If there’s one thing Marvel Comics fans have learned over the years, it’s that it’s impossible to kill The Immortal Hulk.
And yet, Banner actually succeeded in killing another powerful Hulk incredibly easily in one parallel world. Although this alternate Hulk basically matched his mainstream counterpart in strength, he went down shockingly easily—and for one of the saddest reasons in comic book history. The story was told in the one-shot What If…General Ross Had Become the Hulk">gamma bomb testing site after seeing Rick Jones tresing, believing Banner was too much of a weakling to handle the task himself. Ross taunted Rick, threatening to take him in as a spy—when suddenly an actual spy at the military base caused the gamma bomb to activate and bathe Ross in its mutating rays.
Ross immediately mutated into a gray-skinned Hulk… and promptly fell on Rick, squashing him to death. Since gamma rays affect different subjects in unique ways, Ross kept his human intelligence, but found he was unable to speak in Hulk-form. Thus, he was unable to make his daughter Betty understand who he was when he approached her and was subsequently attacked by his own men. Instead of being horrified by his condition, however, Ross began viewing himself as the military’s ultimate weapon. Drunk on his own power, he eagerly tested his strength against his soldiers, taking heavy gunfire and even flinging a tank away with his bare hands. Convinced he could now be his country’s greatest warrior, the Ross-Hulk made short work of the army and leapt back to his house… only to find it had been destroyed by the very tank that he threw from miles away.
Devastated, Ross fell to his knees and reverted back to human form as Banner—who had been tracking this new Hulk since he found Rick’s dead body—stepped out of the shadows to inform the general that Ross murdered his own daughter with the tank. Unwilling to let her death go unpunished, Banner took out a gun and shot Ross in the back of his head, ending this new Hulk’s existence almost as soon as it began.
It’s a shocking and disturbing end to this alternate tale—and one that puts a dark shadow over Banner’s own future. While he’s been spared the curse of the Hulk in this alternate universe, Bruce Banner has now basically lost all of his family and friends, from Rick Jones to Betty Ross. Worse, by resorting to murder, Banner’s own fragile psyche has progressed in a disturbing direction. Although he’s basically ended any possible future threat from his world’s Hulk, one wonders if this world’s Banner won’t go on to become an even worse menace.
