Rebecca Banner

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #267

The late mother of Bruce Banner.

• Awful Wedded Life: Her marriage to Brian was terrible for both her and her son.
• Broken Bird: As a result of being married to the abusive scuzzball in human form known as Brian Banner.
• Death by Childbirth: Just narrowly avoided it with Bruce, which Brian used as yet another excuse to hate his son for nearly "taking" Rebecca from him.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: One of the few people in Bruce's life who offered genuine love and acceptance, encouraging his intelligence when it was clear he was a gifted child and working to keep him safe from his abusive father. While both of Bruce's parents are dead, she's naturally is the one who died first and had less time to shine a much-needed positive influence into his life.
• The Faceless: Through Immortal Hulk, any time Rebecca appears, her face is obscured or hidden, either by shadows, a narration box, or just her facing the other direction.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: She eventually managed to decide she wasn't sticking around with Brian anymore and tried to flee with baby Bruce. Brian caught them and smashed her head in.
• Shipper on Deck: Bruce once met her in the afterlife. She preferred Jarella over Betty, then in her Red She-Hulk phase.
• Useless Bystander Parent: A sympathetic version; she did regularly try to protect Bruce from Brian's abuse, at one point even attempting to flee their home with him only to be caught. Other times she would run away crying when Brian lost his temper, leading him to take it out on Bruce as an easier target. It's clear that she genuinely loved and wanted to protect her son, but couldn't maintain the strength to always intervene to keep him safe. Bruce doesn't hold any negative feelings toward her over this, knowing she was just as much a target of Brian's abuse and was a woman stuck in an impossible situation.

Betty Ross

Full Name: Elizabeth "Betty" Ross

Notable Aliases: Elizabeth "Betty" Talbot, Elizabeth "Betty" Banner, Harpy, Red She-Hulk, She-Rulk, Mr. Blue, Red Harpy

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk #1 (1962) ^note As Betty Ross / The Incredible Hulk #168 (1973) ^note As Harpy / Hulk Vol. 2 #15 (2009) ^note As Red She-Hulk

Betty is Bruce Banner's first and most enduring Love Interest, and daughter of General Thunderbolt Ross, one of the Hulk's longtime foes. She's since been through almost as much trauma as Banner himself: she's married, and then divorced Glenn Talbot; been estranged from her father; been turned into the supervillainess Harpy by M.O.D.O.K.; nearly died of cancer given to her by the Abomination; and finally been turned into the Red She-Hulk by The Leader, who then forced her to fight against most of the heroes of Earth. Back in control of herself (but still empowered), Betty struggled to establish a new sense of self. She briefly had her own 10-issue series as Red She-Hulk that ran from December 2012 to September 2013.

Unfortunately, Doc Green (Hulk's new persona that's both super smart and strong) came to the conclusion that the world was in danger from Gamma Mutates, who thus needed to be depowered. After Doc Green depowered A-Bomb (Rick Jones) and Skaar, he also depowered Betty and she lost her power as Red She-Hulk.

Except this didn't stick. During The Immortal Hulk, she was shot in the head by Bushwacker. She subsequently self-revived in a new Gamma Mutate form; a crimson-skinned and more-monstrous looking version of her ancient Harpy persona, nicknamed "Red Harpy" by the fans.

