood destructive power. Banner, of course, was the genius behind the development of the Gamma Bomb, the radiation of which transformed him into the Hulk. Banner was responsible for creating the monster he himself became. It is true that his assistant Igor, a villainous spy, could have stopped the gamma explosion which irradiated Banner: nevertheless, it was Banner, and Banner alone, who created the

6 “The Manhattan Project,” Atomic Heritage Foundation, accessed April 10, 2020, https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/manhattan-project. 7 Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and César Alfonso Marino, “A Globe- Trotting Atomic Weapon: Illustrating the Cold War Arms Race,” 37. 8 Robert Jervis, “The Dustbin of History: Mutual Assured Destruction,” Foreign Policy, November 9, 2009, https://foreignpolicy.com/ 2009/11/09/the-dustbin-of-history-mutual-assured-destruction/ 9 Adam Capitanio, “’The Jekyll and Hyde of the Atomic Age’:The Incredible Hulk as the Ambiguous Embodiment of Nuclear Power,”’ The Journal of Popular Culture 43, no. 2 (2010): 252.

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“G-Bomb.”10 Because Banner himself becomes the Hulk, Banner doesn’t represent the scientist at the center of a secretive yet looming and dangerous technology he was the center of the nuclear monster specter.11 During the 1960s concern and fear regarding nuclear technology were beginning to replace the relief that American citizens felt following the end of the second world war.12 The nuclear arms race with Russia contributed to those fears, as did speculation over secret scientific and technological advancements, making Dr. Bruce Banner the perfect candidate for becoming a victim of his own technology. Banner literally transforms into a monster and, because of that transformation, “not only does the Hulk raise a warning flag about new scientific developments, it explores the…connection between scientists and the military.”13 Hulk and Banner both quickly find that the military is more adversary than ally, which also speaks to 1960s concerns and an ideological shift from post-WWII nationalistic hegemonic consensus regarding the might of the U.S. military and the manner in which that might ought to be used.14

Dr. Banner, the Man Prior to the detonation of the G-Bomb, Dr. Banner is ridiculed by General “Thunderbolt” Ross for not testing the bomb soon enough. The General derisively calls him a “milksop” and is suspicious of Dr. Banner, both before and after the detonation of the G-Bomb.15 General Ross actively pursues the Hulk without realizing that the Hulk and Banner are one and the same, all the while commenting about Banner’s lack of masculinity. General Ross objects to Dr. Banner partially because his own daughter, , is romantically interested in Dr. Banner. The romantic

10 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no.1, 4-28. 11 Adam Capitanio, “The Jekyll and Hyde of the Atomic Age” 252. 12 Alice L. George and ProQuest Academic Complete, Awaiting Armageddon: How Americans Faced the Cuban Missile Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013) 13 John Darowski and J. Darowski, “Smashing Cold War Consensus Culture: Hulk’s Journey from Monster to Hero,” in The Ages of the Incredible Hulk:Essays on the Green in Changing Times, ed. Joseph J. Darowski (North Carolina: McFarland, 2016), 9-10. 14 Ibid, 8. 15 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 1, 4-28.

