Real Name: Robert Bruce Banner

Class: Altered Human

Occupation: Scientist / Adventurer

Affiliations: Former Member of the Avengers, the Pantheon & the Defenders; Current Member of the Pendragons

Scale of Operations: Europe

Powers: The Hulk possesses the capacity for nearly limitless physical strength. The gamma radiation that mutated the Hulk's body fortified his cellular structure and added, from some as yet unknown source, over 800 pounds of bone marrow and tissue to his body.

In addition to great strength, the Hulk's body possesses a high degree of resistance to injury, pain, and disease. The Hulk's skin is capable of withstanding great heat without blistering (up to 3,000° Fahrenheit), great cold without freezing (down to -190° F), and great impacts (he can survive direct hits by field artillery cannon shells). It is possible to injure him: he could not, for example, survive a near-hit with a nuclear warhead. The Hulk's highly efficient physiology renders him immune to all terrestrial disease.

The Hulk can use his superhumanly strong leg muscles to leap great distances. The Hulk has been known to cover 3 miles in a single bound.

The Hulk has two powers apparently not related to his physical attributes, he can see astral forms, and he as a seemingly mystical homing ability that enables him to locate the area in New Mexico where he first became the Hulk. The nature of these abilities is not yet known.

History:  

Eventually, as an adult and a genius in nuclear physics, Banner went to work at a United States Defense Department nuclear research facility at Desert Base, New Mexico. There Banner met General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross, the Air Force officer in command of the base, and his daughter Betty. Banner and Betty Ross eventually fell in love with each other. Banner designed and oversaw construction of the "gamma bomb" or "G-bomb," a nuclear weapon that had a high gamma radiation output.

Banner was present in the instrumentation bunker at the test site for the first underground test detonation of the gamma bomb. Observing that a civilian had breached security and entered the restricted test area, Banner told his colleague Igor Starsky to delay the countdown while he tried to get the civilian to safety, Starsky, secretly a Soviet agent, did nothing, confident that Banner would die in the explosion, bringing the project to a halt. Reaching the civilian, a teenager named Rick Jones, Banner threw him into a protective trench. Before Banner could get himself to safety, the gamma-bomb detonated, and intense waves of radiation reached the surface. Banner was irradiated with highly charged, radioactive particles. Due to an unknown genetic factor in his body, Banner was not killed by the radiation, which instead caused him to transform frequently into the vastly powerful, green-skinned named "the Hulk" by the military present at the test site.

At first Banner changed into the Hulk at sunset and reverted to human form at dawn. However, Banner's body eventually changed so that his transformations into the Hulk were triggered by the release of adrenaline when he became intensely excited, no matter what time of day or night it was. Usually the Hulk possessed little of Banner's memory and intelligence and was easily enraged. Hence, the Hulk was a menace, continually hunted by military forces commanded by the implacable General Ross. For a short time Banner managed through radiation treatments to maintain enough of his own personality when he became the Hulk to control himself in that form, and he even became a founding member of the Avengers in this form. But once again the Hulk lost Banner's intelligence and became a brutish menace. For a surprisingly long time Banner managed to conceal the fact that he was the Hulk, but his secret inevitably became public knowledge. For years Banner wandered the world as a hunted fugitive, cursed by his recurring transformations into the bestial Hulk.

One day Banner went to visit his beloved cousin Jennifer Walters, a Los Angeles based lawyer. At that time Walters had been defending a hood named Lou Monkdon, whom gangster Nicholas Trask had framed for murder. While Walters drove Banner to her home, one of Trask's henchmen shot her. To save his cousin's life, Banner improvised an emergency blood transfusion. The transfusion of Banner's mutated blood mutated Walters herself, causing her to become the She-Hulk.

Finally, scientist Leonard "Doc" Samson captured the Hulk and succeeded through unknown means in separating Banner's psyche and atomic structure from the larger atomic structure of the Hulk. Hence Banner and the Hulk were now two separate beings. The Hulk, escaped, and no longer having Banner's buried personality to restrain him in the least, became a greater menace than ever before. Banner became leader of a new government task force to capture the Hulk, called the new Hulkbusters. Banner also finally married Betty Ross, believing himself free of the curse of turning into the Hulk. She was later killed through radiation poisoning, for which the Hulk blamed himself. Her death was later revealed to have been caused by the Abomination, but Bruce still harbors guilt over her death, as it was her association with him that led to her murder.

Realizing there was only one way to reign in the Hulk, Banner agreed to merge with the monster. But the stress of the re-integration fractured Banner's subconscious, creating the street-smart gray Hulk. Through hypnosis, Samson created the green but intelligent "Professor" Hulk -- believed at the time to be the integration of Banner's separate personalities, but since revealed as a new persona the psychiatrist crafted to help keep the monster's destructive powers in check.

Due to the deteriorating effects of ALS and the chaos ravaging his mindscape, Banner cut a deal with the three dominant Hulk personalities - -the green Hulk, the gray "Joe Fixit" Hulk and the "Professor" Hulk -- essentially to time-share their existence, in return for stabilizing his fractured psyche and providing him with release from his disease.

Shortly thereafter, the Hulk found the time-share plan thrown askew when the green Hulk began to reassert control over their form. Banner journeyed to Europe in hopes of finding help in curing himself. He was present when the Black Mass Barrier arose and he found that the magical energies loose in the atmosphere had once again given him control over his transformations. Bruce chose to grant the Professor Hulk full access to their superhuman form, allowing the Professor personality to dominate whenever Bruce changed into the Hulk.

Shamrock then recruited the Hulk into the Pendragons and Bruce accepted the glory of Avalon into his heart. With his new teammates, the Hulk defeated a reborn Leader, whose consciousness was carried within Banner's body for a time. Along the way, he fell in love with Molly Fitzgerald (Shamrock/Celtic Phoenix) and the two purchased a house together in Leeds.

After only a brief time in Leeds, the Hulk found himself bedeviled by a futuristic version of himself known as the Maestro. Their latest clash drove the Hulk to ask Dane Whitman (the current Lord of the Lake) to exorcise the part of Banner's personality that might lead to the Maestro's development. Whitman did so, not realizing that he was exorcising the combined intellects of the Professor and Banner himself. The savage Hulk once more became dominant and fell into the hands of the Penance Council.

Meanwhile, the bodiless spirits of the Professor and Bruce Banner (actually just conceptualized portions of the core Banner persona) came to rest in a mental prison devised by the Leader. They were freed during Molly Fitzgerald's battle with Rachel Summers over control of the Phoenix Force, but something seemed far different when they re-emerged within the Hulk. A new persona had developed, one whose moods seemed linked to the amount of ambient magic within the Barrier. This new Hulk has shown the ability to 'eat' magic and use it to boost his own strength, both magical and physical. What the future holds for him is unknown.