• Action Girl / Dark Action Girl: As Harpy and Red She-Hulk. In her normal form, Betty is moderately skilled in the use of small firearms.
• Adaptational Job Change: Pretty much every adaptation tends to make her a scientist alongside Bruce, to give more explanation for why a generally asocial guy like him has ended up in a relationship with his boss's daughter, and to make it a more equal pairing.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: She's blonde in the 1996 animated series. This was a carryover from an actual dye job in the comics in the early 1990s.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: The Immortal Hulk has a truly Mind Screw case of this, as in Issue #48 Betty Ross says she actually prefers Bruce’s bad boy Joe Fixit Split Personality persona over his troubled good guy identity, since Joe accepts Betty in her Red-Harpy form while Bruce couldn’t stand to see her like that. She also points out it’s not technically cheating since it's still Bruce’s psyche. Ironically Joe is the one to tell her they’re not right for each other, and while Betty does seems to love Joe, she’s still furious and disgusted to learn Joe left Bruce’s persona in hell at the mercy of The Leader, and she soon leaves him after they have sex (in their Humanoid Abomination forms).
• Amazonian Beauty: As Red She-Hulk, and she also has a habit of getting her clothes torn.
• Anti-Hero: She was once a sweet young woman, but became a violent and bitter Dark Action Girl as the Red She-Hulk, after she's freed from The Leader's control.
• Badass Family: Her lover is Hulk, her father is Red Hulk, and her paternal great-aunt is a Golden Age superheroine Golden Girl (Betsy Ross). There are also cousin-by-marriage She-Hulk, and step-children Skaar and Lyra. Betty also has a daughter, the benevolent mystical entity Daydream, due to being raped by Nightmare, but although the demon keeps up his creepy "children fathered through rape" tendency with Trauma and Dreamqueen, nobody has had an interest in reintroducing her yet.
• Battle Couple: With Hulk as Red She-Hulk and Red Harpy, sometimes.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: The Leader had to do this to her in order to make her into a willing servant as Red She-Hulk.
• Betty and Veronica: Bruce Banner as the Betty and Glenn Talbot as the Veronica for Betty Ross.
• BFS: As Red She-Hulk, she has a great sword named Savage Sword of She-Hulk, created by Iron Man and blessed by Odin.
• Boom, Headshot!: During Immortal Hulk, Bushwacker shoots her in the head, by accident, while aiming for Bruce. It was assumed at the time she had been completely depowered. Then her eyes glowed red...
• Brainwashed and Crazy: By M.O.D.O.K. when she was Harpy and the Leader early in her time as Red She-Hulk.
• Break the Cutie: Several decades of being around Bruce and the Hulk, and therefore being a target for all the insanity therein, have done a severe number on Betty.
  • In addition to all the Hulk-related trauma up to that point, she suffers a full-on mental breakdown in #167 upon learning that Talbot was (presumably) killed in action. She slaps her father in a rage before passing out. Afterwards she's in a Thousand-Yard Stare before Bruce shows up, at which point she attacks him while shouting "I HATE YOU!" over and over , barely even noticing him turning into the Hulk.
• Brought Down to Normal: She has been depowered by Doc Green (Hulk) in Hulk vol.3 #8 after he decided Gamma-powered mutates are threats to the world. It didn't take. At least, not in the way he expected.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Has done this to General Ross more than once, including when he interrupted her wedding to Bruce at gunpoint, daring him to shoot her.
• Can't Stay Normal: She is almost as much of a victim of this as Bruce himself, being transformed multiple times over the series into Harpy, Red She-Hulk, and Red Harpy.
• Catchphrase: As Red Harpy, she tends to say "this is me".
• Chromatic Counterpart: As Red She-Hulk, is this to She-Hulk.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She can be like this towards the good Doctor Banner aka the Hulk. This was especially seen when the sorceress Umar ensnared Hulk, at which Betty lost it bellowing “Get your damn tongue off him. You piece of trash”. Interestingly Betty isn’t jealous of Caiera, Hulk’s other wife from Planet Hulk (probably thanks to never meeting her or the fact she's dead) or resentful towards her stepson Skaar, while Bruce himself is very ashamed of cheating on Betty as Hulk despite having pretty much no control over it. Betty does however get visibly jealous◊ of Hulk's other love interest Jarella when she makes a brief appearance cozying up to Bruce in The Incredible Hulks issue #619.
• Contagious Powers: She was briefly turned into the Harpy, then became Red She-Hulk, then had the two combine to become the 'Red Harpy', which she explains as being the end result of just being around Bruce for so long.
• Convenient Miscarriage: She got hit with this one due to Executive Meddling; writer Peter David had the story of the birth already plotted out, but editorial vetoed the Hulk having kids. He refused to write the miscarriage himself, and a fill-in author had to do the job instead, having Nightmare kill her and Bruce's unborn baby.
• Cooldown Hug: Betty Ross can do this when the Hulk is especially irate.
  • She later lost the ability to do this when she became the Red She-Hulk. The Red She-Hulk form is Betty's repressed anger and inhibitions, and so releases those years of frustrations she has towards the Hulk. In her own words, she only makes him crazier. She later got it back after the Red She-Hulk form was cured.
• Cruel to Be Kind: In her first outing as Red Harpy, she rips out a blinded Hulk's heart, having worked out this would kick-start his healing factor, which had been momentarily disabled. However, Devil Hulk makes it clear he doesn't forgive or forget.
• Cute Monster Girl: Her original gamma mutate form, the Harpy, was basically Betty Ross-as-She-Hulk with the wings and legs of a giant bird. Her Red She-Hulk form is a crimson-skinned Amazonian Beauty. Sadly, her Red Harpy form is mostly plain hideous... although when she’s not enraged she can come off as a downplayed Gorgeous Gorgon. She’s still attractive enough as Red Harpy for Joe Fixit (one of Bruce’s split personality personas) to willingly sleep with her.
• Daddy's Girl: At first, but Ross eventually managed to shatter that bond.
• Dark Is Not Evil: She has become this of late, namely in her Red She-Hulk and Red Harpy forms. She has red skin, wears black, has a cruel and violent temperament. When she first appeared as Red She-Hulk and her identity was a mystery she was a straight up Dark Action Girl, in later comics Betty becomes an Anti-Hero and as Red Harpy she's a Creepy Good Humanoid Abomination like Devil Hulk who protects her husband from Conflict Ball Avengers.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: One of the best-known cases in the Marvel Universe. Her father, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, didn't approve of the relationship when Banner was just a nebbish scientist. Then the Hulk happened and Ross went General Ripper, determined to either kill the Hulk or use his power for his own benefit. He blames everyone except himself for what this did to his relationship with his daughter.
• Death Faked for You: Her father faked her death and put her on ice until somebody found a cure for her condition.
• Death Is Cheap: Betty Ross died of radiation poisoning, but she didn't really die. She washed up on a beach, was experimented on by Thaddeus Ross, became Red She-Hulk, lost her She-Hulk powers, got shot & died again and came back with her Harpy powers.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: She was introduced having lost her mother.
• Depending on the Artist:
  • Her appearance in both her normal human form and as Red She-Hulk varies as much as Jennifer and Lyra’s does. Not many artists can decide on whether Betty has got brown hair or dark hair, and it’s length goes from a short bob (as it was in the 60s) to wavy and long. Other artists make Betty an Unkempt Beauty. When Hulked-up like Jen, she’s either lean or as monstrously musclebound as her husband Bruce when she’s angry.
  • Her appearance as Red Harpy. In Immortal Hulk, it's straight up monstrous, as befits the series. In her appearance in Defenders, she's more towards Cute Monster Girl.
• Discard and Draw: Betty initially started out as a normal human love interest. Then she was mutated by MODOK into a Harpy-like gamma mutant who could fly and fire energy blasts. She was eventually cured. After being poisoned by the Abomination, Betty is revived by the Leader and MODOK as the Red She-Hulk and she is granted the same abilities as Hulk and She-Hulk as well as the ability to absorb energy like the Red Hulk. Bruce's "Doc Green" persona depowered her. As of Immortal Hulk, Betty now has a gamma form resembling the Harpy form but now red, and (apparently) lacking the energy blasting abilities of the original.
