The Hulk is the most dangerous of metas and a two-edged sword. He is the epitome of what humans fear the most, incredible power without reason or conscience. While a powerful force for good, he has also been a destructive force that has also cost human lives. It is only with the greatest of regrets that Dr. Banner has not been sanctioned before now. The lives of the three hundred people who have died at the hands of the Hulk are on our hands. This will never happen again. The Hulk is never to be approached without proper military support. It has been determined that in the event of another rampage of the Hulk, that Bruce Banner is to be santioned with extreme predjudice.
–S.H.I.E.L.D. Sanction Files.

Identity: It is publicly known that Bruce Banner is the Hulk.

Legal status: Citizen of the United States with criminal record; pardoned

Other aliases: Robert Banning, The Savage Hulk, Joe Fixit

Place of birth: Dayton, Ohio

Marital status: Widower

Known relatives: Betty Ross Banner (wife, deceased), Brian (father, deceased), Rebecca Walters Banner (mother, deceased), Morris Walters (uncle), Elaine Walters (aunt, deceased), Jennifer Walters (alias She-Hulk, cousin), Thaddeus E. Ross (father-in-law),

Group affiliation:(current) None, (former) Leader of the Hulkbusters, founding member of the Avengers, founding member of the Defenders, the Pantheon, (former) Horseman of the Apocalypse, Heroes for Hire, Fantastic Four, Secret Defenders

Base of operations:Mobile; (former) Hulkbuster Base, New Mexico; Desert Base, New Mexico

First appearance: HULK #1

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 being named “the Hulk” by the military present at the test site.

At first Banner changed into a gray Hulk at sunset and reverted to human form at dawn. 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 the day or night it was. As these changes occurred, the Hulk went from having gray skin to his now more-familiar greenish hue. Usually the Hulk possessed little of Banner’s memory and intelligence and was easily enraged. Hence the Hulk was considered 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 personality when he became the Hulk to control himself in that form, and he even became a founding member of the Avengers. 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. Banner has undergone further changes in his various incarnations over the last few years. He once had the Hulk incarnation separated from his normal human body, although the Hulk ran amok and eventually had to be merged with Banner once again.

There was another point where the Hulk regressed back to its gray form, where it possessed Banner’s memories and intelligence, but also had a more brutish, thug-like personality. The gray Hulk wound up becoming the bodyguard for a mobster in Las Vegas, before changing once again. Eventually, the Hulk’s many different incarnations were integrated into one stable version, a green-skinned Hulk with Banner’s intelligence, but a more aggressive personality. Recently, the Hulk was shown a possible future timeline where a nuclear war devastated the Earth, killing almost all of the super heroes and villains. The one exception to this was the Hulk, who, using his strength and scientific know-how, was able to build a city called Dystopia and protect its citizens from the radiation outside. Gradually, the Hulk, who renamed himself the Maestro, eventually became dictator of the city. The Hulk went to this future time, and, in battle, killed the Maestro. However, he has been haunted by both the memories and the spirit of the Maestro, as well as evidence of that timeline becoming more and more likely. How this will affect the Hulk remains to be seen.

Dr. Bannner has recently been diagnosed with Hodkin’s Disease and with psychological help has recently reintergrated the dissimilar portions of his psyche under his control. Conquering the damaged part of his psyche, Banner is confident that once he physically succumbs to the disease, he will be able to revert to the Hulk and allow the separate personalities free reign. The green intelligent Hulk will have the day and the grey, cunning Hulk, the night. Whether this arrangement will take place and be viable once Banner is unable to control the transformation has yet to be seen.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Height: 5′ 9 1/2″, (Savage Hulk) 7′, (Grey Hulk) 6’6″, (Merged Hulk) 7′ 6″
Weight: 128 lbs., (Savage Hulk) 1,040 lbs., (Grey Hulk) 900 lbs., (Merged Hulk) 1,150 lbs.
Eyes: Brown, (Savage and Merged Hulks) Green, (Grey Hulk) Grey
Hair: Brown, (Savage and Merged Hulks) Greenish-Black, (Grey Hulk) Black

POWERS AND ABILITIES
Strength: The Hulk has the potential for superhuman strength [Image] of the Class 100 level, enabling him to lift (press) in excess of 100 tons. The Hulk only attains this strength level when he is enraged. In a totally calm state his functional strength is significantly less, approximately around 70 to 75 tons. In human form, Bruce Banner possesses the human strength of a man his age, height, and build who engages in no regular exercise.

