My "I HATE the Hulk" rant.

I haven't seen the new Hulk movie yet and I have no real interest in doing so no matter how good it is. For that matter, I've never seen the Ang Lee/Eric Bana one either. Mostly because I've never liked the character and in his post here Jim Smith kind of touches onto why.

Now I will admit, I've only read a fraction of the Hulk comics most people have. But all I really remember is seeing this guy feeling sorry for himself, losing it, and attacking his friends. All the fucking time. Occasionally massive property damage insues.

And I'm sorry, I think a superhero is allowed maybe ONE time where their powers go crazy and hurt/kill innocent people before I start getting annoyed. Well, to be fair, it's one thing if they're taking genuine precautions to try to avoid it happening again, but at least in the comics I read, Bruce Banner doesn't do that.

Honestly, it's to the point that I think if someone dies in one of the Hulk's rampages, Bruce Banner should be charged for 2nd Degree Murder. (I'm making the assumption here that people have actually died during a Hulk rampage, mostly because I can't truly conceive of a way they WOULDN'T at some point. Feel free to call me on that lack of imagination. :-)) Because he KNOWS what will inevitably happen and almost never takes any real precautions in the comic book equivalent of driving drunk in car, speeding, in reverse, through a parade of small children. It goes beyond involutary manslaughter at this point. There's a blatant and obscene disregard for human rights there!

There's a point in which a person's individual rights to life and freedom have to be weighed against all of the innocent people he's willfully and knowingly endangering. Rights have limits. A man can kill another in self defense, but the law doesn't recognize the right to take the life of an innocent person to save your own. If someone is holding a gun to your head, tells you to kill that guy over there, and you do, you will be criminally charged. A man can decide to blow up a bridge that he built and owns, on his property, but not when he has reason to know that someone is crossing over it at that very moment. I think Bruce Banner's crossed that line a long time ago. He KNOWS what he's capable of doing as the Hulk. He KNOWS that people have been hurt and possibly died before. He has been willfully choosing his own freedom and self-interest over peoples' lives.

And even if you allow for the defense that he's not in his right mind...homicidally insane people are still LOCKED UP.

Honestly, I have to admit, and I may sound evil for saying this, I'm not sure sending him into space was the wrong thing to do. Morally questionable to say the least. Probably out of character for most of the folks that decided it, sure. But the wrong decision? I don't know. It's certainly very extreme. And nearly inhumanly cruel. But I do believe that the Hulk should have been stopped a long time ago. And if Bruce Banner isn't making a serious attempt to do so, then maybe someone else has to. I don't know if it's a decision that I could make, personally, but I understand it.

Maybe there's some spectacular Hulk run or series out there that manages to redeem the previously mentioned aspects of the character to the point where I would be able to tolerate him. But until I ever stumble across that mythical series, I have to say, I think Bruce Banner's at least as much of a villain as, say, Two Face is. And honestly, I have a lot more sympathy for Harvey Dent because Bruce Banner has the capacity to decide to put himself under military care or on a deserted island or on a secret base or ask Reed Richards to build a negative zone prison to keep himself in. I get that the anger management issues aren't his fault, but he definitely has the capacity to find a way to minimize his exposure and to mitigate the damage for the inevitable fall.

Also, I hate the tv series' stupid sad ending music. It makes me want to knee him in the balls.

It probably doesn't help my lack of sympathy for the character that my first real exposure to him was in Ultimate Avengers the movie. And I realize that the movie is mostly Ultimate continuity (though with a Cap that was more 616 and a Hank that...I'm not sure WHAT he was, but he wasn't Ultimate Hank...thank god) but holy hell was Bruce Banner a hateful monster in it.

You know the usual formula for a story like UA. There's a quiet, shy, misunderstood geek type and a loud, arrogant, obnoxious, snobby hotshot jerk vying for the same position. Much to everyone's surprise the misunderstood geek is chosen. The hotshot rants and raves about how he's the better choice. The geek makes a mistake but manages to redeem himself in the end and prove himself. The jerk either is converted and realizes he's wrong or he remains deluded enough to think he could have been better. The jerk isn't supposed to be RIGHT.

It's predictable and cliched and I have to give UA a bit of credit for subverting the formula.

But I have never wanted a character to fuck off and die SO HARD. And it's funny because I totally WOULD have sympathized if, while doing his own selfish and unauthorized and about to backfire experiments with the serum, he actually managed to DO THE JOB HE WAS HIRED TO DO as well. Then even if that stuff didn't work, I'd be all "Well, it was a side project."

But he didn't even DO HIS JOB. Hank was RIGHT. Hank WOULD have been the better choice. For all his ego, posturing, masculinity issues, inferiority complex, rudeness and jackassery, Hank would have DONE THE DAMN JOB. He probably would have ended up making a robot that would then try to take over fucking NASA that they'd have to stop, but he'd still have DONE THE DAMN JOB HE WAS HIRED TO DO.

I have no idea why that's such a big deal for me. I guess in the end, I have a virtual hard-on for professionalism?

It made me hate Nick Fury and Tony Stark too. (Mostly because I don't remember which of them actually hired Bruce. :-P) Because it's okay to forego the reliable and talented, if unpleasant and obnoxious hotshot for the quiet and misunderstood wild card if the wild card character DESERVES IT. But Hank was RIGHT. And no one ever acknowledged at the end that Hank was right. He WOULD have been the better choice. I honestly thought they all owed him a fucking apology.

Idiots.

From what Jim Smith says I may actually like the Edward Norton version of the character since they do seem to be making a point of giving Bruce a REASON not to turn himself over to the military. I still want the comic book version to get shot into space again. A hell of a lot farther this time. :-)