• Distaff Counterpart: As Red She-Hulk, starts off as one to Red Hulk, right down to the Clueless Mystery over her identity.
• The Drag-Along: She really didn't want to get involved in a ludicrous time travel adventure courtesy of Doctor Strange's magic in Defenders, and spends a lot of it snarking at him for it.
• The Dragon: As Harpy she became this to M.O.D.O.K., and later as Red She-Hulk to Leader until she's freed.
• Dying as Yourself: Just barely averted. When Skaar stabs Red She-Hulk, Betty reverts to herself in time to die... only to be saved by Doc Samson.
• Dysfunctional Family: Being the Hulk's wife and the daughter of General Ross, this is a given.
• Emasculated Cuckold: During Greg Pak's run on The Incredible Hulks, the final two arcs had Betty Ross (as Red She-Hulk) beginning a relationship with Hulk's archnemesis, Tyrannus. This trope is specifically invoked numerous times by Tyrannus, specifically stating that he and Betty "did more than dance" at one point to make the Hulk angry enough to fight a common foe. Making it worse for both Bruce and the Hulk is the fact that it's clear Betty wants to be with Bruce again, but Red She-Hulk wants Tyrannus just to spite him. This comes back to bite her later when Hulk enters a "Worldbreaker" level of rage and needs a Cooldown Hug which she can no longer provide - so Umar steps up and lovingly brings Hulk to her realm to put his energy to "more enjoyable use". This time, it's Betty's turn to be jealous and angry.
• Energy Absorption: As Red She-Hulk, she is able to absorb energy, such as radiation and power cosmic, to increase her power level, and can discharge energy by touch.
• Evil Counterpart: Red She-Hulk was initially this to She-Hulk until Red She-Hulk is freed from the Leader's control.
• Evil Feels Good: Betty Ross tells Bruce Banner how she became what she is.
  Betty Ross: They filled me with rage... stripped away my will... but you know what? I kind of liked it. You understand what I'm talking about, Bruce. Maybe you're the only one who really can. That insane rush of really cutting loose, of not caring at all what will happen as a result... just smashing and smashing and smashing anyone they sent me against.
• Fanservice Pack: She was a quite plain-looking woman when she was introduced in The '60s. When she became Red She-Hulk, Betty became much more sexualized, often suffering Clothing Damage, and at one point having sex with the Hulk while a guy with a giant eye ball for a head watched.
• Femme Fatalons: As Harpy, she had razor sharp talons which cut and tear through materials such as rock and metal, as well as carrying heavy objects.
• First Girl Wins: She was Bruce's first canonical love interest, and the one that the writers will always come back to.
• Friendless Background: Growing up as a military brat, she moved around a lot, which didn't give a lot of opportunity to make friends.
• Glasgow Grin: As Red Harpy, when in Immortal Hulk.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: As Red She-Hulk, her eye colour becomes glowing yellow. The same as Red Harpy.
• Good Is Not Nice: She has become this in modern comics, having become jaded and taciturn due to going through so much pain in her relationship with Bruce. She's quite the Anti-Hero, but even at her most callous she hasn’t lost her care for Bruce/Hulk and will fight the Avengers to protect him.
• Hand Blast: As Harpy, she could fire powerful concussion blasts from her hands; which were so powerful that she hurt and knocked-out the Hulk when they fought.
• Handy Feet: As Harpy, she can carry people and objects with her talons.
• Harping on About Harpies: M.O.D.O.K. turned her into a Gamma-powered harpy once. After being shot in the head, she then resurrected as a crimson-skinned version of her original harpy person, thus combining her two Gamma Mutate identities into one.
• Healing Factor: As Red She-Hulk, she is capable of rapidly regenerating injuries such as the severe injury after being impaled by Skaar's massive sword.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: As Red She-Hulk, she has pulled one of those in The Incredible Hulk sagas "Super Spy Banner" and "Heart of the Monster". She's a Face for good in the end of "Heart of the Monster". And then she seemingly resumes Heel status after becoming Red Harpy, only for it to turn out she is actually Face.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: When she still had Red She-Hulk power, she wore a black leather suit that sometimes wouldn't be torn up when she's transformed. Though it was often unzipped.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Actually fell for Glenn Talbot, a Jerkass at best, and a sociopathic Smug Snake at his worst.
• Hulking Out: After becoming the Red She-Hulk, and again when she becomes the Red Harpy.
  • It's not easy to make a Hulk desperate. Push Red She-Hulk far enough, though — say by overwhelming her with an army of supersoldiers — and she Hulks Out again, turning into a rampaging creature running on pure survival instinct.
  • Her Red Harpy form is noted to be a nigh-instantaneous shift. Impressive, given the change has Betty grow wings, and have her legs change shape.
• Human Popsicle: After her death, General Ross had her cryogenically frozen in an attempt to find a way to revive her. The Intelligencia "helped" with that.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Red She-Hulk is impaled by Skaar's massive sword, prompting her to revert back to Betty. However, she transformed back to Red She-Hulk (who has Healing Factor).
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In an early comic, she is kidnapped by baddies and taken to their underground lair. Hulk goes down and rescues her (at the time, the Hulk was intelligent), beats the baddies and proves that he's not evil after all. During the tram back up the mine shaft it's revealed that she has forgotten the whole event due to stress. This is while she's still in the same room as the guy who just rescued her.
• Lightning Bruiser: As a Gamma Mutate, she is both superhumanly strong and fast.
• The Lost Lenore: Becomes one for Bruce until she's Back from the Dead.
• Love Cannot Overcome: Being in love with the emotionally withdrawn Bruce Banner is tough enough already, but Betty is often driven away by his monstrous Superpowered Alter Ego, the Hulk. By the time of Immortal Hulk, Betty refuses to look Bruce in the face (Hulks and Joe Fixit are exempt - it's just Bruce she hates).
  • After being killed again and coming back as the more monstrous Red Harpy, Betty's primary thoughts was how she went from loving Bruce to their incredibly toxic relationship with each other. When they finally reunite she cuts out and eats a weakened Hulk's heart, despite Hulk begging for her aid. Only that turns out to be an attempt to help Hulk - tearing his heart out kick-starts his disabled healing factor. But she still makes it clear she's pissed at him. In fact, she later learns to control her transformation, but refuses to appear as anything other than Red Harpy to Bruce. Eventually, Bruce reaches his breaking point and demands she transform back. Betty attacks him for it.
• Love Interest: Other girls come and go, but Betty is always Bruce's love interest. Even when married to Glenn Talbot, she confessed that she was unable to stop being in love with Bruce.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Betty prefers Bruce Banner. That Betty loved the integrated Hulk shows her consistency; she loved him for his mind rather than his body in all incarnations.
• Love Triangle: First with Bruce and Talbot, then with Bruce and disposable love interest Ramon. Throw her and Bruce's alternate personalities into the mix, and things get even more complicated.
• Male Gaze: Played with in Immortal Hulk. Betty does still gets this in the traditional manner, but she also gets the Male Gaze in her Humanoid Abomination Red Harpy form◊ making for a bizarrely sensual yet somewhat disturbing effect.
• Mark of the Supernatural: As Red She-Hulk, she has black hair with two stripes of red hair running through it, enhancing her similarity to a demon.
• Maternally Challenged: Once got pregnant, but suffered a miscarriage.
• Military Brat: Betty Ross, being the daughter of General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, and thusly has been immersed in military culture all her life. Her relationship to Bruce Banner becomes very complicated due to the fact that her father is constantly hunting him.
• Morality Pet: Is usually one of the few people General Ross is consistently nice to.
