DrCosmic
Professor of Power
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So, I've found out recently, that some people are under the impression that Banner has "control" of Hulk, and that Hulk is something other than a Giant Green Rage Monster (TM!).
For some reason, they think Hulk is the one that changed in Avengers and not simply Banner's relationship with the Hulk.
They think this for two reasons, mainly.
1) They see Banner willingly transform into Hulk. They then assume this means he can transform back whenever he wants or that he can make Hulk do whatever he wants, even though we've seen this is not true.
2) Because Hulk didn't attack any innocents in the final battle like he usually does. They attribute this to Banner's "control" or Hulk's "heroism."
There are a few reasons that doesn't work.
A) Hulk does attack innocents. Thor is his teammate, and totally innocent. Hulk socks him one in what is clearly retaliation for earlier events. Retaliation is a function of anger. So while he doesn't go off on Thor, he shows that Banner is not in control.
B) This is no the first time Hulk did not attack people Banner cares about. Betty Ross has had this effect for years. It's not surprising that Tony Stark who bonds with Banner can also get saved. Hulk has not grown since TIH or AngHulk, he simply treats Stark with the same care he does Betty (and the other Avengers with slightly less car.)
C) Hulk attacks everything that attacks him, like he always does. This is not him being more heroic than usual. He is simply doing what he always does. The only difference is that Banner has purposefully put Hulk here to be attacked by an evil army. This is not what Banner always does. Banner has grown. Hulk has not.
D) A very key indicator of who Hulk is is found in his exchange with Cap. Cap simply says Hulk's name. Hulk turns, tense, ready to fight Cap. Again, this is not someone who Cap can treat badly and survive. Cap being too smart to rely on Hulk to now be some heroic entity tells Hulk to do what Hulk does and Hulk does it, happily. Cap and Banner use Hulk as a weapon. Hulk does not become a hero.
To me, Hulk is not just rage. He has great capacity for rage, but like a developing child, he has capacity to show other emotions and even do a bit of reasoning. If Hulk was only rage, he wouldn't have "Betty's" in the first place, and wouldn't have saved Tony.
And he wouldn't have put in effort to divert the collision course of the leviathan heading towards the building full of people. Sure he could have just landed on its head and bashed its skull in, but instead he pulled it away.
The only reason we see him primarily angry is because the majority of his situations are of him being in perceivable danger. Civilians running away shouldn't make him think danger though, otherwise he would have turned his attention away from the leviathan and instead throw around those poor civilians who barely got out of his way. The whole helicarrier situation was one of hostility that was topped off with an explosion, ie sudden immense pain. And the only one in his sights after that was one of the agents he remembered as an aggressor. So he chased Nat, and cornered her. But you know what? He hesitated once he realized she wasn't a threat after all. He wouldn't have hit her even if Thor didn't intervene.
Now is he a liability? Sure. Even if he has the best intentions, "puny humans good", "big robot bad", his actions are naturally big, and thus will have big consequences. Civilians may die in the Johannesburg as a result of his actions, but it's not like he'll be actively trying to kill them. Even if they throw fruit at him. Fruit is not a threat. The gunfire from the local military yes, but there is nothing the civilians can do to him to make him purposefully try to hurt them. So if that scene isn't him fighting something, if Whedon for some reason decides to pull a complete 180 and have Hulk go on indiscriminate rampages, I might feel obliged to walk out of the theater.
I would agree that Hulk is not just rage, but his a creature of rage. Rage is what makes him appear, and when the rage is gone he disappears. It is his primary motivation. I agree its not his only motivation. Banner's love for people shines through because, after all, they're the same person.
His ability to have Betty's doesn't mean that he doesn't react like a monster though. Thor was not a threat, Captain America was not a threat, but he reacted to them like threats. Heck, Loki's army wasn't a threat to Hulk. Hulk would have been just fine, but he attacked as many as he could anyway. Hulk is a rage monster, he's not analyzing threats, he's reacting in anger. If you say hi, he's ready to fight you. Heaven help you if you insult him.
Hulk on an indiscriminate rampage would not be a 180 from Avengers at all. Whedon did not show Hulk analyzing threats. You make Hulk mad he fights you. This is a constant over 50 years. Why would it change with AoU?
Mjölnir;27965735 said:I wrote that part so I wouldn't get criticism of Cap's order as a response. My point was that since you said that Hulk would smash someone for doing anything remotely negative I used Cap giving him an order as an example as some take offense to people telling them what to do. Hulk clearly didn't and instead clearly accepted Cap as an ally.
Hulk didn't do it out of anger. He fought Thor at the Helicarrier out of anger, that's what anger looks like. This was a punch (on someone he knew could easily take a punch from him) and a little grunt, which is more a "just don't think you're better than me" thing, or something along those lines, which also fits with what Whedon has said about it.
He attacked them under the influence of Loki and the scepter. So did Hawkeye. The only difference is the amount of influence, as Hulk requires less. There's not exactly many that can replicate that feat on him so in future events he's more likely to behave like in the NY battle.
Yes, Banner is not in full control of the Hulk. Hulk is not Banner, he just shares some memories and thoughts. He seems to share much more in The Avengers than before though.
He's not Hulking out because he's not quite there yet but the anger is gradually building up. He's the most mild-mannered of the Avengers but yet he's the one starting to become the angriest, so he's pushed closer and closer to the limit where he can lose control. Then the explosion comes and he's pushed over the line. Of course you can hurt Banner to the point where Hulk comes out, the suicide part is testament to that, but it's not like you slap him over the head and he goes wild. Whedon wanted to explain why Hulk was dangerous on the Helicarrier but not later through showing Loki's influence, so everyone could tell the difference and not just think he only acts according to plot needs. The entire arc for Banner in TA is to make Hulk go from a monster to a hero.
The reason Cap's order wasn't remotely negative is because Hulk didn't consider it remotely negative. Just because I don't like cheese doesn't mean Pizza will make Bruce Banner Hulk out. The only thing Hulk considered potentially negative was Cap saying "... and Hulk," That's how easy it is to get a green fist. Everyone who makes Hulk mad in Avengers gets it. That's the character.
Anger doesn't always require roaring. Some people will ignore you out of anger. However you slice it, Hulk hit Thor because Thor did something he didn't like. That's what Hulk does, he attacks people who do things he doesn't like. Now we can say, he didn't try to kill Thor because Thor is one of his Bettys now, but the fact that Hulk attacks people who make him angry is a constant that Avengers never does away with, thank goodness.
Hulk does not seem to share more with Banner in Avengers. I'm not sure what that could be based on.
I think your story about the staff and what Whedon wanted to show is just a story. Banner held the staff and expressed anger at his teammates without Hulking out. It took the explosion to push him over the edge, but the explosion would have pushed him over the edge without the staff, so... yeah. Whedon showed Hulk *was* dangerous later by having him almost snap on Cap and only attack people who attacked him.
This.
I don't even know why this is up for debate. To believe otherwise one would have to ignore everything that happened with Hulk in The Avengers.
What in Avengers has been ignored? Hulk attacking people who attack him? Hulk lashing out at his teammates for no good reason? Hulk saving Stark like he always saves Betty? I don't know why you guys can't just accept that Hulk is a monster. A loveable, awesome, dangerous monster. He's not a hero. But Bruce Banner, that guy who has the courage to turn into a dangerous monster to save the world... now THAT guy, that's a hero.
So in AoU, expect Hulk to continue to attack everyone who attacks him or makes him mad in some other way, and Banner to be even more incredible in how he heroically uses this dangerous deadly unheroic monster.
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