162 Vol. XXVI, No. 2 intentions between Betty Ross and Dr. Banner notwithstanding, General Ross’s objections are also an intentional device to “[align] the scientific and rational with effeminacy and masculinity with the destructive power admired by the military.”16 Throughout the first six issues of The Incredible Hulk, Dr. Banner is cooperative with, almost obsequious to, the military even as he is held in suspicion and ridiculed by General Ross. Dr. Banner’s and General Ross’s behavior toward one another stand as an oblique commentary on the principles of the scientists who participated in the Manhattan Project. Despite General Ross’s gruff and unlikable characteristics, readers recognize that military principles differ from those of the scientific community. No equivalent ethical guide, such as the Hippocratic Oath, exists for research scientists, but scientific inquiry and a quest for truth feel incongruous to the military goals of the Manhattan Project. The moral consequence Banner faced through his Hulk transformations, resulting from the merger of his scientific knowledge and Ross’s military strategy, was the continuous decimation of Banner’s own humanity.17 While the military sought to control the Hulk for the purposes of using him, Banner, with the help of friend , attempts to muzzle Hulk. Dr. Banner recognizes that the Hulk is powerful, most certainly dangerous, and he hopes to restrain him—not use him for ill or for good. In “The Terror of the Men” (no. 2), Jones and Banner only temporarily succeed in trapping Hulk in an underground bunker (at that time the Hulk transformations were only taking place at night).18 Dr. Banner’s ineffective attempt to fence-in the Hulk speaks to the frustrations with scientists over creating a technology that they could neither control or contain, despite their vast scientific knowledge. Certain scientists were responsible for the creation of atomic weapons and, therefore, abdicated some of the moral ground gained through technological advancements following Victorian- era skepticism reflected in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Whereas the deadly and crippling gas attacks used in World War I resulted

16 Adam Capitanio, “The Jekyll and Hyde of the Atomic Age,” 259. 17 Ibid, 258. 18 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, “The Terror of the Toad Men,” The Incredible Hulk, no. 2, July 1962, in Epic Collection: The Incredible Hulk, Man or Monster? ed. Cory Sedlmeier (Marvel Characters Inc., 2016, Comixology Digital Release), 29-53.

163 Confluence in the 1925 “Geneva Protocol on the Prohibition of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare,”19 no such ban on nuclear weaponry emerged out of World War II.20 The delicate relationship between technological advancements and the dangers caused by them is reflected in Dr. Banner’s relationship with the military and his friends and through his Hulk persona. One of Bruce Banner’s most trusted friends is teenager Rick Jones, who Dr. Banner saves from the explosion of the gamma bomb. Dr. Banner pushes Rick Jones into a trench but is unable to save himself from gamma radiation. Nevertheless, Banner is not a true victim of his own gamma bomb, as Rick Jones would have been; rather, Banner is complicit in his own transformation. Despite his near- experience, Rick Jones becomes a friend of both Dr. Banner and the Hulk, even though Hulk insists he has no friends.21 Indeed, throughout the first six issues the only person who can gain any type of control over the Hulk is Rick Jones. Teenage were not a new or unusual device in the comics, perhaps the most famous being Bruce Wayne’s , introduced in 1940,22 but Rick Jones’ is different from that of an adjunct crime fighter. If Dr. Banner is representative of nuclear scientists and Hulk nuclear weapons, then Rick Jones represents the American youth, along with the nuclear problem they inherit and have to inevitably master.23 Rick Jones had a monumental task, as did the youth of the 1960s, but Jones was more successful moderating the Hulk than the military or even Dr. Banner. Jones is able to command the Hulk in Issue no. 3 and part of Issue no. 4.24 Rick Jones’s success in

19 1925 Geneva Protocol, “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare,” League of Nations, June 1925, United Nations, www.un.org. 20 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, passed at the United Nations by conference vote on July 7, 2017, United Nations, www.un.org. 21 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 1, 4-28. 22 Bill Finger, , no. 38, March 31, 1940, (DC, Comixology Digital Release, August 17, 2012) 23 John Darowski and Joseph J. Darowski, “Smashing Cold War Consensus Culture: Hulk’s Journey from Monster to Hero,” 14. 24 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 3, September 1, 1962, and no. 4, November 1, 1962 in Epic Collection: The Incredible

164 Vol. XXVI, No. 2 befriending and reigning in the Hulk endorsed the idea that the youth of the 1960s were well equipped and capable to face the formidable problems they inherited.25