• Muggle: What she started off as, back in the '60s. Obviously, not so much these days.
• My Suit Is Also Super: As Red She-Hulk her leather suit stretches to fit and regenerates from any Clothing Damage she accrues from battle.
• Mythology Gag: The fact that she is the Ultimate Marvel version of She-Hulk could be seen as this, since she actually did spend a brief period of time as a gamma-empowered entity called the Harpy, which can basically be described as, well, She-Hulk as a harpy with the ability to fire energy blasts. She's also gone on to become the Red Hulk version of She-Hulk in the mainstream verse as well.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: When she still had her Red She-Hulk power, Betty wore a black leather suit with a necklike that exposes her cleavage and would often plunge so low it reached her stomach.
• Nightmare Face: Red Harpy has a demonic face, glowing eyes, fangs, and an overly long tongue.
• The Nose Knows: As Red Harpy, she has a tremendous sense of smell, capable of finding someone whose scent she knows from across the country, even when they're dead.
• Odd Friendship: Curiously, while she's on the outs with Bruce, this doesn't apply to Joe Fixit (though this might have something to do with the fact Joe doesn't mind her Red Harpy form, unlike Bruce, who is incapable of handling the sight of it).
• Parental Title Characterization: In her first appearance, addresses her father as "daddy", even when he's an elderly military general and she's a grown woman. As time has gone by, her emotional growth and his actions mean she's gone from that to "dad" or "father".
• Pay Evil unto Evil: As Red Harpy, she slaughters a bunch of Fortean's "clean-up" squad sent to kill any witnesses to the new Abomination's rampage.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: As Red She-Hulk she has black hair with two stripes of red hair running through it, enhancing her similarity to a demon.
• Properly Paranoid: Being around Bruce and her dad for so long means she's got some tricks up her sleeves, in case any of their enemies are watching her. This messes up General Fortean's attempts to spy on her and Bruce reuniting in Immortal Hulk (but also might have played a part in Bushwhacker accidentally shooting her in the head, rather than Bruce).
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Initially. She settles into Red Is Heroic eventually but still remains pretty violent.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As Red Harpy, her eyes are solid red.
• Red/Green Contrast: Jennifer Walters, the original She-Hulk, is green while Betty Ross is the Red She-Hulk. Betty as the Red She-Hulk was originally an antagonist and even after her Heel–Face Turn was still less pleasant than the green She-Hulk.
• Resurrective Immortality: As of Immortal Hulk, turns out so long as the sun's down, she can't die.
• The Rival: Her relationship with She-Hulk has progressed to this. They also act as Good Cop (Jen) and Bad Cop (Red) over in Incredible Hulks.
• Sanity Slippage: Prolonged exposure to the sheer crappiness that is being around Bruce Banner has driven Betty insane more than once.
• Self-Made Orphan: Averted. Betty almost killed the Red Hulk, only to realise he was her father and stop in time.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Her costume as Red She-Hulk is sleeveless.
• Split Personality: The degree to which she retains control over Red She-Hulk varies a lot. Sometimes it's just an angrier Betty, while at others it is an entirely different persona whom she fears losing control over.
  • Red Harpy is vastly more malevolent and vicious than either Betty or Red She-Hulk. As seen when she massacres a bunch of mercenaries simply because she can (though it was in relational , and then rips out and eats the heart of a vulnerable Hulk.
    • Red Harpy appears to bring out the worse of Betty's bottled up emotions. She's aware she could have just disarmed the mercenaries, but killed them anyway because they killed an innocent civilian. While she tracked Bruce her primary thoughts was how toxic their relationship was and how in the end it has turned her into a monster. However, while Bruce believes she's a new alter, Betty is very empathic that this new form is her, just the bits Bruce can't and won't acknowledge.
• Split-Personality Takeover: A constant risk as Red She-Hulk.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Her and Bruce Banner. His uncontrollable transformations into the Hulk have made him a fugitive wanted by the United States military. Not to mention Betty's father, General "Thunderbolt" Ross, harbors an intense hatred of him.
• Statuesque Stunner: As the seven-foot-tall Red She-Hulk.
• Superhero Packing Heat: As Red She-Hulk, she was seen brandishing an automatic weapon. She holds her Uzi confidently, proving that she has had plenty of training & experience. Her bold confidence may affect the effectiveness of her marksmanship.
• Super-Strength: When she's transformed into the Harpy. As Red She-Hulk her super strength goes off the charts; in The Incredible Hulks #634 Betty battles her former love Bruce/Hulk, shattering a whole planet in a clash with him. As Red Harpy! in The Immortal Hulk she's strong enough to rip out Hulk's heart and carry Abomination through the air.
• Terse Talker: As Red Harpy, she only ever speaks in short sentences, usually seven words at most.
• Tragic Monster: As a Gamma Mutate in general.
  • As Harpy: She was transformed against her will by M.O.D.O.K. into a mindless brute that he used as a living weapon.
  • As Red She-Hulk: The same thing happened to her again, only she was smart enough to realize she was being used as a puppet by the Leader.
  • As Red Harpy: She literally was shot in the head and then woke up in this new mutant form, which is far more monstrous than either of her previous forms, and serves as a vent for her darker thoughts.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Betty had assumed she was completely depowered when Bushwhacker shot her through the head, only to learn Omega Hulk's cure hadn't entirely taken; between that and the exposure to various things and a booster shot of proximity to Bruce, she gained her new "Red Harpy" form.
• Tropaholics Anonymous: Betty Ross and Joe Fixit once imagined a support group for gamma-irradiated superhumans. "Sitting in tiny little chairs... which keep breaking under us..."
• True Love Is Boring: Bruce and Betty just can't be happy for long. Peter David did a worthy job of averting this for a while, but David eventually had a messy divorce from his wife, and Betty happened to be her favorite character. So... David later regretted his decision. Betty later came Back from the Dead, but she and Bruce are not back together yet.
• Unfortunate Item Swap: She once got a haircut and dye job from Rick Jones' girlfriend Marlo once, but they were both drunk at the time, so Marlo inadvertently used Janitor-in-a-drum on Betty's hair, causing Betty's hair to turn green. When Betty sobered up, she panicked, because she thought it was a sign she was mutating into the Harpy again, before Marlo realized her mistake, and fixed it to make Betty a blonde.
• Unstoppable Rage: Beneath her calmer exterior, Betty is nearly as repressed as her husband. When she turns into Red She-Hulk all that rage finally gets an outlet. Even more so as Red Harpy.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend:
  • She was protective of her Love Interest and future husband Bruce Banner when she was a normal sweet girl. When she became Red She-Hulk she takes this Up to Eleven and will go on a particularly extreme Unstoppable Rage at seeing Bruce get hurt whether in human form or when he's Hulked out.
  • In Incredible Hulks (2010) #23 she attacks the sorceress Umar with a massive piece of rubble◊ when the latter ensnares Hulk with a demonic tongue.
  • In Immortal Hulk Betty as Red Harpy actually takes on the whole goddamn Avengers when they once again decide to be antagonistic jerks to her big green husband.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Odd case with Jennifer Walters. Betty gets along with Jen just fine. But when Betty turns into Red She-Hulk, they start trading insults back and forth.
• Xenafication: She was a pretty standard Lois Lane-esque figure when she first appeared, being the sweet Love Interest and Damsel for Bruce and a foil to her ruthless father General Ross. Things changed for Betty in The '70s however, as she got her own transformation Harpy who could match the Hulk in strength, and even when she lost that transformation she was still more badass than before, standing up to her father at her wedding with Bruce. In modern comics Betty became Red She-Hulk, who is strong enough to destroy an entire freaking planet in a clash with her former love Bruce, which is a far cry from the harmless Daddy's Girl of the 60s.

