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HISTORY: |
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Robert
Bruce Banner was the son of Dr. Brian Banner, an atomic scientist,
and his wife Rebecca. Although Rebecca deeply loved Bruce, who
returned her affection, Brian hated the child. Possibly an
alcoholic, Brian Banner was driven by an insane jealousy of Bruce
for being an object of Rebecca's love. Brian Banner finally murdered
Rebecca and was placed in a mental hospital. Bruce, a highly
withdrawn, intellectual youth, was raised by his aunt, Mrs. Drake,
and internalized his great pain and rage over his childhood
sufferings.
Eventually, as an
adult and a genius in nuclear physics, Banner 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. Banner and Betty Ross eventually fell in love with each
other.
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Banner designed and oversaw construction
of the "gamma bomb" or "G-bomb," a nuclear weapon
that had a high gamma radiation output.
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 get
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. Due to an unknown
genetic factor in his body, Banner was not killed by
the radiation, which instead caused him to transform
frequently into the vastly powerful, green-skinned
named "the Hulk" by the military present at the test
site. |
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At first Banner
changed into the Hulk at sunset and reverted to 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, 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. Hence, the Hulk was
a menace, continually hunted by military forces commanded by the
implacable General Ross. For a short time Banner managed through
radiation treatments to maintain enough of his own personality when
he became the Hulk to control himself in that form, and he even
became a founding member of the Avengers in this form.
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again the Hulk lost Banner's intelligence and became a
brutish menace. For a surprisingly long time Banner managed
to conceal the fact that he was the Hulk, but his secret
inevitably became public knowledge. For years Banner
wandered the world as a hunted fugitive, cursed by his
recurring transformations into the bestial Hulk. One day
Banner went to visit his beloved cousin Jennifer Walters, a
Los Angeles based lawyer. At that time Walters had been
defending a hood named Lou Monkdon, 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. The transfusion of Banner's mutated blood
mutated Walters herself, causing her to become the She-Hulk.
Finally, scientist Leonard "Doc" Samson captured the Hulk
and succeeded through unknown means in separating Banner's
psyche and atomic structure from the larger atomic structure
of the Hulk. Hence Banner and the Hulk were now two separate
beings. The Hulk, escaped, and no longer having Banner's
buried personality to restrain him in the least, became a
greater menace than ever before.
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Banner became
leader of a new government task force to capture the Hulk, called
the new Hulkbusters. Bruce also finally married Betty Ross, believing
himself free of the curse of turning into the Hulk.
Realizing there was
only one way to reign in the Hulk, Banner agreed to merge with the
monster. But the stress of the re-integration fractured Banner's
subconscious, creating the street-smart gray Hulk.
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Through
hypnosis, Samson created the green but intelligent
"Professor" Hulk -- believed at the time to be the
integration of Banner's separate personalities, but since
revealed as a new persona the psychiatrist crafted to help
keep the monster's destructive powers in check. Due to the
deteriorating effects of ALS and the chaos ravaging his mindscape,
Banner cut a deal with the three dominant Hulk personalities - -the
green Hulk, the gray "Joe Fixit" Hulk and the "Professor" Hulk
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essentially to time-share their existence, in return for stabilizing
his fractured psyche and providing him with release from his
disease.Though never a team player, the Hulk joined forces with the
Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, and Namor, the Atlantean
Sub-Mariner, to defeat the techno-wizard Yandroth and his ultimate
computer, the Omegatron. Thereafter, this loose-knit band of
Defenders would unite periodically to oppose threats to
humanity. The original Defenders reluctantly re-formed
when Yandroth surfaced again to menace the world. |
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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. |
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STRENGTH
LEVEL: |
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The
Hulk possesses superhuman strength of the Class 100 level, enabling
him to lift (press) in excess of 100 tons. The Hulk only attains
this strength level when he is enraged. In a totally, calm state his
functional strength is significantly less, perhaps in the 70 ton
range. In human form Bruce Banner possesses the normal human
strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in no
regular exercise.
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KNOWN
SUPERHUMAN POWERS: |
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The Hulk possesses the capacity for nearly limitless
physical strength. The gamma radiation that mutated the Hulk's body
fortified his cellular structure and added, from some as yet unknown
source, over 800 pounds of bone marrow and tissue to his body.
Previously, this mutation was not a stable one.
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The Hulk
would periodically revert o the human form of Bruce Banner,
losing the extra mass and energy to the same as yet unknown
source from which he derived it. The process by which Banner
transformed into the Hulk had a chemical catalyst,
adrenalinc. As in normal humans, Banner's adrenal medulla
secrets large amounts of adrenaline in times of fear, range,
or stress, which hormonally stimulates the heartbeat rate,
raises blood-sugar levels, and inhibits sensations of
fatigue. |
Where as this secretion simply
heightens normal physical abilities in normal human beings, in
Banner's case it triggered the complex chemical/ extra-physical
process that transformed him into the Hulk. The total transformation
took from 25 seconds to as long as 5 minutes, depending on the
initial adrenaline surge which is determined by the original,
external stimulus. Soon after the transformation, the amount of
adrenaline in the Hulk would return to more normal, reduced levels.
However, since Dr. Leonard Samson separated the Hulk and Banner into
two discrete beings, Banner remains in human form and the Hulk
remains in his superhuman mutated one.
In times of stress
the Hulk's adrenaline level escalates, causing a corresponding
escalation in strength. This is not accompanied by an additional
gain in mass, but does appear to promote increased levels of energy
efficiency. To date the Hulk has never apparently been provoked into
demonstrating a maximum output of strength; hence, its upper limit
remains a mystery.
In addition to
great strength, the Hulk's body possesses a high degree of
resistance to injury, pain, and disease. The Hulk's skin is capable
of withstanding great heat without blistering (up to 3,000°
Fahrenheit), great cold without freezing (down to -190° F), and
great impacts (he can survive direct hits by field artillery cannon
shells). It is possible to injure him: he could not, for example,
survive a near-hit with a nuclear warhead. The Hulk's highly
efficient physiology renders him immune to all terrestrial disease.
The Hulk can use
his superhumanly strong leg muscles to leap great distances. The
Hulk has been known to cover 3 miles in a single bound.
The Hulk has two
powers apparently not related to his physical attributes, he can see
astral forms, and he as a seemingly mystical homing ability that
enables him to locate the area in New Mexico where he first became
the Hulk. The nature of these abilities is not yet known.
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ABILITIES: |
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Dr.
Bruce Banner is a genius in nuclear physics. On the other hand, the
Hulk has low intelligence, comparable to that of a small child,
although he has an undeniable cunning that aids him in battle. When
Banner and the Hulk were the same being, and Banner was in the
Hulk's form, Banner's consciousness was buried within the Hulk's,
and could influence the Hulk's behavior only to a very limited
extent. |
Height: 7 ft. as green
Hulk, 5 ft. 9 in. as Banner, 6 ft. 6 in. as gray Hulk
Weight: 1,040 lbs. as green Hulk, 128 lbs. as Banner,
900 lbs. as gray Hulk
Eyes: Green as green Hulk, Brown as Banner, gray as gray
Hulk
Hair: Green as green Hulk, Brown as Banner, black as
gray Hulk
Skin: Green as green Hulk, gray as gray Hulk
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