The Incredible Hulk, the Hero The first six issues of The Incredible Hulk straddle the line between advocacy for American superiority and questioning the nature of that superiority, while the first issue sets up Hulk’s pending status as a and not a supervillain. Initially the reader knows that Hulk will become a hero because the act which causes Banner’s gamma exposure is heroically sacrificial. Bruce Banner runs onto the test range to save the teenage Rick Jones but is unable to save himself.26 The villain of Issue no. 1 is a figure called “The ,” a Soviet27 scientist who, like Banner, is disfigured as a result of radiation exposure but, unlike the Hulk, the Gargoyle’s disfigurement is permanent. Banner defeats Gargoyle, not by fighting him as the Hulk, but because as Banner he uses his scientific knowledge to change Gargoyle back into a man. Dr. Banner’s efforts to help Gargoyle demonstrate Dr. Banner’s compassion as well as his intrepid approach to problems: both traits of a hero. Interestingly, when Gargoyle transforms, he blames his disfigurement on the Soviets, shaking his fist at a picture on the wall of someone who looks a lot like Nikita Khrushchev.28

Hulk, Man or Monster? ed. Cory Sedlmeier (Marvel Characters Inc., 2016, Comixology Digital Release), 54-103. 25 John Darowski and Joseph J. Darowski, “Smashing Cold War Consensus Culture: Hulk’s Journey from Monster to Hero,” 14. 26 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 1, 4-28. 27 I am taking some liberty in identifying the villains as Soviets because they aren’t identified as Soviets specifically, though the reference is clear. Igor sends a message behind the Iron Curtain, and the military equipment of the villains is marked by a prominent red star. 28 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 1, 4-28.

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Gargoyle also helps Bruce Banner and Rick Jones escape then blows up the Soviet lab with himself in it. The Soviets (or villains made to look a lot like America’s Cold War adversary) are the clear aggressors in Issue no. 1, promoting the notion that America’s secret bomb tests were a justified defensive measure for countering the secret bomb testing of the aggressor adversary. As Stan Lee developed the Hulk persona through the introductory issues, the Hulk was never far from the nuclear concept of absolute destruction. What is familiar to many as a “Hulk Smash” was introduced in Issue no. 4, and described as “an explosion of unimaginable intensity” (see Image 1).29 The “Hulk as nuclear weapon” imagery is clear. Moreover, the idea that exposure to the benevolence of American scientific ideals would convert even the staunchest of Soviet agents such as Gargoyle was a clear nod to anti-communist sentiment and American superiority. Whereas Banner emerges in the first issue with acts of heroic selflessness, his alter ego the Hulk does not. The Hulk performs his first heroic act in Issue no. 4, when he leaps to flee from his military pursuers and spies a school bus stalled in the way of an oncoming train.30 The Hulk, descending from his leap, quickly pushes the school bus out of the way of the train to safety. Hulk’s bus push marked his first independently heroic act. In fact, Issue no. 4 marks a shift in the Hulk alter-ego. Hulk maintains the intelligence of Banner through additional gamma ray exposure. The intelligent Hulk saves a family from their burning house, and again saves America from a Soviet plot by defeating Mongu, an enemy agent disguised as an interspatial gladiator who declares, “I shall bring you back behind the Iron Curtain with me! There our Great scientists will learn the secret of your great strength and build for us a whole army of warriors such as you!”31 Clearly, the American military was not the only entity interested in the Hulk as

29 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, “Mongu!! Gladiator From Outer Space,” The Incredible Hulk, no. 4, November 1962, in Epic Collection: The Incredible Hulk, Man or Monster? ed. Cory Sedlmeier (Marvel Characters Inc., 2016, Comixology Digital Release), 99 30 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, “The Monster and the Machine!” and “Mongu!! Gladiator From Outer Space,” The Incredible Hulk, no. 4, November 1962, in Epic Collection: The Incredible Hulk, Man or Monster? ed. Cory Sedlmeier (Marvel Characters Inc., 2016, Comixology Digital Release), 79-103. 31 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 4, 99