She-Hulk

Alter Ego: Lyra

Notable Aliases: Lyra Walters

First Appearance: Hulk: Raging Thunder Vol. 1, #1 (August 2008)

See here for more info.

Skaar

Alter Ego: Skaar Banner

Notable Aliases: Son of Hulk, Sakaarson, World Breaker, Killer of Killers, Hulk, Santos

First Appearance: What if? Planet Hulk Vol. 1, #1

The half-alien son of Hulk and Caiera. Skaar initially came to Earth with the intent to kill his father, but eventually became an ally and declared Earth his new home.

• Antagonistic Offspring: Towards the Hulk, but not Bruce. He spent a lot of time trying to become a Self-Made Orphan.
• Barbarian Hero: 'Hero' might be debatable, but he's definitely a barbarian. From space.
• BFS: Usually carries a colossal odachi-style sword.
• Combat Pragmatist: Skaar isn't above turning back into his childlike form to make opponents hesitate. Or just cheating in general.
• De-power: His Hulk powers were removed by Doc Green, though he cryptically keeps it unclear if his Oldstrong powers are also gone.
  • Gamma Flight (2021) sees him recover his gamma powers after working with The Abomination.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Can draw on the strength of the earth. Moreover, he too can control the very land itself.
• Legacy Character: To the Hulk (specifically the Green Scar incarnation), and to a lesser extent, Caiera.
• The Mole: Pretended to join Norman Osborn's second Dark Avengers team, but in actuality, he was a spy for Steve Rogers.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Due in part of being both a hulk and having the Shadow Power
• Parental Abandonment: Blames the Hulk for abandoning him.
• Put on a Bus: Depowered by Doc Green and given enough money start a new life for himself. However, he would eventually return and get his powers back in Gamma Flight (2021).
• Split Personality: The little boy trapped inside of Skaar isn't seen often, but they are clearly different personalities.
• Super-Senses: He's got an excellent sense of smell.
• Token Good Teammate: Luke Cage put him on the Dark Avengers when they replaced the Thunderbolts to serve as a morality chain. Due to circumstances, this didn't exactly work out too well.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Thanks to growing up in the ruins of a Crapsack World without any parents, he's got issues... and that was before he got to Earth. And it applies to Skaar and Kid Skaar. At one point during Dark Avengers, an enemy forcibly turns him back to his child state, and tells Cage if he lets go of the kid for even a moment, he'll immediately hulk out and try to kill him, something Skaar confirms.
• Younger Than They Look: In his non-hulked form, he looks like a pre-teen boy. In reality, he's ridiculously young, but Bizarre Alien Biology means he aged quickly.

Hiro-Kala

Notable Aliases: Sakaarson, World-Breaker

First Appearance: Skaar: Son of Hulk Vol. 1, #2

Hiro-Kala was once an enslaved Shadow child. After the destruction of Sakaar, he learned of his heritage. He is the Son of Hulk and Caiera the Oldstrong. He began a mission to travel the universe and purge it of the Old-Power.

• Alas, Poor Villain: In-universe, in spite of all he's done, Banner can't help but be devastated that he's been sealed away within stone to be used as a battery to help repair a planet he devastated. He's still his son in spite of it all, and he became the way he is because of circumstances outside his control.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Like Skaar, he desperately wants to kill their father. Unlike Skaar, he doesn't care how many people become collateral damage in the process.
• Bald of Evil: Bald, but a little less villainous than most.
• Cain and Abel: With Skaar.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Very skilled user of the Old Power, a stone-based power set that comes from an artificial version of the Power Cosmic derived from Sakaar.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Despite all he's done, Bruce still cares about him, and is devastated when he's murdered.
• Freudian Excuse: Abandoned on a barbaric planet, sold into slavery, saw his world destroyed...
• Galactic Conqueror: Conqueror of worlds.
• A God Am I: He is the World Breaker and Sakaar'son. He demands your worship. Interestingly enough, on K'ai he denied his worshipers' proclamations to his divinity.
• Kill All Humans: Kill all aliens actually.
• Magic Knight: He has training in armed and unarmed combat along with his Old and New Power.
• A Million Is a Statistic: His attitude and the main thing separating him from Skaar. They both despise their father and are hell-bent on killing him, but Hiro-Kala has absolutely no regard for how many people wind up getting caught in the crossfire. As far as he's concerned, they're just numbers.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Can take hits from his father, a worldbreaker. Not many can boast this.
• The Power of Hate: Harnessed his hate and rage in order to increase his powers.
• Power of Love: When he realized he was developing feelings for another, he killed her to prevent his powers from going out of his control and threatening the universe.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: They couldn't look more different, and have radically opposed personalities as well. They both survived using one of their inherited powersets. He with his Old Power and Skaar by transforming.
• Stronger Sibling: He is much more powerful (and less kind) than his brother Skaar.
• Super-Empowering: Through a combination of Old Power and Power Cosmic, Hiro was able to create a unique energy all his own called the New Power. Which basically was a combination of both without any new applications or abilities, but given his skill with both, he was able to share this power with those he wished ala Galactus.
• Super-Strength: Inherited from both parents.
• Two-Faced: Half of his face was burned off in an incident with Galactus.

