Ever since the gamma bomb gave a body to Bruce Banner’s repressed self, the Hulk and him have been at each other’s throats. The oldest Hulk stories all focus on Banner’s attempts to go into isolation and or cure himself, while all the Hulk wants is to be left alone. Over the years, they’ve learned to work together and have saved and endangered the world as a team many times, but that partnership is well past over. This volume of The Incredible Hulk has shown the Jade Giant’s attempts to trap Banner within his own mind and take over their body forever. After 25 issues, the Hulk has gotten his wish, but without Banner’s human heart, is the Hulk anything more than a monster of rage? That’s the question that his teenage sidekick Charlie Tidwell needs to answer for herself.
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Hulk Is Finally in Control
After months of forced transformations, burying Banner deeper and deeper inside of their shared mind, the Hulkscape, each time the Hulk finally succeeded in trapping Banner and taking full control of their body. Now with no Banner to control him half of the time, Hulk and his friend Charlie are free to live however they want to live, which means away from everyone else. Still, Hulk’s life isn’t all peachy keen either. An ancient entity called the Mother of Horrors is trapped behind the Green Door that Hulk closed during the modern classic Immortal Hulk run, and her child, the Eldest, has chased Hulk all over the country to capture him and force him to reopen it. With the Strongest One There Is evading capture so far, the Eldest has turned to abducting other gamma mutates, such as Doc Samson and Hulk’s own son Skaar.
Hulk, for his part, is growing especially paranoid, hearing the Eldest’s voice in his head. When he notices someone near their camp, he assumes it’s another of her assassins and charges. It turns out to be none other than Bucky Barnes, the Winder Soldier, Captain America’s best friend and one of Charlie’s idols. Bucky isn’t here to fight, but came looking for Banner to see if he had answers about the missing mutates. Hulk just tells Bucky to leave because Banner is gone, and he’s never coming back. Bucky can’t exactly argue with a Hulk who refuses to listen, so he goes, but not before giving Charlie a piece of advice. He says that between the Eldest and the powers of Lycana, the first Skinwalker that Charlie has bonded with, the two of them are in serious danger. Except the Hulk never recognizes danger and will blindly charge ahead because Banner isn’t there to ground him. Bucky says that a Hulk without Banner is just a monster, and Charlie should get out while she still can.
Without Banner, Is Hulk a Man, Monster, Or Both?
That night, Charlie can’t get Bucky’s words out of her head. Hoping to prove him wrong, she uses her mystical powers as Lycana to enter the Hulkscape to find Banner. Instead of whatever she was expecting, Charlie finds a ruined, apocalyptic world with sinewy pillars of bone and massive skulls, and at its center is a massive, zombie-like Hulk head. Banner weakly calls for her to leave, but Charlie insists that she’ll help him and show everyone that Hulk and her aren’t monsters. Except when she sees what Hulk has done to Banner, her spirit drops. Tears roll down her face as she says that this can’t be true, that Hulk would never do something this evil, but Banner just begs her to leave before Hulk notices. We never see what Charlie does, but she is jettisoned from the Hulkscape, and she screams that the Hulk is a monster. Not wanting to be like him, she transforms into her winged-wolf form and flies away, giving the Hulk what he’s always wanted. To be alone.
The Hulk is the embodiment of Bruce Banner’s repressed rage. He is raw and powerful and unyielding, but now he has turned himself into something else: an uncaring entity. No matter how much he looked like a monster, Hulk always had an element of humanity that drove him to help people as much as he hurt them. He always had a kind, merciful heart, just like Banner. Except now he’s cast all parts of Banner away, including his humanity. The Hulk wants to be nothing more than a monster, but he’s going up against the Mother of Monsters. If he wants any chance of surviving or getting Charlie to trust him again, he’s going to have to embrace that human part of himself before he kills it for good. Banner has always needed the Hulk, and now the Hulk has to realize he needs Banner before it’s too late.
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