166 Vol. XXVI, No. 2 a weapon, mirroring the real world Cold War tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. Fortunately, the Incredible Hulk isn’t as jingoistic as it sounds because of the U.S. military’s scrutiny with which Dr. Banner finds himself, while those same military entities hunt his alter-ego, the Hulk.32 The military’s secret bomb project resulted in a technology that the military desperately wants to control but cannot. The United States created and used atomic weapons but also became susceptible to the danger of atomic weaponry when the Russians obtained the same technology. The United States was unable to control the “monster” of atomic weapons that they created when they were no longer the single possessor of its destructive power. Likewise, the U.S. military is distrustful of the genius scientist Banner, despite having commissioned him on their project. Hulk is representative of the power and destruction of nuclear weapons, yet Banner’s alter-ego is neutral in the sense that “he is unconcerned about the ideals and morals of democracy or communism.”33 If Hulk was an archetypal nuclear bomb, then he also portrayed 1960s ideas about nuclear weapons, which allow for that neutrality. Hulk is neutral because if Hulk is paradigmatic of atomic power, that power itself, is neither good nor bad.34 Indeed, from the very first issue, Hulk is not trying to destroy but rather seeking only to get away from those who are pursing him.35 The military, through the of General “Thunderbolt” Ross, is portrayed as single-minded with General Ross’s incessant pursuit of the Hulk. Meanwhile, the generation of those who grew up during the atomic age were becoming increasingly apprehensive of the military and the implied certitude that “might makes right.”36 The Hulk is not malignant because he smashes through walls, despite the resulting havoc and fear that those actions instigate. From the onset Hulk smashes through walls to get away from

32 John Darowski and Joseph J. Darowski, “Smashing Cold War Consensus Culture: Hulk’s Journey from Monster to Hero,” 8. 33 Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and César Alfonso Marino, “A Globe-Trotting Atomic Weapon: Illustrating the Cold War Arms Race,” in The Ages of The Incredible Hulk: Essays on the Green Goliath in Changing Times, ed. Joseph J. Darowski (North Carolina: McFarland, 2016), 35-48. 34 Ibid, 40. 35 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk, no. 1 36 John Darowski and Joseph J. Darowski, “Smashing Cold War Consensus Culture: Hulk’s Journey from Monster to Hero,” 15.

167 Confluence those around him and to be alone; but again, if Hulk is atomic power, once created, he cannot be left alone. Recognizing Hulk’s raw and destructive power, the military attempts time and again to contain and control the Hulk, the result of their experiment. It is true that Lee and Kirby used the first six issues of The Incredible Hulk to navigate the nuance of what works for their new character and what does not, which results in some inconsistencies. One of the most notable inconsistencies is that the Hulk is gray in the entire first Issue, then inexplicably becomes green in the second and following issues.37 Additionally, at first the Hulk transforms only at night like a werewolf, after which Banner must actively shoot himself with a gamma-ray to transform; anger does not manifest as Hulk’s transformation trigger until #59 in September of 1964.38 The transformation device was never the prevailing theme in Hulk’s story, but the idea of control over Hulk emerges again and again. Ultimately, the narrative that Hulk is a necessary but uncontrollable ally “reorient[s] the Hulk as an alienated man raging against the system, poising him to become a countercultural icon.”39 All of this is well and good, but the question remains: Is Hulk a hero? Peter Coogan defines the “primary conventions” that define a superhero as: mission, powers, identity, and costume.40 Measuring the Hulk against Coogan’s superhero categories one can determine the following: Mission: The Hulk does not inherently have a mission to support a nation, group of peoples, or any particular cause. Hulk has basic instincts that are not inherently heroic; rather, he instinctively tries to protect and defend himself. The Hulk does end up saving America several times in the

37 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, , . Epic Collection: The Incredible Hulk, Man or Monster? ed. by Cory Sedlmeier. (Marvel Characters Inc., Comixology Unlimited Digital, 2016). 38 Stan Lee and Dick Ayers, “The Incredible Hulk Battles Giant-Man,” Tales to Astonish, no. 59, September 1964, in Epic Collection: The Incredible Hulk, Man or Monster? ed. Cory Sedlmeier (Marvel Characters Inc., 2016, Comixology Digital Release), 29-53. 39 John Darowski and Joseph J. Darowski, “Smashing Cold War Consensus Culture: Hulk’s Journey from Monster to Hero,” 15. 40 Peter Coogan, Superhero: The Secret of a Genre, (Austin: MonkeyBrain Books, 2006), 30-33.

