Hulk’s Terrifying New Redesign Is Bruce Banner’s Nightmare Brought to Life

As the Avengers launch into their final battle against the Red Skull, they find themselves facing a dark new take on the Hulk – one who fulfills Bruce Banner’s worst nightmares about his legacy and purpose. While the Hulk was a founding member of the Avengers, he’s found himself fighting against them just as often as he’s been their ally. Now, the Green Goliath finds himself as the ultimate threat to the team’s legacy.

In Avengers: Twilight #5, the Red Skull – now wielding powerful Iron Man armor designed by Ultron – attacks the US, carrying out a coup d’état. Skull has been planning his move for years, working to rehabilitate his image and destroy public trust in heroes. While Captain America’s new Avengers team rally to prevent his takeover, the comic ends with the arrival of the Skull’s “ultimate weapon” – a tame Hulk controlled by Ultron’s tech.

Hulk makes his return by instantly taking down Thor, as Red Skull reveals that the age of peace America is living through is thanks to being able to deploy Bruce Banner’s gamma form anywhere in the world, instantly crushing any resistance. This is the Hulk as Bruce Banner’s nightmare – a living weapon whose monstrosity is so great, the world has buckled under his fist.

Red Skull Unleashes Hulk as a Living Weapon

Bruce Destroyed the Avengers in This Dark Marvel Future

Avengers: Twilight takes place several decades in Marvel’s future and follows the devastating H-Day – an event during which the Hulk was controlled by Ultron, going on a destructive rampage that killed heroes and civilians alike and destroyed the Avengers’ public image. In a world that has rejected its protectors, SHIELD has become a fascist organization as Red Skull pulls the strings, supported by James Stark – the embittered son of Tony Stark and Janet Van Dyne, who only just learned that his adopted father figure ‘Kyle Jarvis’ was always the classic villain in disguise.

Red Skull has been controlling America in various ways, including a fake team of Avengers holograms used to cover up war crimes, including the use of the Hulk to subjugate the rest of the world. While Bruce was controlled first by Ultron and then by Red Skull (who has been keeping the Mad Android prisoner), he is the weapon the villains used to destroy the Avengers, kill many of Bruce’s closest allies, and turn the country into an engine of evil.

Now, Captain America’s new Avengers team must work together to take out a Hulk who has been stripped of restraint, exercising his full strength as a living WMD. With Thor already down and both James Stark and Red Skull also arrayed against them, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are up against a major challenge – but it’s Bruce Banner who is living the greatest nightmare.

Hulk Is Constantly Being Used as a Weapon

Bruce Banner’s Gamma Research Has Corrupted His Legacy

Genius scientist Bruce Banner originally envisioned his gamma radiation research as a gift to the world – the basis for medical treatments and philanthropic works that would give him a heroic legacy without any kind of superpower being necessary. Unfortunately, Banner couldn’t find the funding to make his dream come true, and ended up working with the United States Defense Department in order to fund his research, producing the Gamma Bomb to justify his continued work. Of course, things went wrong from there – an accident with the gamma bomb turned Bruce into the Hulk, and his introduction of gamma weapons to the world created many more threats, such as the Abomination and the Leader.

The invention of the Gamma Bomb has long been treated as Bruce Banner’s original sin – while he can’t stop himself becoming the Hulk or limit what the Green Goliath does when he emerges, he did knowingly give the world a deadly new weapon, and all his misfortune has stemmed from that decision. This is no coincidence – many of Jack Kirby’s creations are criticisms of atomic weapons and the harm they pose to humanity (including the X-Men and Fantastic Four.)

Bruce never wanted to create a weapon, but in allowing his research to be morally compromised, he did that and more, becoming a living weapon who has caused endless destruction. Whether being forced to work for Hydra during Secret Empire, resurrected by the Hand, transformed into a Horseman of Apocalypse, tricked by Doctor Doom, recruited by the Maker, or blackmailed by SHIELD, countless Hulk stories zero in on this fate as the fulfillment of Bruce Banner’s nightmare – becoming a living weapon whose use he has no way to control. Now, as Red Skull reveals he’s been deploying the Hulk for years, this new form is the absolute realization of Bruce’s ‘Hulk as WMD’ nightmare.

The Avengers Could Be Hulk’s Salvation… If He’ll Let Them

Despite Spotty Membership, Hulk Is the Reason the Avengers Formed in the First Place

However, despite decades as a living nuke, Hulk’s story doesn’t necessarily have to end in despair. While Loki is remembered as the villain who caused the Avengers to form in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Avengers #1, it was actually the threat of the Hulk (at that point Loki’s weapon) that brought them together. As Avengers: Twilight sees Captain America forge a new team in the Avengers mold, it’s fitting that Hulk is the final challenge they must face to stop the Red Skull and regain the public trust. Coming together against Hulk is a mythic Avengers moment that can give Cap’s new team – made up of damaged former heroes and rebellious new recruits – purpose and legitimacy.

But Captain America beating the Hulk isn’t the only way this fight can end – after all, in their first fight against the Green Goliath, the Avengers ended up recruiting him to their cause. If Captain America can free the Hulk from Ultron’s technology, Bruce Banner may actually get a chance to redeem himself, working to topple the evil regime he helped create. There’s a lot of red in Hulk’s ledger at the moment – he essentially destroyed the idea of superheroes and turned America into a dictatorship – but for all his flaws, Bruce has never been afraid to put in the work and try to fix what he broke.

Becoming a weapon of mass destruction unleashed against his friends is Bruce Banner’s worst nightmare, but this final, deciding battle of Avengers: Twilight is also his chance to regain some control and work for a better tomorrow. Hopefully, Avengers: Twilight doesn’t end with Captain America’s team just beating the Hulk, but giving Bruce Banner one final shot at redemption in a world where his worst nightmare came true.

Avengers: Twilight #5 is available now from Marvel Comics.