The Incredible Hulk is a 2011 series by Marvel Comics written by Jason Aaron.
After the events of Fear Itself, Bruce Banner and the Hulk have somehow seperated into two seperate beings. Now the Hulk must face a new enemy, an insane Dr. Banner.
The Incredible Hulk provides examples of:
- Badass Bookworm: While Banner is out of his mind after being completely separated from the Hulk, he demonstrats just how badass he can be, creating an arsenal of superscience weapons that allowed him to fight on equal terms with the green giant.
- Badass Normal: Kraven the Hunter manages to disable the green goliath via adamantium wires and fishhooks.
- Batman Gambit: After Hulk and Banner merge back, Banner’s plan to create a gamma cure basically relies on this, travelling to various locations and triggering his transformation into the Hulk, anticipating what Hulk will do in response to the situations he finds himself in.
- Brain with a Manual Control: One Jason Aaron issue shows the villain trying to take over the Hulk's mind. The Hulk's mind consists of a control console with a keyboard for Bruce Banner on one side, and on the other side a Hulk-sized Big Red Button labeled "SMASH!"
- Heel Realisation: Ultimately Bruce Banner acknowledges that he was the one at fault for what happened, accepting that he can’t blame Hulk for trying to kill him with his gamma bomb after all the times Banner essentially tried to ‘kill’ the Hulk.
- Literal Split Personality: The series opens with Banner and Hulk as separate entities, as Hulk had Doctor Doom extract the uniquely ‘Banner’ elements from his brain and clone a new body for Banner with no trace of Hulk in it. Doom observes that this separation reduces Hulk to an intellectual level more along the lines of a sixth-grader while Banner retains the genius-level IQ, even if Hulk would still be smarter than ‘Hulk Smash’. This split also leads to Banner’s turn to villainy; Doom observes that without the Hulk to blame for his worse actions Banner regressed to the worst part of himself.
- Male Gaze: Amanda Von Doom (no relation to Victor) gets a good
amount of this. The same series also has Betty Ross walking around in skimpy bikini and only improving the situation by turning into Red She-Hulk. - Never My Fault: Doom rejects the idea that he is the reason for Banner’s turn to villainy once separated from the Hulk, but unlike most people who make this claim his argument makes sense.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Everything that happens here is because the Hulk decided to have Banner separated from himself, turning Banner into a psychopath and causing him to irradiate a small island.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Jason Aaron's run on the book decided it had to one up all earlier status quo changes by separating the Hulk and Banner into two separate entities, driving Banner to do anything he can to be one with the Hulk again to the point that he basically becomes a mad scientist figure and makes a Face–Heel Turn.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: A temporary version of this, as the Hulk at one point finds himself facing Kraven the Hunter.
- The Unfettered: Once Banner's finally separated from the Hulk, he becomes an absolutely terrifying example of the unfettered in his quest to get the Hulk back.