Carmilla Black/Scorpion

Alter Ego: Carmilla Black (born Thasanee Rappaccini)

Notable Aliases: Scorpion

First Appearance: Amazing Fantasy Vol. 2, #7

Affiliations: Formerly S.H.I.E.L.D., A.I.M., Wakers, Hydra

• Acquired Poison Immunity: Every cell in her body is specialized in defending her against all known forms of biological, chemical and radioactive affliction. So far, every toxin she wasn't already immune she's shrugged off the affects of and become immune to, including sedatives made specifically to keep her in check!
• Action Girl: She kicks lots of ass, as can be expected from the possible daughter of a hero.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Carmilla quickly turns against her biological mother after learning Monica had no interest in contacting Carmilla until childhood was over, and that Monica was responsible for turning Carmilla toxic, and that Monica had Carmilla's adopted parents killed, and that Monica was part of a gas attack on Hong Kong.
• Anti-Hero: Both a Classical Anti-Hero and an I Did What I Had to Do anti hero. Carmilla was popular in high school until she dropped out, ran away and spent three years in self imposed homeless exile, which made her socially awkward, bitter and abrasive. She became a bit of a Death Seeker, not caring if she got hurt or killed but not willing to hurt or kill herself, picking fights, but only with those who deserved to be punished in her eyes. After coming to the conclusion she was the only one who could stop her mass murdering mother, Carmilla regained a sense of self worth and preservation. She doesn't want to stoop to Monica's level to stop her and others like her, but will kill if it comes to it. Every life she takes she treats as a personal failure, but that won't stop her from trying again.
• Blessed with Suck: Carmilla can hang around a person for about three days before she starts making her company sick. That's after she learned to "control" her stinger. With some technological aid from SHIELD Carmilla gains some actual control over it
• Book Dumb: The safety deposit box containing her birth certificate did not include instructions for Carmilla on how to pronounce her birth name, to her embarassment.
• Boxed Crook: Carmilla Black was cleared of all charges by US authorities, but Amazing Fantasy volume 2, #7 was one of the few times where SHIELD actually acted like the international organization it's advertised as and disregarded what USA had to say on the matter. It was made clear to Carmilla that the "charge" being held against her was her assaulting a motor cycle gang in Fort Worth Texas in the grounds it was use of a biological weapon that violated international treaties, and not her accidental slaying of her prom date, however, and they were only coming after Carmilla because Monica Rappaccini was killing increasingly large amounts of people while thwarting SHIELD efforts to stop her. They didn't actually care about what Carmilla did beyond giving them an excuse to extract her before A.I.M. could.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Did you think Anya Corazón as written in Amazing Fantasy volume 2 was a young punk? Well she was, but she had nothing on Carmilla Black, who wasn't as young yet even more of a punk
• Cool Mask: Her mask allows her to mouth works while thinking them, and an electronic approximation of her voice to be heard over radio, allowing her to transmit her "speech" without being heard by anyone around her.
• Death Seeker: Carmilla didn't have it in herself to take her own life directly, after she accidentally killed her boyfriend and ran out of town, but when confronted with hostile parties she fought without care of what happened to her
• Depending on the Artist: Right from the start, the cover of Amazing Fantasy volume 2 #7 makes Carmilla look vaguely east Asian, like a light skinned Malay, while the internal art makes her look very western continental European, as she was initially supposed to be the Good Counterpart of the crazy Hydra Nazi Viper. It was going to be revealed that she was the daughter of Viper and Silver Samurai. Silver Samurai was the first element of her story to be cut, before it was teased that she was descended from Malay pirates. The panel design won out, as Carmilla is teased to be the daughter of Monica Rappaccini and Bruce Banner, and thus has to plausibly look like it, and neither is ever drawn "Malay".
• Disappointed in You: Carmilla is disappointed in most of her home town, after returning three years later to see the only major change is the murder of her adopted parents, but Black is especially disappointed in her friend Janice, who always got good grades and should have, in Carmilla's mind, gotten college degrees by now. Janice's excuses that the economy is bad and she has to work at the bank after her dad's plant got shut down don't impress Carmilla, but when AIM comes calling Carmilla still leaves herself out in the open so that Janice can escape, reasoning that Janice at least still has a chance to contribute something useful to society.
• Expy
  • Carmilla Black was originally designed as a heroic successor to Viper by way of Silver Samurai. While the characterization and back story that went into that was all tossed out, the visual resemblance to the infamous Hydra agent remained
  • Genetically modified by a parent? Her parents being absentee? Close association with a high ranking member of a despotic criminal organization? Immunity to toxins? Flipped by SHIELD? Association with an arachnid that most people find creepy? Carmilla Black is basically if Jessica Drew was an American instead of a European, if Spider-Woman's problems were with A.I.M. instead of Hydra. Basically the same character. Looking beyond the surface reveals some drastic differences, like Scorpion's mother actually being A.I.M. Scientist Supreme, while Viper merely thinks she's Spider-Woman's mother, because Viper is insane. Spider-Woman's association with toxins stops with immunity, with her "venom blasts" actually being electrical discharges, with Scorpion's "stinger" really does envenomate people. Jessica Drew was the result of an unrelated project meant to save her life that Hydra merely exploited, while A.I.M. steered Carmilla Black's life from the start until a freak mutation allowed her to make her own choices.
  • An abrasive, lethally toxic, failed attempt to create a Human Weapon who relies on technological aid to reduces her lethality. Are we talking about Agent Scorpion, or the Hazmat seen in Avengers Academy? Agent Scorpion came before her, and while Scorpion stores toxins she comes across and passively leaks them around other macro fauna, Hazmat's body subconscious generates whatever radiation it determines will be most lethal to those around her, on a subconscious level. Also Hazmat is much more socially involved with the super hero community, and at the same time much more of a Jerkass.
• Fake Weakness: Her first set of SHIELD field gear leaves most of her right arm and stomach exposed, leading Carmilla to question why Derek Khanata has perverts on his design team. While he dodges the question, he states that while it looks, feels and smells like leather, it is made of woven nano particles that will form a protective layer in response to any attack on her person in a quickly enough to stop even bullets cold. She still would prefer a stomach covering model, and to not be placed in the line of fire at all.Especially after it proved to not work as well as advertised, unlike her perfectly functioning mask and gauntlet. Stops bullets, protects the "exposed" arm, doesn't move fast enough to stop her from being jabbed in the stomach.
• Good Counterpart: Like Mac Gargan, Carmilla Black wants revenge against those who modified her into what she is. Unlike Mac, Carmilla isn't willing to compromise the safety of those who had nothing to do with it, and the guilty party Carmilla seeks is an extortionist, kidnapping arms dealer when written at her most sympathetic, and is introduced as a mass murdering terrorist gassing cities, while Mac wants to kill a sensationalist news editor turned windbag politician.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Black originally had no combat training, but she did have "I don't care if I die so long as I make my killer work for it", which combined with her "stinger", made her formidable.
• Happily Adopted: She loved her adopted parents so much that she felt she "owed" them for their hospitality, and became near suicidal after running out of town, following her accidental slaying of her boyfriend, which prevented her from paying her "debt"
• Homeless Hero: Part of her efforts to stay off the grid involved moving in and out of homeless shelters
• Horror Hunger: Her left arm "lusts" for large concentrations of pathogens, harmful toxins and areas of lethally high radioactivity, on which it will "feed" until she passes out, if she lets it, storing all her body does not process for later use against perceived threats, which basically amounts to all other human beings, especially those who approach her sleeping form.
• Ideal Illness Immunity: Scorpion is a giant death trap for pathogens, save for those her stinger decides to keep around to use on other people.
• It's Not You, It's Me: She's had trouble dating ever sense she accidentally killed Greg and learned she passively poisons other people. A.I.M. forcibly making itself known to her, and S.H.I.E.L.D. following suit only made maintaining any relationship, a romantic one especially, harder.
• Kryptonite Factor
  • Her SHIELD gauntlet can expand to cover Scorpion's entire arm, contract to the size of a bracelet, record video, upload records online, access global positioning systems, help prevent her from accidentally poisoning anyone, is so tough it can withstand a hit from an anti tank rifle, and despite looking like metal, has no metal in it, so almost all anti metal strategies employed against it will fail with one exception. It's systems are vulnerable to white noise disruption, microwaves in particular. She's since had the gauntlet upgraded, but the white noise issue remains.
  • Monica has pre-coded hallucinogens designed to exploit a chemical "back door" past her Waker toxin immunity. The good news is that Carmilla quickly adapts, the bad news is that Black doesn't learn all of what A.I.M. is planning because she recovers too quickly.
• Luke, I Might Be Your Father: Carmilla learns from Amadeus that she might be the daughter of Bruce Banner and Monica Rappaccini, Scientist Supreme of A.I.M. However, this has yet to be confirmed one way or another, as the only "evidence" is that the dates line up.
• The Mole
  • Her first mission was to get inside of A.I.M. so that S.H.I.E.L.D. could be lead to them. The mission she was given, Carmilla's personal motivation was to have a personal audience with the Scientist Supreme, who Black intended to choke out if she did hear satisfactory answers about why she was a dead beat who let her adopted parents get killed.
  • Nick Fury lets her off the hook for destroying a government sponsored encampment of United Nations member Sudan in exchange for Scorpion periodically operating as a mole of S.H.I.E.L.D. within various super hero groups, though the 50 State Initative later makes her almost redundant in USA, where most Marvel stories take place, it can be presumed she's continued doing so in United Nations members without registration acts until...
  • ...during a brief appearance in Avengers: The Initiative, she pretends to be part of HYDRA, then does a runner when she's got what she's after.
• Mutants
  • Carmilla lacks the x-factor gene shared by those commonly referred to as "mutants" in Marvel Comics, such as Sub-Mariner or the X-Men, but Black's stinger is the result of a freak mutation. She was originally just immune to all known toxins but no more dangerous than anyone else aside from that. Though making her more dangerous was always the plan, the mutation still wasn't what AIM/Monica Rappaccini had in mind.
  • Assuming Carmilla wasn't joking, her green hair is a pubescent mutation(it used to be black)
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: It's a good deed that gives SHIELD the excuse to detain Carmilla in the first place, since it involved violence. It's also a good deed against orders that gets Agent Scorpion captured on her first mission.
• No-Sell: It takes fatal overdoses of toxins for Agent Scorpion to even begin to register the effects, assuming they're new toxins she hasn't had a chance to adapt to yet, and she'll still shrug the affects it off quickly, biologically process the substance into something harmless, or store it to weaponize, becoming immune to further exposure either way. She also ignores the affects of Monica's "memetic antibodies".
• Poisonous Person: Can release various poisons from her left hand.
• Power Fist: As her gauntlet is tougher than iron, Agent Scorpion will use it to pummel people and block attacks, though she might alternatively retract it so that she can poison someone with her stinger.
• Power Incontinence: After three years on the run, Carmilla developed enough control of her "stinger" to be around any given person for three days before they started getting sick because of her, but she needs external help to truly become safe to be around.
• Put on a Bus: After 2013, she all but vanished from the Marvel Universe. Her sole appearance in the six years following was the back of her head in one issue of Young Avengers.
• Required Secondary Powers: Complete immunity to all known toxins and toxic environments due to, quote, "ridiculous" amount of redundant physiological defenses. Interestingly enough, this part was intended in her design where the former ability to poison others was an unexpected mutation.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The orphanage Carmilla was left in feeds a human trafficking enterprise. If she hadn't been a special project of A.I.M. then Black's fate still would have been less than pleasant. Her first SHIELD assignment is to photograph some files from it and get out, but Black decides to risk blowing her cover by freeing some captives set to be shipped out.
• Smoke Out: Since she can breathe in smoke with little issue, she often uses it to obfuscate her position, especially when not wearing anything that looks like smoke detection around those who don't know better.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: During her first SHIELD operation, she almost gets killed and misses her second date with Troy Goddard, who goes on to find out Carmilla Black's secret...that she's some kind of super hero. She freely "admits" to it
• The Cowl: She spent three years on the run, keeping human contact to the minimum unless it involved assaulting someone who "deserved it"
• Token Heroic Orc: She's the first Waker to be against the very concept of A.I.M. and survive long enough to oppose it any meaningful fashion
• Tyke-Bomb: Genetically engineered by A.I.M. to be a part of a group of child soldiers called Wakers.
• Traumatic Super Power Awakening: Her "stinger" first manifest on prom night when she, as the event's queen, was holding the king, killing him. Turns out the stinger was purging Carmilla's Waker programming, meaning that without the mutation she would have killed a lot more people than Greg
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Before the unexpected development of her lethal "stinger", Carmilla had a mostly happy childhood and teenage years, despite her misgivings about the small town she was raised in. After the development of her stinger, she became a critical cynic with little nice to say to anyone, even her former friends.
• Villain Has a Point: While Carmilla isn't impressed by the A.I.M. effort to annhilate the Janjaweed, she's also not impressed by S.H.I.E.L.D. admitting to being limited in how it can intervene in the Darfur genocide, due to Sudan being a United Nations member with a say in how S.H.I.E.L.D. operates.
• Walking the Earth: Carmilla had been moving around, staying off of the grid, after her sophmore year in high school when she accidentally killed her boyfriend
• "World of Cardboard" Speech: Once she learns to love her "stinger", she begins one the X-Men would be proud to hear
  "Biology isn't destiny for me—I have a choice!"
• Wrestler in All of Us: She attacks Abu-Jamal Rodriguez from behind, breaking through a window to catch him in a mid air rear head scissors
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: She was ordered by another Waker to prove her loyalty to A.I.M. by murdering everyone in a Janjaweed encampment that was trying to starve refugees holding out against them. While Carmilla didn't approve of the Janjaweed's state sponsored genocide in Darfur, she believed they'd get the message if they were simply driven off, which she did by causing a sundown cattle, camel and horse stampede, after which she was going to blow up a generator and claim all the Janjaweed militants died in the explosion. One brave man stood his ground to defend the generator and shot at her, his bullet bouncing off her own gun and hitting a warhead that detonated the generator, several other warheads and canisters of mustard gas that rendered the entire area uninhabitable for twenty years and killed everyone in the encampment. The other Wakers instantly declared Thanasee a legend. Carmilla was mortified at what she had done, and fact she was "born" to be just like the people who thought she had gone above and beyond the call of duty by ruining perfectly good human living space and damaging the ecosytem for generations.

