Spider-Man Once Saved The World As The Hulk
The 2006-7 miniseries Bullet Points presents a reality separate from the prime Marvel narrative in which Peter Parker became the Hulk and saved the world from Galactus.
With the multiverse being all the rage in the MCU, it’s a shame that the 2006-7 Marvel Comic Bullet Points remains a relatively obscure title. The miniseries presents a world in which, among other differences from Marvel’s prime narrative, Bruce Banner becomes Spider-Man and Peter Parker becomes the Hulk. It’s the Parker version of the Green Goliath who proves to be the only person capable of saving the Earth from Galactus.
Bullet Points was written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and drawn by Tommy Lee Edwards. In the first issue, we learn that in this reality, Dr. Abraham Erskine is murdered before he has a chance to administer the super soldier serum to Steve Rogers and Peter Parker’s uncle Ben is killed trying to catch the assassin. The Spider-Man and Hulk switcheroo is just one of many changes this event leads to.
Steve Rogers still joins the war effort but as Iron Man instead of Captain America. Bruce Banner gains Spider-Man’s powers while examining a spider from the site of the bombing that turns Parker into the Hulk. All but one of the would-be Fantastic Four die on their fateful space flight, and afterwards it’s Reed Richards who becomes head of S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of Nick Fury.
In the prime Marvel narrative, aka Earth 616, it’s Silver Surfer’s encounters with the FF and Alicia Masters that inspires him to turn against Galactus. Because there is no Fantastic Four in the world of Bullet Points, Silver Surfer has no reason to turn on his master when the Devourer of Worlds arrives on Earth. That is, not until the boy we know best as Spider-Man arrives with the power of the Hulk.
A makeshift army of Marvel heroes and villains arrives to battle Galactus and the Silver Surfer, but they are easily brushed aside. The tide only turns when the would-be Spider-Man version of Hulk arrives and makes his solo stand against the world eater. He survives longer than Galactus believes possible, though eventually succumbs, calling out to his Aunt May with his dying breaths.
Watching the would-be Spider-Man version of Hulk’s sacrifice is too much for Silver Surfer to bear. He asks himself, “what kind of creature would lay down his life before a world that feared and hated it… to save just one person?” For the Silver Surfer, the answer is a creature who belongs to a world that does “not deserve extinction,” and so he turns on Galactus and stops him from devouring the Earth.
The would-be Hulk version of Spider-Man suffers a fate just as violent but not nearly as dignified. As part of the 2015 Marvel Comics event Spider-Verse, the Bullet Points Spider-Man is one of the first of many variant Spideys murdered by the brutal Inheritors.
