u/God_ofThunder_

Panels from Incredible Hulk #314 and #315

This the fifth and final part of my “Record Psyche of Banner and the Hulk” series. I still make more posts about Hulk of course, but just as their own thing.

I appreciate Byrne’s reiterating what we already know about Banner and Hulk: They’re both technically the same person, but Hulk is Bruce’s own dark thoughts, anger, and rage given physical form by the gamma rays.

With that being said, Byrne just doesn’t do anything that notable with the Hulk. Aside from having Bruce and Betty finally tie the knot, he just retreads on what we’ve already read before.

I’m just gonna skip this part and get to the Crème de la crème: Peter David!

Let me know your thoughts.

Panels from Incredible Hulk #312 and #313

This is the fourth part of my “Recorded Psyche of Banner and the Hulk” series I’m doing. I’ve finished reading Bill Mantlo’s Hulk run on Marvel Unlimited and I’m really glad I did. I always loved Hulk from the movies, he’s one of my favorite Avengers. It’s the sole reason I made these posts, so I could learn more about the character and record these pivotal moments of his development.

Sure, Mantlo’s run isn’t flawless:

- The exposition can get a bit excessive

- Hulk gets sidelined a lot with the new characters and world’s Mantlo introduces

- It’s because of that there’s less focus on the internal drama between Banner and Hulk

Yet despite all that, you can recognize the effort and creativity Mantlo has for writing comics. Mantlo also DEFINITELY makes up for the third point with the Crossroads to Eternity storyline.

Is Crossroads ballsy and really out there? Yes. But that’s comics for you. And it’s what gave us Bruce’s backstory and the origin of the Hulk.

I was reading a post today about this run and this comment really sums up my thoughts the best.

“Bill Mantlo paid off a lot of lingering plot threads from previous runs while doing his own interesting things, and what he had contributed would be further expanded on by writers and their legendary runs such as Peter David, Greg Pak and Al Ewing. So much of who Hulk is today is owed to Bill Mantlo.”

It’s from an OP named Hulkzilla0 (Here’s the link to the original post. You’ll find his comment at the bottom https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.reddit.com/r/hulk/comments/1be7ljy/thoughts_on_bill_mantlos_hulk_run/&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiTybTbqv2TAxVivokEHbwhFJ4QFnoECCQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw050diX9loWBARWxwd2tdOv). We certainly do have Bill Mantlo to thank for that. It’s because of him I finally understand the Hulk as a character: The rage and tortured psyche of Bruce Banner personified. Two sides of the same coin, the gamma radiation making one side its own entity.

Thanks for listening to me yap guys. Can’t wait to read more Hulk.

All panels from Incredible Hulk #312

This is part 3 of what I like to call “The Recorded Psyche of Banner and Hulk.” It’s the whole reason I’ve been making these posts to begin with. Man, Brian Banner is an abusive bastard… I feel so bad for Bruce.

Part 4 coming… Whenever, I post soon.

Panel from Incredible Hulk #293, #300, #306, #310, and #311

I love how Bill Mantlo takes what Roger Stern set up in issue #227, and expands upon them. The beginning of the Crossroads storyline is pretty trippy and out there, but it is very creative. It plays around with the idea whether Hulk is just some altered version of Bruce or his own person, and that always makes for great intrigue.

I’ll have to delineate about this run in part 3.