50 Fun Facts About Hulk

Which writer and artist created the Hulk in 1962?

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby mixed two horror classics: a misunderstood monster in the mould of Frankenstein's and the split self of Jekyll and Hyde.

What colour was the Hulk's skin in his very first issue?

Grey proved too hard to print: the shade shifted from page to page, at times coming out greenish, so the Hulk was simply made green from issue two.

Before anger became the trigger, what first turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk in his earliest comics?

Nightfall did it at first: Banner became the Hulk each evening whatever his mood, and only later did rage take over as the trigger.

Whom did Banner save from the bomb test that turned him into the Hulk?

Rick Jones strayed onto the test site and Banner shoved him into a trench; at first he was the only person who knew the secret, and the only one who could calm the Hulk.

What official full name fixed Stan Lee's mix-up after he called the Hulk's alter ego 'Bob'?

Robert Bruce Banner was Lee's cheeky fix: when readers caught the slip, he declared in print that this was the full name, "so we can't go wrong no matter what we call him".

General Ross hunted the Hulk for years before he was transformed into which character himself?

Red Hulk was the general's own bargain: after years chasing the monster he made a deal with a band of supervillains for the same kind of power, and later served as an Avenger.

How many issues did the original The Incredible Hulk comic run before it was cancelled?

Six issues was all the first series managed, yet the Hulk would not stay cancelled: he lived on as a guest star and won a regular slot in Tales to Astonish the next year.

In 1963 the Hulk made his first guest appearance in which other Marvel comic?

The Fantastic Four #12 gave the Hulk his first brawl with the Thing, a grudge match Marvel has replayed ever since; months later he co-founded the Avengers and quit almost at once.

Which future fan favourite made his debut as an antagonist in The Incredible Hulk #180–181 in 1974?

Wolverine arrived as a Canadian government agent sent to stop the Hulk; within a year Marvel had moved him into a new X-Men team, where he became its breakout star.

Which green-skinned super-genius, introduced in Tales to Astonish, became the Hulk's nemesis?

The Leader is the Hulk turned inside out: the radiation that gave Banner brute strength gave a chemical-plant labourer named Samuel Sterns a towering intellect instead.

What is the name of the Hulk's cunning gangster alter ego?

Joe Fixit is the Hulk as a schemer rather than a smasher: in this form he hired himself out as an enforcer in Las Vegas.

Which writer began a 12-year Incredible Hulk run in 1987 and gave Banner dissociative identity disorder?

Peter David wrote the Hulk as three warring personalities sharing one body, and closed his run in 1998 by killing off Betty Ross, Banner's great love.

In the "Planet Hulk" storyline, the Hulk is exiled by the Illuminati and crash-lands on which planet?

Sakaar is where the exile backfires: the Hulk leads a revolt, becomes the planet's ruler and marries Caiera, until his ship explodes and he heads home for revenge.

What are the names of the Hulk's two sons by Queen Caiera?

Skaar and Hiro-Kala were both born after the Hulk left: Skaar first met his father as an enemy before the two made peace, while Hiro-Kala tried to destroy the Earth.

Which tyrannical future version of the Hulk rules a world where most heroes are dead?

The Maestro is undone by his own origin: the present-day Hulk sends him back in time to the bomb test that created them both, and the blast kills him.

Which hero of myth took over the Hulk's own comic as its title character in 2008?

Hercules took over after World War Hulk left the book's star a prisoner: Marvel simply renamed it The Incredible Hercules and kept the numbering going.

Al Ewing and Joe Bennett's acclaimed horror-tinged 2018 series ran for 50 issues under what title?

The Immortal Hulk takes its title literally: Banner can be killed, but the Hulk always comes back, his power traced to a hellish realm called the Below-Place.

In the comics, how did lawyer Jennifer Walters gain her She-Hulk powers?

A blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce Banner saved her life after a mob boss had her shot, and unlike him she keeps her own mind when she turns green.

Marvel rushed out She-Hulk to secure what?

A trademark, the story goes: with the Hulk a TV hit, Marvel feared the show's makers would invent a female Hulk of their own, as its producer had done with The Bionic Woman.

Which writer-artist's Sensational She-Hulk run made her aware she was a comic book character?

John Byrne had She-Hulk argue with him across the page, tear through to the next one to grab a fleeing villain and even take a short cut over the advertisements.

Who played Jennifer Walters in the Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law?

Tatiana Maslany's She-Hulk talks straight to the audience, and in the finale breaks out through the Disney+ menu to demand that Marvel's bosses rewrite her ending.

Which network aired The Incredible Hulk television series from 1978 to 1982?

CBS ordered the weekly show after two 1977 TV movies drew strong ratings, then cancelled it early in its fifth season when a new network chief decided it was getting tired.

Who played Dr. David Banner in the 1970s TV series The Incredible Hulk?

Bill Bixby was the producer's first choice, a TV star who he felt gave the show class, and Bixby signed on because the scripts were about people rather than monsters.

Which bodybuilder played the Hulk in the 1970s TV series The Incredible Hulk?

Lou Ferrigno spent three hours in make-up for each shoot, wore a wig of dyed yak hair and waited between takes in a refrigerated trailer so that he would not sweat the green off.

Which future action star was considered for the TV Hulk but reportedly thought too short for the part?

Arnold Schwarzenegger, at 6 ft 2, is said to have been judged too small, though the producer has recalled that he was busy; the 7 ft 2 Richard Kiel, Jaws in the Bond films, got the job first.