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first six issues, yet he himself does not adhere to a personal altruistic purpose. Powers: The Hulk definitely possesses powers unique to him that can be best defined as “super.” Identity: The Hulk has an alter ego identity and distinct personality in Dr. Banner, although each personality is unique by nature, not as a means to intentionally disguise the truth, as seen in ’s alter, Clark Kent. Costume: The Hulk does not have an elaborate costume. Hulk does not wear a cowl, make use of a cape, nor sport protective armor; nevertheless, the Hulk is recognized as being green, and usually wearing torn, often purple pants. The Hulk does not fit tidily within all of Coogan’s superhero categories; however, he does share some of the characteristics common to superheroes within the superhero genre. As a hero, Hulk is imperfect, conflicted, and violent, which may explain why his character’s legacy endures.

Post-9/11 Hulk Do the conflicting natures of an imperfect hero translate into a relatable hero monster of our post-9/11 world? For the time being, nuclear bombs as a weapon or deterrent are off the table in terms of contemporary warfare, leaving the Hulk as a syllogism for nuclear weapons a dated concern of a time now past. Indeed, even the manner in which Banner becomes Hulk must become relatable, because readers now know that a trench would not have saved Rick Jones from any type of nuclear device, nor would Dr. Banner have survived long enough to have had any opportunity to transform. If Dr. Banner somehow were to survive the initial blast, his death from radiation poisoning would have been painful, grotesque, and swift. In the 2008 film, The Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk by testing a military potion designed, ostensibly, to produce some type of radiological immunity but which was really an attempt by General Ross to reinvigorate a

169 Confluence super-soldier program.41 Clearly the themes of military and scientific rectitude still stand, but with a contemporary twist. Banner continues to be by General Ross, though not because he is a singular (i.e. nuclear) solution to a potential military problem but because if somehow the Hulk could be made to be obedient, General Ross could synthesize additional super-soldiers and the program would be a success.42 In a similar fashion to the first six issues of The Incredible Hulk comics, Dr. Banner in the film demonstrates several acts of selfless heroism. The heroism of Dr. Banner moderates the perspective of the viewer into an underlying understanding that if Banner is Hulk, then Hulk cannot be the villain, even if Hulk is destructive and not necessarily “good.” In the end, however, The Incredible Hulk film is too reliant upon action rather than storyline to stand as a picture of a monster-hero befitting contemporary ideologies and concerns of security and in the post-9/11 world. To catch a glimpse of Hulk in a world where multiple non-state actors are the villain, it is only fitting to enter the realm of World War Hulk. A multitude of Hulk storylines take place between our first look at the Hulk of 1962 to the fierce and vengeful Hulk of World War Hulk in 2008, forty-six years later. World War Hulk addresses the question of Hulk’s identity and purpose as well as the question of whether Hulk is a “man or a monster or both.”43 In World War Hulk, the Hulk is banished by a cadre of earthly superheroes to the planet of Sakaar, where he gets married and becomes king. Hulk returns to earth full of and bent on revenge for the bombing of Sakaar (by way of an exploding cell in the ship in which he was banished), which resulted in the death of his pregnant wife.44 Hulk returns to Earth ready to exact revenge upon the superheroes he holds accountable for the death of his wife and unborn child. In World War Hulk, much more than the nation-centric motivations of the characters in The Incredible Hulk, the superhero mission is to

41 Louis Leterrier, dir. The Incredible Hulk, (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Universal Pictures, Marvel Studios, 2008) 42 Ibid. 43 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, “The Coming of the Hulk,” The Incredible Hulk, no. 1, May 1962, 4. 44 Greg Pak and John Romita Jr., World War Hulk, (Marvel: May 7, 2008)

