Hulk: Banner D.O.A.


By Mark Waid, Mark Bagley, Andrew Hennessy & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-619-9

Once upon a time, Robert Bruce Banner was merely a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma-bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, any undue stress could cause him to transform into a gigantic green monster of unimaginable strength and fury.

As both occasional hero and bombastic brute he rampaged across the landscape for decades, becoming one of comics’ most popular characters and most enduring multi-media titans.

Over the years he has undergone numerous radical changes in scope, character and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling, whilst the number of gamma-galvanised grotesqueries crashing about the Marvel Universe has proliferated to inconceivable proportions.

The days of Bruce going green with anger at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from TV or movie incarnations would be wise to anticipate a smidgen of unavoidable confusion…

In a world of numerous Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and every kind of ancillary colour-swatched atomic berserker, the MarvelNOW! event saw the Jade Giant reinvented in a stripped-down, back-to-basics but startlingly original manner which energised new and old fans alike.

The big change occurred after S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill was “persuaded” to provide perennial fugitive Banner with resources and funding in order to sanitise his devastated scientific reputation. In return Hill could call on the Hulk as a living weapon of last resort…

One of the smartest men on Earth, Banner had lost years of success, progress and peer renown whilst trying to cure himself of the Hulk. Concerned about his legacy, the fugitive genius had at last decided to make his future headlines as a scientist, not a shattering force of nature – for as long as he could possible manage – rather than fruitlessly seek to cure his affliction. Additionally, in return for S.H.I.E.L.D. science labs and trained assistants, the beleaguered boffin would give the spy agency first use of his discoveries and inventions…

Despite the occasional catastrophic aberration now and then, the arrangement proved a success and both Banner and his emerald other became valued assets of the global peacekeeping force and key components of the latest assemblage of Mighty Avengers. However, after facing an escalating string of string of crises – the latest of which involved sinister scientific maverick Ted Goodrich and his reactivated rogue think-tank The Enclave – Banner was assassinated…

This volume (collecting Hulk #1-4, published from June-August 2014) picks up the tale as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents forcibly second brilliant neurosurgeon Dr. Aaron Carpenter for a top secret medical emergency.

The opening of 4-part saga ‘Who Shot the Hulk’ finds the medical wizard cautiously operating on old college associate Banner; marvelling at the precision needed to shoot someone in the brain twice and not kill them whilst simultaneously terrified that his slightest misstep could unleash the monster within…

As Carpenter works other teams finishing harvesting gamma-infused flesh, blood and other biological samples but he only begins to suspect something is awry when the shadow-enshrouded lead operative instructs him to implant a device which will allow the Hulk to be controlled like a weapon.

…And then the mystery-man admits that they are not S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at all…

Thankfully the decision to connect the device is taken out of Carpenter’s hands when one of his surgical team allows Banner to awaken and the furious Hulk manifests…

As chaos ensues the impostors attempt to kill everybody but the Gamma Goliath is unstoppable. In the resulting carnage the medics all escape but the villains vanish…

Two weeks later genuine S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives Maria Hill and Phil Coulson track down a “John Doe” in a rural hospital and are apprised of the long-missing Bruce Banner’s condition. One of the three smartest men on Earth is physically fine but irrevocably brain damaged…

The story picks up as Hill and Coulson pursue a fruitless task in trying to determine who shot, abducted and tried to weaponise the Hulk. The list is too long to contemplate but, even as they ponder, the mystery-man is using Banner’s bio-samples to resurrect the one old foe S.H.I.E.L.D. have confidently crossed off their list…

Meanwhile in Hightown, Colorado Reverend and Ms. Bassey are caring for their severely impaired grandson Bobby. They are particularly careful to never let him become overly frustrated or angry. Later, however, when a pack of bullies target the simpleton things get exceedingly strange as the thugs are suddenly surrounded by heavily armed agents and the truth comes out…

No sooner is Banner’s covert protective custody exposed than another crisis erupts and Hill is forced to actually brutalise the child-like man and rouse the Hulk within. The reason becomes clear when definitely deceased gamma monster The Abomination smashes into the town like a missile. Their enigmatic evil enemy has resurrected the creature using Banner’s DNA, unleashing a radioactive zombie programmed to hunt and destroy its debilitated nemesis…

As the enraged jade juggernauts wade into each other and subsequently raze the town, Hill realises it’s only a feint when masked soldiers phase through the walls in a sneak attack…

In the third episode Hill, despite easily defeating the ghost warriors, loses control of the overall situation when The Avengers, alerted by the escalating catastrophe in Colorado, storm in to rescue their long-missing comrade. Amidst a blockbusting battle Banner appears, with very little sign of ever having been lobotomised by bullets.

His recovered intellect doesn’t stay long and he quickly destabilises into confusion, fear and worse. As the Avengers struggle to stop the gamma-zombie, Hill realises Hulk’s gamma-charged rapid-healing abilities are restoring Banner’s brain but not his mind and warns Bruce that if he fully transforms his personality might be erased forever.

With the Avengers utterly unable to slow Abomination’s attack, Banner has only one choice to make…

The final chapter opens with a flashback to the moment Banner first convinced Hill to let him join S.H.I.E.L.D. It involved blackmail and the placing of incriminating time-sensitive files with ferociously independent lawyer Matt Murdock – AKA Daredevil – to ensure that if anything happened to the fugitive physicist everybody would suffer…

Back in the now, with hell unleashed in Hightown, the Hulk finds an unbeatable advantage and destroys the undead Abomination, seemingly dooming Banner forever. When the dust settles the Avengers claim the debilitated victor and Iron Man swears to save his childhood intellectual rival. Some time later, through use of the most dangerous and proscribed bio-technology available, he seemingly succeeds…

As Hill reaches an unhappy accommodation with Daredevil, in Tony Stark‘s futuropolis Troy one troubling question remains unanswered. Although apparently restored to rational brilliance, there is still a troubling doubt about the rapidly recovering patient. What cost has the biologically potent remedy had on the traumatised mind and battered soul within? Can Banner possibly be the same man he was before?

To Be Continued…

Sporting a stack of AR icons (Marvel’s Augmented Reality App featuring printed portals to online story bonuses and extras for everyone who downloaded the free software from marvel.com onto a smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet) and a Baker’s Dozen of covers-&-variants by Jerome Opeña, Dean White, Bagley, Jason Keith, Michael Del Mundo, Chris Samnee, Gerald Parel, Mike Grell & Skottie Young, this razor-sharp, tension-soaked, blisteringly action-packed and astonishingly compelling read offers a fantastic new beginning for one of Marvel’s oldest and greatest star turns.

This fresh and exciting epic brilliantly mixes astounding adventure with clever characterisation and an addictive excess of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights spectacle into a tale no comics fan could possibly resist.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.