Producer Kenneth Johnson said he renamed the TV Hulk's Bruce Banner "David" to avoid what?

Comic-book style alliterative names like Lois Lane and Clark Kent bothered him, he said, and he wanted the show as far from its comic origins as he could get.

What was the profession of Jack McGee, who pursued the Hulk across America in the TV series?

Tabloid reporter McGee was modelled on Javert, the relentless policeman of Les Misérables, the novel the show's creator happened to be reading when he was offered the Hulk.

Which Marvel hero teamed up with the Hulk in the 1989 TV movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk?

Daredevil's alter ego, the blind lawyer Matt Murdock, crosses paths with Banner, and the film doubled as a try-out for a Daredevil series that was never made.

The makers of the TV Hulk borrowed its wandering-hero format from which 1960s series?

The Fugitive supplied the engine: like Dr Kimble, Banner drifts from town to town helping strangers, with one dogged pursuer always a step behind him.

What is the title of the melancholy piano theme that closes each episode of TV's The Incredible Hulk?

"The Lonely Man" plays on solo piano as Banner takes to the road at each episode's end, and thirty years on the 2008 film quoted it on piano as a tribute to the series.

In Avengers: Infinity War, what does Banner fight in when the Hulk refuses to come out?

The Hulkbuster armour was built by Tony Stark to stop a rampaging Hulk; after a beating from Thanos the big guy will not appear, so Banner climbs into the suit designed to fight him.

Which Hulk catchphrase came from the 1970s TV series, not the comics?

"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." belongs to Banner: the TV Hulk never says a word, only growls and roars, so the show's best-known line comes from the man, not the monster.

Who directed the 2003 film Hulk?

Ang Lee split the screen into moving comic-book panels as a homage to the comics, and went digital because, he said, a bodybuilder in a suit would end up looking like Godzilla.

Which Australian actor played Bruce Banner in the 2003 film Hulk?

Eric Bana won the part after the director saw him as a real-life criminal in Chopper and decided he could suggest both the mild scientist and the monster inside him.

Who played General Thunderbolt Ross in the 2003 film Hulk?

Sam Elliott said yes before there was a script for him to read: he told reporters he would have made the film without one, just to work with its director.

Who played Betty Ross, Bruce Banner's love interest, in the 2003 film Hulk?

Jennifer Connelly's Betty is the one person who can talk the Hulk back into being Banner; when the story was rebooted five years later, the part passed to Liv Tyler.

Who played Bruce Banner in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk?

Edward Norton had passed on the 2003 film because he disliked its script, so when he said yes to this one he rewrote the screenplay himself, though he got no writing credit.

Which Marvel Cinematic Universe film came out weeks before The Incredible Hulk (2008)?

Iron Man opened early that May as the universe's first film, and its star Robert Downey Jr. turns up in the Hulk film's closing scene as Tony Stark, tying the two stories together.

At the start of The Incredible Hulk (2008), Banner is hiding in a bottling factory in which city?

Rio de Janeiro keeps him hidden until a drop of his blood falls into a bottle on the line; the drink sickens a man in Milwaukee, and the army traces it straight back.

Which actor plays Emil Blonsky, who becomes the Abomination, in The Incredible Hulk (2008)?

Tim Roth returned on screen in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in 2022, where a seemingly reformed Blonsky wins parole and runs a wellness retreat.

In which city was most of the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk shot?

Toronto plays the United States for most of the film: its university campus stands in for a college in Virginia, and its downtown streets pass for New York.

What are the Hulk's only two words of dialogue in The Avengers (2012)?

"Puny god" is all he says, muttered after he has cut Loki's boasting short by beating him into the floor; every other sound he makes is a roar blended from several voices.

In The Avengers, Banner is working as a doctor in which city when Natasha Romanoff recruits him?

Calcutta, now Kolkata, is where he has been lying low; S.H.I.E.L.D. comes for the scientist rather than the monster, needing him to track the stolen Tesseract by its radiation.

In Thor: Ragnarok, the Hulk is the undefeated gladiator "Champion" of which ruler?

The Grandmaster has had him fighting in the arena for two years by the time Thor arrives, and in all that time the Hulk has not once let Banner back out.

In Avengers: Endgame, what does Banner use the Infinity Stones to do?

To restore the lives lost in the Blip he volunteers himself, because he can best withstand the Stones' radiation; even so, the snap leaves his right arm badly injured.

In The Incredible Hulk (2008), what does Banner practise to keep the Hulk in check?

Breathing exercises, learned from a martial-arts teacher, keep his heart rate down, and they work: when the film opens he has gone five months without changing.

Which studio kept the distribution rights to solo Hulk films after The Incredible Hulk (2008)?

Universal kept first refusal on distributing any solo Hulk film, which Mark Ruffalo called an obstacle to making one; the Hulk went on to appear in other heroes' films instead.

In Avengers: Infinity War, the Hulk crash-lands on Earth in which hero's home?

Doctor Strange finds Bruce Banner in the wreckage of his New York sanctum, and it is Banner who brings Earth the warning that Thanos is coming.

The Hulk's original artist said the character was inspired by seeing a mother do what?

He watched a woman lift a car off her trapped child and saw that desperation can make anyone superhuman; in a rage, he said, any of us could tear a house down.

Bill Mantlo's 'Crossroads of Eternity' stories explored the idea that Banner had suffered what?

Child abuse by his father Brian has been the root of the Hulk ever since: later writers treat the monster as the rage Banner has kept buried from boyhood.