Known superhuman powers: The Hulk possesses the capacity for nearly limitless physical strength. (This statement is not actually true. There are limits to the amount of mass the Hulk can actually move based on leverage, balance of the structure/object lifted, as well as the maximum any organic being can lift without the augmentation of external energy sources. A good estimate would probably be 200 tons before an external energy source would be required. –from the records of Reed Richards.)

The gamma radiation that activated the genetic factor in Banner’s adult body, fortified his cellular structure and added, from some as yet unknown source, over 800 pounds of bone, marrow and tissue to his body (This same unknown realm is presumably where the Hulk receives his enormous energies from, since the Hulk has never been seen to eat the incredible amounts of food required to power organically a physiology such as his.) Previously, this mutation was not a stable one.

The Hulk would periodically revert to the human form of Bruce Banner, losing the extra mass and energy to the same as yet unknown source from which he derived it. Originally, Banner would change into the Hulk at sundown each night, and would revert back to his original human form at dawn the following day.

Later, the process of transformation developed a chemical catalyst, adrenaline. Whereas this secretion simply heightens normal physical abilities in normal human beings, in Banner’s case it triggered a complex chemical/extra-physical process that transformed him into the Hulk. Currently, however, the Hulk’s condition is stable, and he does revert back to the human form of Banner. In times of stress the Hulk’s adrenaline level escalates, causing a corresponding escalation in strength. This is not accompanied by an additional gain in mass, but does appear to promote increased levels of energy efficiency. To date the Hulk has never apparently been provoked into demonstrating a maximum output of strength, hence, its upper limit remains a mystery.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.

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, great cold without freezing, and great impacts without rupturing, although it is possible to injure him. The Hulk’s highly efficient physiology renders him immune to all terrestrial disease. It has also been determined that the Hulk’s healing factor makes it possible for him to recover from injuries that destroy or damage the his cellular materials. In a battle with Vector of the U-Foes, the Hulk loses approximately 80% of his mass and regenerates it nearly instantaneously. In addition to rapid recovery from injuries, this ability has other advantages. For instance, it contributes to his incredible stamina since it greatly retards fatigue poisons from accumulating in his body.

ENCHANTMENTS AND PSYCHIC ABILITIES
The Hulk has two powers apparently not related to his physical attributes. He possesses the ability to see astral forms, or the psychic manifestations of people outside their bodies. This ability was mentally created by the Hulk following the accidental death of his father, and his subsequent repression of that memory. Fearing that his father’s ghost might come back to haunt him, Banner subconsciously gave the Hulk this power as an early warning for that eventuality. His other mental power is an extra-sensory homing ability which allows him to locate the area in New Mexico where he first became the Hulk. This homing sense seems to be able to work anywhere the Hulk might be in the world. Recently, it was discovered that this power was caused by the Hulk’s attraction to the psychic “remains” of the Maestro, who was killed when he was transported back in time to the exact moment the Gamma Bomb was detonated. Whether the power will continue to work, now that the Hulk understands its origin, remains to be seen.

The senseless and brutal rampages of the Mindless Hulk caused him to become a severe threat to New York City. To protect the innocent citizens of the city and the Hulk from the inevitable lethal force that would be used to stop his rampages, Dr. Strange banished the Hulk to an inter-dimensional nexus point known as the Crossroads of Reality. This nexus point allowed the Hulk to travel to a practically infinite number of inter dimensional worlds. However, the Hulk seemingly could travel to any world except the Earth. To prevent his friend from being stranded on a given world, Dr. Strange cast a spell on the Hulk that would allow him to return to the Crossroads if he became dissatisfied with the world that he is on. Although the spell was to be triggered by the Hulk’s subconscious, he learned how to consciously triggered it. Since his eventual return to Earth, it has not been revealed whether the spell is active or not.