Bruce Banner (Earth-400083)

Bruce Banner endures a life without a past, yet filled with dreams. As a genetic scientist, Bruce studies the effects of gamma radiation on damaged tissue. Unaware that there is a monster inside him, Bruce continually struggles with fits of anxiety, embarrassment and rage. One day during a freak lab accident, Bruce's inner beast is unleashed and he becomes the most powerful being on the face of the earth - the Hulk.

As the son of a real-life mad scientist, Bruce has a less than idyllic childhood. Bruce's father, David Banner, is a genetics researcher who experiments on himself, trying to improve human DNA. Once David's wife gives birth to their son Bruce, David realizes his mutant DNA has been passed on and attempts to find a cure for his son's condition. But the government, represented by Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, shuts down David's research after learning of his dangerous experiment. In a fit of rage, David causes a massive explosion of the facility's gamma reactor and accidentally kills his wife.

After David Banner's institutionalization, 4-year-old Bruce is sent into foster care and adopted, taking on the last name Krenzler and believing that both of his biological parents are dead. Young Bruce is a withdrawn and closed child, rarely outwardly expressing emotion, even in extreme cases, with patches of green skin that appear when he feels intense emotions. Throughout his life, the repressed memories of his parents, the explosion, and his early childhood manifest as intense nightmares that leave Bruce shaken and disturbed but unable to conjure the memories.

Years later, Bruce is a brilliant researcher, freshly graduated and working at the bionuclear research facility of the University of California, Berkeley. His ex-girlfriend and equally brilliant fellow researcher, Betty Ross, has tired of Bruce's cordoned-off emotional terrain and resigns herself to remaining an interested onlooker to his quiet life. They use nanomeds activated by gamma radiation from a device called a Gammasphere (but operates differently from a genuine Gammasphere) to regenerate living tissue; the nanobot experiments result in out-of-control cellular growth and are invariably fatal to the amphibian test subjects. David Banner reappears and begins infiltrating his son's life, working as a janitor in the lab building. The military-industrial complex, represented by the depraved Major Talbot, becomes interested in the research to build self-healing soldiers. "Thunderbolt" Ross—now an Army General and Betty Ross's estranged father—also starts investigating when he learns through Talbot of Bruce's involvement in the research. Ross becomes concerned for his daughter's safety around Banner, partly because Bruce works in the same field as his father did. As Bruce, Betty, and their colleague Harper, continue to make progress in their experiments, they experience an accident during a typical power-up when there is an overload of the nanobots with Harper stuck in the lab testing room. Bruce saves Harper and takes the brunt of the gamma radiation himself. Later, as Bruce sits in a hospital bed, he tells Betty that he's never felt better, which she can't fathom since the nanomeds have killed everything else they've touched. Unknown to them, the radiation has intertwined with Bruce's already-altered DNA.

That same night, his father confronts him, revealing their relationship and hinting at the mutation in his son. Using Bruce's DNA, he begins experimentation on animals. Soon after, the building rage within Bruce stemming from the stresses building up around him (his father, Betty, Talbot, and the accident) activates his gamma-radiated DNA, triggering Bruce's signature transformation into the Hulk. His father sees him in his transformed state and is in awe and horror of what he has created, deepening his obsession.

After the lab's destruction, Betty finds Bruce unconscious in his home. Bruce barely remembers his transformation, a sensation similar to birth. A suspicious Ross arrives, places him under house arrest, and takes over Bruce and Betty's lab. Betty confronts David Banner for answers but only succeeds in angering him when she reveals her father's involvement. That night, David phones Bruce and tells him he has mutated his three dogs and unleashed them on Betty. Enraged and attacked by Talbot (who believes Bruce deliberately cut him out of the loop by giving Ross control of the lab), Bruce transforms again and manages to save Betty after seriously injuring Talbot and his henchmen.

