Bruce Banner Isn’t Marvel’s First Hulk
You’re probably familiar with the idea that–like with all big Marvel properties–there have been plenty of spinoffs of the Hulk like She-Hulk, Red Hulk, Weapon H, Skaar, etc. But did you know that Bruce Banner himself–while not a spinoff–is not Marvel’s first Hulk? Yes, there are characters who Marvel retroactively added to their mythos, but there are also three Marvel characters named the Hulk before Banner–one of whom has clashed with the green goliath on multiple occasions since the 1970s.
Marvel’s Very First Hulk
Publication-wise, Bruce Banner is not only not the first Marvel character to be called the Hulk–he’s not the second or the third, but the fourth.
Marvel’s first three Hulk characters all show up between 1960 and 1961 in the kinds of sci-fi/horror anthology comics that made up most of the company’s offerings before they kicked off a new superhero revolution.
The first came in 1960’s Strange Tales #75 with the story “I Made The Hulk Live.” A scientist who has been bullied his entire life for his short stature creates what others believe to be a large robot, but is in fact a massive suit of controllable mechanical armor
Xemnu
Out of all the pre-Banner Hulk stories published by Marvel before 1962’s Incredible Hulk #1, the only one that is confirmed to be a part of Marvel Prime canon is “I Was A Slave of the Living Hulk!” from 1960’s Journey into Mystery #62.
The story introduces the Xemnu the Hulk. The alien villain–with his fur inexplicably changed from reddish-brown to white–reappears in 1972’s Marvel Feature #3 as a foe of the trio that originated the Defenders (Doctor Strange, Hulk, and Namor), when he’s rebranded “Xemnu the Titan.”
Fittingly, the other Defenders wind up needing the Hulk–whose childlike brain proves impervious to Xemnu’s psychic powers–to defeat the alien.
The Confusingly Metafictional Hulk
The third and final Hulk that Marvel introduced before Bruce Banner appears in one of the most metafictional and bizarre stories of the time.
“It Happened On “The Silent Screen”” is a five-page story from 1961’s Tales to Astonish #21–a “silent” story, i.e. there are no dialogue bubbles and there is no narration.
When the story begins, you believe you are watching a movie theater audience watching a film called The Hulk about a sea monster. But once the film ends and the audience filters out of the theater, the monster emerges from the movie screen.
The story zooms out, and now you’re watching an audience that is watching the story about the sea monster coming out of the movie screen. But, before the story ends, the monster reaches through the second audience’s movie screen, and then a third.
Starbrand Of The Stone Age Avengers
When writer Jason Aaron took over the new volume of Avengers in 2017, he introduced the Stone Age Avengers, including prehistoric versions of more recognizable Marvel heroes like Ghost Rider, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange.
Among the prehistoric heroes is Starbrand who–in spite of the name–is clearly meant to be an early version of the Hulk.
His origin story unfolds in 2019’s Avengers #26. Vnn leaves his tribe behind and finds a lover, though that lover is killed when Deviants attack. Finding the cosmic mark of the Starbrand on a fallen T-rex, Vnn becomes a red man-monster who uses his strength to get vengeance for his dead lover.
Tammuz
In his game-changing Immortal Hulk series, writer Al Ewing injected a dark element into the eponymous hero’s origin–that the monster’s abilities were inextricably tied to a powerful being called The One Below All.
This would prove true of all the other gamma-irradiated characters in the Hulk’s orbit, like his cousin Jennifer, Doc Samson, the Leader, Rick Jones, etc.
In 2021, Marvel released a one-shot acting as a kind of prequel called Immortal Hulk: Time of Monsters. The comic introduces Tammuz, a young man living in what today would be Jordan in 9500 BCE who becomes the very first gamma-irradiated Hulk via contact with a meteorite.
While he is green like the Banner Hulk, Tammuz’s version has claws, fangs, and multiple bony structures on his body’s exterior including goat-like horns.
