Hulk smashes and Bruce Banner feels guilty about it. How can he control the green rage monster within? A mysterious doctor working for the US military has a potential - and permanent - solution…
Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben collaborated on a great Luke Cage book called Cage Max so I was surprised to find they had also worked on this Hulk miniseries from 2001, Banner. It’s nowhere near as brilliant as their Cage book though.
Most of the book is the same tired Hulk story we’ve seen a hundred times before where Banner’s miserable about the damage Hulk causes, tries to keep calm so as not to let him out, General Ross is on his tail, etc.
The book is notable though for a couple scenes that are referenced in relatively recent Hulk movie scenes: one where Mark Ruffalo’s Banner said something about putting a gun in his mouth and squeezing the trigger - and the other guy spitting out the bullet. We see that scene here. We also see Banner being dropped from a plane like a bomb - and Hulk emerging from the crater, which also happened on the big screen. Unless both of those things happened before in other books, the legacy of this comic influenced the MCU Hulk in a small way.
The one element that intrigued me was Dr Samson, a brawny scientist who’s after Hulk for some reason, and can also somehow hurt him physically - I didn’t know what to make of him and so the story was unpredictable for having that character.
And I’ll give Azzarello a couple things: I’ve been reading some Marvel comics recently by Paul Jenkins and Chris Claremont and, while they all tell underwhelming stories, at least Azzarello has the good graces to get the fuck on with things; Jenkins and Claremont smear their pages with dull drivel that goes nowhere while Azzarello keeps his words to a minimum so you’re not wasting as much time reading his comic.
The other thing is the ending of this book which is surprisingly dark and final. It was never going to stick because of the popularity of the character but it’s not something you expect to see in a mainstream superhero comic.
Richard Corben is an acquired taste, to put it mildly. He had a very recognisable style and that style could sometimes make his characters look absurdly goofy, which happens here with Hulk and Samson. He’s definitely produced better work elsewhere but I didn’t mind the art on this one.
I can see why Banner isn’t a well-known Hulk book. The story and art is no great shakes and the gloomy tone feels contrived. As a fan of both creators, I’m glad to have checked it out, but they’ve definitely produced better comics at Marvel, like the aforementioned Luke Cage miniseries - if you’re interested in this creative team, that book is the one to check out rather than this (out of print and only available digitally) book.
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