She-Hulk

Alter Ego: Jennifer "Jen" Susan Walters

Notable Aliases: Hulk, Shulkie

First Appearance: Savage She-Hulk #1 (February, 1980) ^note As She-Hulk / Hulk Vol 4 #6 (July, 2017) ^note As Hulk

Jennifer Walters, a cousin to Dr. Bruce Banner, once received an emergency blood transfusion from him when she was wounded, which led to her acquiring a milder version of his Hulk condition. As such, Walters becomes a large powerful green-hued version of herself while still largely retaining her personality; in particular, she retains her intelligence and emotional control, though, like Hulk, she still becomes stronger if enraged. In later issues, her transformation is permanent. See here her page.

Elaine Walters

Alter Ego: Elaine Ann Banner Walters

Notable Aliases: Elaine Banner

First Appearance: Savage She-Hulk #15 (April, 1981)

Deceased mother of Jennifer Walters, the She-Hulk. See She-Hulk.

Morris Walters

Alter Ego: William Morris Walters

First Appearance: Savage She-Hulk #2 (March, 1980)

Sheriff Morris Walters was a member of the Los Angeles County Police Dept. He is also Jennifer Walters`(the She-Hulk) father. See She-Hulk.

Susan Banner

Alter Ego: Susan Banner-Drake

Notable Aliases: Susan Drake

First Appearance: Incredible Hulk #312 (October, 1985)

Brian Banner's sister and Bruce Banner's aunt. She took in Bruce after Brian abused Bruce, murdered Rebecca Banner, and was placed in a mental hospital.

• Parental Substitute: She tried to give Bruce a loving and supportive home after Brian was imprisoned, but by that point the damage was done.

Rick Jones

^{As A-Bomb}

Alter Ego: Richard Milhouse "Rick" Jones

Notable Aliases: Whisperer, A-Bomb, Bucky, Hulk, Subject B, Sleeper Agent

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #1 (May, 1962)

A rebellious orphan, Rick Jones stumbled into the test site for the Gamma Bomb and inadvertently caused Bruce Banner to be caught in the blast while trying to save Rick, transforming Banner into the Hulk. Rick became the Hulk's closest confidant, a member of the Avengers, and a friend and sidekick to heroes like Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Rom. For a time he was transformed into the gamma-powered monster A-Bomb.

• Adapted Out: Rick Jones is thus far one of the only major Hulk characters who has not been portrayed in live-action form. The 2003 film replaces his role in Banner's gamma-ray accident with a generic scientist named Harper. In both the 70s series and the MCU Banner experimented on himself instead of saving anyone from an explosion.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Often compared to DC's Jimmy Olsen (an eager young friend to a superhero... which one varies, though) or to DC's Snapper Carr (the Muggle tagalong for the local super team; the Amalgam Universe had a "Snapper Jones").
• The Artifact: Part of the reason Rick tends to get left out so much. He is kind of redundant, and even the early days bounced him around trying to find something for him to do. Sometimes it's worked, sometimes it hasn't.
• Ascended Fanboy: Rick started out as just a regular human who really looked up to the Hulk as a hero. As A-Bomb? He gets to finally be a hero.
• Badass Biker: Grew into one.
• Badass Normal: Over time, especially after the first Captain America taught him extensive combat training.
• Body Horror: He and Del Frye end up revived together in a grotesque amalgam body. To give an idea, Rick's eyes are always glowing green and his head grows like an upside-down appendage. Luckily Charlene manages to ease their pain and allows them to talk. Fortunately, by the end of Gamma Flight, they manage to separate.
• Break the Badass: The things he goes through in Immortal Hulk leaves Rick with a major psychological dent for a while.
• Brought Down to Normal: What Omega Hulk thought he was doing when he took away Rick's A-Bomb powers, but it eventually turned out to be a case of Discard and Draw. Rick's death in Secret Empire and his eventual resurrection seems to have taken away his super-intelligence.
• Can't Stay Normal: Even more so than Bruce or Betty. Rick has been turned into how many beings and has been a sidekick to how many different superheroes now? Even getting de-powered manages to just give him new powers, with Doc Omega's cure giving Rick super-intelligence. The Immortal Hulk suggests that even the de-powering might not have taken.
• Contagious Powers / I Have Many Names / Sidekick Graduations Stick: After the Avengers, he shared his body with two Captain Marvels, became The Hulk, and spent time as A-Bomb, a blue version of the Abomination.
• Cosmic Plaything: Sticking around Banner to do right by the man who protected him from becoming a Hulk has ironically resulted in a bunch of even more insane occurrences than that to befall Rick. He's been kidnapped, killed, resurrected, mutated, beaten, shot, and gotten himself embroiled with outright cosmic forces such as the Captain Marvel dynasty and Death herself.
• Crazy-Prepared: Always carries around a parachute just in case he's ever on an exploding Skrull spaceship. (Sadly, this is a sane response to his daily life.)
• Deadpan Snarker: Not initially, but once Peter David took over the writing.
• Death Is Cheap: Has happened, once or twice. He was supposedly stabbed by Miek at the end of World War Hulk, but thanks to being experimented on by the Intelligencia, he got better. He's executed by HYDRA during Secret Empire, and buried. During the events of The Immortal Hulk, he comes back.
• The Drag-Along: A few of Rick's escapades have occurred due to him being dragged into them, whether he wanted to be there or not.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: In the early days of the Avengers, he got huffy because everyone on the team but Cap pretty much ignored him, and when the team underwent a reshuffle he, someone with no powers, abilities or even training, was completely ignored.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: He has developed 'comics awareness' as detailed in Captain Marvel #60.^note The ability is a parody of Captain Marvel's own "cosmic awareness" superpower. He does not seem fully aware he is in a comic book, but he can clearly see the forest for the trees. Years of dealing with cosmic beings who can rewrite reality on a whim have made him the most genre-savvy of the entire Marvel Universe. He recognizes when it is time for the wacky adventures to stop for now. It's not perfect, mind you: he accepts the comforting delusion that his wife had a pleasing lesbian affair due to telepathic influence, not because she was bi and the marriage was on the rocks.
• Future Me Scares Me: Rick was not terribly impressed at the glimpse of his future-self in Avengers: Forever, with the missing arm and the ridiculous costume.
• Good Counterpart: To the Abomination, in his A-Bomb form.
• Grand Theft Me:
  • As revealed in The Immortal Hulk issue #33, Rick's body is under the control of The Leader who is currently in Hell. It's implied that the Leader has been giving his best Rick impression ever since "Rick" came back to life after being ripped out from the Abomination suit.
  • In All-New Venom he turns out to be Sleeper's newest and unwilling host. Rick's memories are wiped each time, but eventually he figures it out.
• Happily Married: To Marlo Chandler, not that it's been easy. She left him for Moondragon at one point, but she and Rick got back together afterward. Then they separated again, then Rick died...
• Honest Advisor: In the years before The Falcon joined Cap, only Rick could tell Cap to Quit Your Whining about losing Bucky and get on with his life.
• Hulk Speak: In the early days of being A-Bomb. He eventually stabilized.
• Innocently Insensitive: Shortly after Captain America was unfrozen, Rick got the great idea to try and insert himself into Steve's life by becoming the new Bucky. Complete with uniform. To say Steve was incensed would be putting it mildly. Rick honestly didn't think that dressing up as the man's dead partner would upset him.
• I Owe You My Life: The initial reason he stuck with the Hulk and Banner, as repayment for saving him from the Gamma blast.
• Iron Butt-Monkey: Abducted, held hostage, rescued, mutated, cured, married, divorced, teleported to a distant world, teleported back, savagely beaten, healed, killed: put them in a different order and start again.
• It's All My Fault: Rick blames himself for the Hulk, and in fairness, he's right. Mostly (there was a spy involved as well, but he died).
• Kid with the Leash: Initially with the Hulk, though sometimes he'd give him a focus on who to go after. He performed a similar duty for Genis-Vell in the Captain Marvel series for a while.
• The Load: Responsible for making Bruce Banner, the Hulk, later becoming a potential hostage for the Hulk to save when he kept following him. As time passed, this became less and less true.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: He was the one who told about Bruce being the Hulk (he thought Bruce was dead when he was missing), which made Bruce's already terrible life so much worse.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Once upon a time, a young lad called Rick made a bet with some kids down in New Mexico that he could sneak onto that super-secret military base. And since nobody calls Rick Jones chicken, that's just what he did.
• Playful Hacker: After losing his powers (again), Rick has taken on this role, being a sort of Julian Assange/Edward Snowden of the wider Marvel Universe in the form of the Whisperer, leaking information as a hacktivist about any government activity he deems nefarious (first S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "Pleasant Hill" operation, later the work of HYDRA).
• Punny Name: A-Bomb
• Reality Warper: A couple of times, he possessed the Destiny Force, which allowed him to do this (as well as transport people from throughout time and space), which made him a target of the Kree Supreme Intelligence. He doesn't have it anymore, though.
• Really Gets Around: Rick's had his share of girlfriends which include Epiphany, the physical embodiment of the concept of flashes of insight, and the "daughter" of Eternity itself. His longest relationship has been with Marlo Chandler, an ex-girlfriend of the Hulk.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: But only due to his psychoactive transformation being triggered by guilt.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: He and Marlo were absent for the "Fall of the Pantheon" storyline in Incredible Hulk, being away having their honeymoon.
• Sidekick: To the Hulk, the first Captain America (as Bucky), Rom: Spaceknight, and two versions of Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell and Genis).
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Rick didn't want to be stuck with Genis, and Genis didn't want to be stuck with him.
• Totally Radical: In the early comics Rick spoke heavily in the slang of the era. Or at least Stan Lee's best estimation of it.
• Transformation Trinket: Captain Marvel's Nega Bands when he shared a body with him.
• Undying Loyalty: Usually, Bruce and Hulk's first and strongest supporter, even when the rest of the world's turned against him. And he's got the actual deaths to prove it; during Immortal Hulk, Rick's qlippoth is the only one seen that does more than mindless repeat itself, leaping to Hulk's defense when the One Below All's monsters attack.
• Ungrateful Bastard: To the Avengers Idea Mechanics team. They bust him out of SHIELD prison, but he never once says anything remotely approaching a thank-you to them, because they're AIM (even if it's AIM with all the science crazies removed, and the roster includes long-time Avenger Hawkeye).
• Unlikely Hero: He is more of an Unlikely Sidekick, though. He's just a normal guy who has ended up being the sidekick to several heroes from The Hulk to Captain America, usually because he stumbled onto the wrong place at the wrong time. Then he becomes a superhero in his own right as A-Bomb.
• The Watson: In his various sidekick roles. Though sometimes his leading Hero would be the Sherlock, sometimes various experts would be the Sherlock, but most commonly after getting captured, Mr. Exposition would be the one who was supposed to be interrogating him.

