Marvel Made Its Strongest Hero Do The Grossest Thing Imaginable

In the alternate future of Old Man Logan, a 2008 Marvel storyline, the U.S. has been taken over by supervillains and divided into territories—each controlled by a different villain. The inbred spawn of the Hulk and She-Hulk rules over one territory. As an aging Bruce Banner explains to Wolverine at one point in the story, normal women couldn’t handle being intimate with the Hulk, which left him no choice but to mate with his cousin.

If that sounds gross, it’s meant to. The gang of inbred hillbilly Hulklings look just as messed up in the comic as you’re picturing them in your mind. Maybe even more so.

This incestuous relationship between She-Hulk and her cousin was the brainchild of writer Mark Millar, which shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with his work. Millar, the creator of the Kick-Ass and the Ultimates, has a reputation as one of the sickest minds in comics. Trust us when we say he’s earned it.

The entire world of Old Man Logan is a bleak, cynical wasteland full of horrible perversions of classic Marvel characters. The plot is basically that of the famous western Unforgiven. Logan has buried the violent Wolverine part of himself and is living a new life with his wife and kids on a farm. Everything is peaceful until the day the Hulk Gang shows up and demands Logan pay them, or they’ll kill his wife and kids.

Nothing in Old Man Logan‘s nihilistic wasteland is as disturbing as the Hulk’s brood. It’s assumed, though never explicitly stated, that the unholy abominations that sprung from Banner’s loins also procreated with each other. How do we know this? Because the Hulk Gang that comes after Wolverine demanding money are the grandchildren of She-Hulk and the Hulk.

That means that the first generation of inbred Hulks either mated with each other or with their parents, which is a much darker option. Society is fine supporting a story like Adam and Eve, in which two people populate the Earth until they realize the actual logistics of such a situation. No matter how you slice it, two generations in that family are dealing with an extremely shallow gene pool.

Luckily, Millar realizes just how gross of a situation he’s written and makes sure by the end of Old Man Logan that there are no Hulk’s left to breed with each other in that version of the Marvel Universe.

Logan returns home with the Hulk’s money only to find his wife and kids dead because the Hulk Gang got bored waiting. The Wolverine aspect of Logan comes back with a vengeance, and he systematically murders every member of the family until he gets to Bruce Banner. The cousin-loving Banner hulks out and eats Wolverine, only to have him later claw his way out of the Hulk’s stomach, killing the monster in the process.

It’s the grossest part of an already gross comic book. Mercifully, in Millar’s dystopia, She-Hulk has already passed on when the story starts, sparing readers from whatever gruesome fate would have befallen her at the hands of a blood-lusted Wolverine.

So yeah, anyone still salty over the Disney + She-Hulk show should count themselves lucky. We could have gotten a much worse show starring the Hulk and his lawyer cousin.