The following day, Bruce gets tranquilized and taken to an enormous underground base in the desert. Betty convinces her father to let her attempt to help Bruce control his transformations, but Ross remains extremely skeptical, believing Bruce is "damned" to follow in his father's footsteps. In the meantime, David Banner breaks into the lab, subjecting himself to the nanomeds and the gammasphere, gaining the ability to meld with and absorb the properties of anything he can touch. Seeing an opportunity to profit from the Hulk's strength and regenerative capability, Talbot goes over Ross' head and takes over custody of Bruce, sending Betty away. When attacking and taunting Bruce fails, Talbot puts him in a sensory deprivation tank and induces a nightmare that triggers his repressed memories.

David Banner confronts Betty and offers to turn himself in, asking to speak to Bruce "one last time" in exchange. He also tells Betty his experience with his young son, revealing that he intended to kill Bruce after General Ross threw him off the project, believing Bruce's mutation would grow out of control. However, he accidentally killed his wife instead when she tried to defend her child. Remembering the entire event, Bruce finally transforms, killing Talbot (who fires an explosive missile at the Hulk that ricochets off his tough skin and backfires towards him) and escaping the base. He battles the army in the desert, defeating four tanks and two Comanche Helicopters, and leaps to San Francisco to find Betty again. Betty contacts her father and convinces him to take her to meet the Hulk, believing that he needs "a chance to calm down." Bruce's love for her comes through, returning him into his human state.

That night, David is taken to a base to talk to Bruce. As a precaution, Ross has placed Bruce between two large electrical generators, which will kill him and David with a massive electrical surge when activated. Having descended into megalomania, David rants about how the military and their weapons have ruined their lives, dismissing Bruce as a pathetic shell of his "true son," with whom he can destroy the army. He bites into an electrical cable and absorbs the electricity to become a powerful electrical being, and Bruce transforms to battle him. The two fight in the sky before landing near a lake, where David takes on properties of rocks and water. He tries to absorb his son's power but can't contain the grief and pain that drives it and swells to a massive energy bubble. Ross orders a weapon (a Gamma Charge Bomb) to be fired into the lake, destroying David's swelled form and leaving no trace of either man.

A year later, Ross talks to Betty on the phone. Bruce is presumed dead, but there have been Hulk sightings in various locations, and Betty is under 24-hour surveillance. Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, Bruce is a doctor whose medical camp comes under siege by guerrillas. When they raid his camp, he tells them in Spanish, "You're making me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry," and his eyes turn green.^[2]

Personality[]

Transformation: Thanks to the genetic mutation inherited from his father and his exposure to Gamma Radiation and nanomachines, an event of great emotional stress can trigger a physical transformation where Banner gains additional mass, and his skin turns green. Bruce can grow even larger and stronger proportionally to his anger in his transformed state.

• Superhuman Strength: While transformed, Banner has incredible levels of physical strength that far exceed the limits of the fittest human beings. He can effortlessly punch through concrete, bend metal, and rip tanks to pieces.
• Superhuman Leaping: Banner's Herculean strength extends to his powerful leg muscles, enabling him to leap great distances.
• Superhuman Stamina: While transformed, Bruce can exert himself at peak physical capacity for several hours without getting tired.
• Superhuman Durability: While transformed, Banner becomes highly resistant to damage—high caliber bullets and explosives have almost no effect. His resistance appears to extend to toxins since he was completely unaffected by the knock-out gas used against him by Glenn Talbot.
• Regenerative Healing Factor: Thanks to the nanomachines in his blood, Banner can regenerate from extensive wounds in mere seconds.
• Superhuman Speed: Due to the tremendous development of his leg muscles, Bruce can run at speeds that far exceed those of the fittest human athletes.

• Five actors portray Bruce Banner/Hulk in Hulk:
  • Eric Bana portrays the character as an adult and the Hulk.
  • Mike Erwin portrays the character as a teenager.
  • Michael and David Kronenberg portray the character as a child.
  • Ang Lee provided motion capture and voice for the Hulk.