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As the next era of the Hulk gets ready to start, Marvel’s strongest hero makes a decision that mirrors a choice he made in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for “Ignition” in Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/Hulk, now available from Marvel.
In all of his forms, the Hulk has spent a lot of time looking inward lately. Throughout Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s The Immortal Hulk, the Hulk has reckoned with his various personals and the One-Below-All. While the Hulk’s fight with the devil-like entity has taken him to some of the darkest depths of the Marvel Universe, the Green Goliath is about to reach for some of Marvel’s greatest heights.
While the Hulk has spent plenty of time in the far reaches of the Marvel Universe, he’s never really gone into space on his own accord without a specific purpose. However, Donny Cates, Ryan Ottley, Frank Martin and VC’s Cory Petit just revealed that the Hulk is about to fulfill Bruce Banner’s childhood dream of exploring space in a move that mirrors a decision that changed the character’s life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While it’s not yet clear what state the Hulk will be in by the time Immortal Hulk concludes, this story opens with a Smart Hulk who calls the memories of Bruce Banner his own. However, the Hulk admits that he still isn’t on the best terms with the Avengers or anyone else right now, especially in the wake of their recent battles.
As he smashes his way through M.O.D.O.K. and a small A.I.M. battalion, the Hulk says that he wanted to explore space and encounter new worlds, long before he became a gamma scientist, a monster or a superhero. To that end, the Hulk also steals a hi-tech helmet and some other technology that M.O.D.O.K. was building for his own cosmic ambitions before jumping into what a teaser describes as “Operation: Smashtronaut.”
Within the Marvel Universe, the Hulk was famously sent into space by a group of superheroes and leaders called the Illuminati, and he famously ended up on the planet Sakaar in “Planet Hulk.” While that storyline made the Hulk a gladiator, a conqueror and a king, the decision to go into space was made for the Hulk, and the Hulk’s rage at being betrayed likely overshadowed any feelings of wish fulfillment for his more human side.
But now, the Hulk has decided to go into space on his own, in part to put some distance between himself and the Avengers. This sentiment echoes the MCU Hulk’s choice to go into space at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The cinematic Hulk separated himself from his allies to protect them, and the Hulk could be following the same train of thought himself to some extent. While this ultimately led the Hulk to Thor: Ragnarok’s Contest of Champions on the MCU’s Sakaar, the proverbial sky is the limit as far as the Hulk’s current journey is concerned.
Much like his MCU counterpart, the Hulk isn’t planning on coming back to Earth, seemingly done with being a hero. While the Hulk may be letting Banner live out his childhood dream, his decision to go into space also puts him on track to thrive in the kind of untamed environment where his strength and brutal nature are assets instead of liabilities, as he has in the past. The Hulk might be the most powerful being on Earth, but he’s about to show the rest of the universe what he can really do.
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