170 Vol. XXVI, No. 2 protect humanity writ-large rather than a specific nation’s interest, while the Hulk is predominantly motivated by vengeance. While revenge tales sometimes ring heroic, tales of unadulterated vengeance cannot be shaped into hero stories. Hulk is not the hero in this case, but neither are the superheroes who banished their friend. The explosion that killed Hulk’s pregnant wife also destroyed the capital city of Sakaar and a million of its inhabitants, making it easy for the reader to sympathize with the Hulk and empathize with his rage over such a senseless loss.45 One does not have to draw a line very far to recognize that Hulk’s “own anger resonates with a post-9/11 audience saturated with similar emotions and desires.”46 The Hulk was motivated by revenge, and after the events of 9/11 an American audience understands that desire, even if we recognize the futility in Hulk’s endeavor. World War Hulk takes place in what is perhaps best described as our present, now. The world to which Hulk returns is our world, yet it is a world occupied, protected, sometimes threatened by superheroes. If they act, whether wittingly or unwittingly, in ways which are not in line with the law, who is to stop them? Even if superheroes act in ways which they fundamentally believe to be in the best interest of the people they have elected to protect, they often have to act outside the

45 Ibid. 46 Brook Southgate, “’I didn’t come here for a whisper’”: Monsters, Violence and Heroes in World War Hulk and Post-9/11 America,” in The Ages of the Incredible Hulk: Essays on the Green Goliath in changing Times, ed. Joseph J. Darowski, (North Carolina: McFarland, 2016), 194.

171 Confluence law, undercutting “the authority of ‘law and order’ that heroes are traditionally fighting to protect or restore.”47 Stating that some people are beyond the law “demonstrates an elitism also at odds with a blindfolded Lady Justice.”48 The Hulk returns to earth to avenge the woman he loved and his unborn child, which to the reader feels justifiable, as does the punishment of superheroes whom no one else has the capability to punish. Hulk himself raises the question as to who the real monsters are, pointing out that his once allies sent him to a place where he endured horrific torture and ultimately suffered profound loss (see Image 2).49 Hulk goes out of his way to allow for an evacuation of civilians from the city, further entangling his hero/monster status.50 Yet, although Hulk’s rage feels justifiable to the reader, the incredible violence unleashed by the Hulk through his rage does not. A monster would not allow for the evacuation of civilians. A hero would not allow himself to be overcome by raw unconstrained rage.

Conclusion Image 2 The first six issues of The Incredible Hulk from 1962 invoke emblematic considerations about the justification of the pursuit of nuclear weaponry by using Hulk as a proxy. Similarly, World War Hulk stands as an exploration of rage and desire for revenge: weighing whether scrutable rage justifies extreme violence with respect to social concerns in a post-9/11 world. In both cases the Hulk is violent and destructive, but also variously heroic. The Incredible Hulk comics the reader to ask again and again, “who is the monster?” Initially the monster was potential nuclear catastrophe. In World War Hulk the monster was rage and unconstrained vengeance. The superheroes who banished the Hulk did so because they feared the very scenario in which they found themselves. The Incredible Hulk, by his nature, blurs the line between monster and hero, and perhaps that is why readers of all ages are drawn to him. Yet the question remains: Was Hulk always a monster, or was he made into one because of torture and exile? If the Hulk is fueled by his rage, a rage that his quieter self (Banner)

47 Ibid, 195. 48 Ibid. 49 Greg Pak and John Romita Jr., World War Hulk, (Marvel: May 7, 2008), 12. 50 Brook Southgate, “’I didn’t come here for a whisper,’” 200.

172 Vol. XXVI, No. 2 tries relentlessly to manage, then we can recognize much more than grand geopolitical dynamics through that monster: We recognize ourselves. The Incredible Hulk is a man, and he is a monster, but most of all the Hulk represents the ambiguous nature of heroism and humanity. The world is not black and white, but it very well may be green.

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