Marlo Chandler

Notable Aliases: Harpy, "Death", Mars

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #347

An aerobics and swimming instructor, Marlo is one of the Hulk's (well, Joe Fixit's, anyway) love interests. During his stint living incognito in Las Vegas, the Hulk as mob enforcer "Joe Fixit" took a shine to Marlo and struck a relationship with her. However, it was not to be, as Joe's violent ways eventually pushed her away from him, and they broke up. She eventually became the girlfriend of Rick Jones (and later wife) and found out (in a spectacular way) that Joe Fixit is Bruce Banner's alter ego.

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Played With. She has a history of falling for creeps, something her roommate and even Marlo herself laments. And she falls head over heels for Joe Fixit, who is about as extreme as you can get. Though when Bruce asks what she sees in Joe, she thinks he's like a child who wants to be loved, but lashes out at the world so he doesn't get hurt (which... is actually close). Eventually his violent ways get to be too much for her when he seemingly beats a man to death without remorse, but long after that she still expresses affection for him after he saves her from a werewolf.
• Attractiveness Isolation: Mixed with No Guy Wants an Amazon, Marlo angsts about how men are intimidated by her height and fit figure. So she's delighted to start dating the Mr. Fixit.
• The Bro Code: Rick Jones, the Hulk's longtime friend, began seeing her after she and Fixit broke up. However, Bruce flipping out had less to do with her dating Rick, and more to do with her presence making his issues worse.
• Came Back Wrong: She was killed by a very disturbed woman who believed she was Rick's mother. Rick tried to bring her back using one of the Leader's machines but brought her back as an Empty Shell. She got better later. Much better, in fact.
• Dude Magnet: Despite her issues with dating, there are many panels of men turning to her direction and having no issue at all with her height. Even Bruce shows some attraction to her.
• Good Adultry Bad Adultry: Originally her cheating on Rick Jones with Moondragon was portrayed as a good thing. Readers rejected this, so it was retconned as Moondragon overwhelming Marlo with her Psychic Powers. However, this turned Moondragon from a mere Jerkass into a rapist, so it was finally explained, that yes, it was just Marlo cheating on Rick, and Moondragon made up the story about overwhelming Marlo to give Marlo a second chance with Rick, even though she loved Marlo, as she realized Chandler loved Jones more.
• Good Bad Girl: She's kind of a flirt, and even had a stint as a porn actress in her early adulthood (though she's not proud of it).
• I See Dead People: After her contact with Cosmic Entity Death.
• The Missus and the Ex: She makes a surprise visit to Rick's apartment since he started seeing her. If anything, she was more surprised to learn that Bruce knew Rick. Her explanation that she's "Joe's" ex and knew Bruce through him, makes everyone (save Marlo, at first) put two-and-two together, but unfortunately at a time when Bruce's DID was flaring up, her presence only made things worse. Fortunately, the situation was explained to her and she learned that Joe Fixit was really the Hulk and an alternate personality of Bruce Banner. While taken aback by the weirdness of it all, she and Betty made fast friends.
• Morality Chain: To Joe Fixit. She's not exempt his shitty attitude, but he does care for her, is very possessive, relents showing from the worst of himself like everyone else, and actually makes him confront his own immorality. After their turbulent break-up, Joe was determined to makes things more amicable with her.
• Ms. Fanservice: Marlo is a tall, fit and gorgeous lady with a generous fashion sense.
• Muggles: She didn't' know who the Hulk even was.
• Nerds Are Sexy: Immediately thinks that Peter Parker is cute when she first lays eyes on him on TV, and moves to see him at an autograph signing. On account of Ax-Crazy cyborgs showing up, she never gets a chance to actually meet him.
• Shout-Out: Her name is a reference to Raymond Chandler and his character Philip Marlowe. Notably she was introduced during the time Hulk was working in Las Vegas as "Joe Fixit", which took plenty of inspiration from Film Noir crime stories.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: To the Grey Hulk/"Joe Fixit", then later Rick Jones.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Despite some All Girls Want Bad Boys above, she'd very much like to be with someone who treats her right. Despite him being him, she's attracted to Joe because she sees good in him. During their final break-up, Joe himself, albeit out of self-loathing, surmises that she fell for Bruce and his good qualities specifically, bleeding through Joe himself.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's over six feet tall, dwarfing her husband Rick (who is 5'9"), and of course very beautiful.
• Superpower Silly Putty: First she had a series of death-related powers (communicating with the dead, resurrection powers, death touch, etc.) as part of her contact with Death. Heck, it was even implied she was a limited-scale Reality Warper. These are now gone...supposedly. Then she was mutated into a new Harpy, before turning back normal. As of "Genis-Vell: Captain Marvel," she has taken Death's place.
• Unlikely Hero: Was just a fitness instructor, but her involvement with the Hulk eventually led to space adventures, and her becoming the avatar of Death.
• Wedding Smashers: Her wedding with Rick was anything but quiet, bringing the attention of villains ranging from the Skrulls to Mephisto.
• Weirdness Magnet: Despite being an ordinary person with no special background, she ends up becoming connected to the Hulk, his various friends, and to Death.

Jim Wilson

Alter Ego: James "Jim" Wilson

Notable Aliases: Jimbo

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 2, #131

Affiliations:

• Back for the Dead: He returned after a long absence where he revealed he'd contracted AIDS, then ended up getting badly wounded in a supervillain attack and was hospitalized. Then he was forgotten for a few years until he was shown dying from the disease.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Subverted. He was homeless, yes. But not an orphan, apparently. He told everyone that he was, even until the end of his life. His father appeared over a decade after Jim passed away, looking for revenge against the Hulk. Hulk instead chews him out for being such a lousy father that Jim never even thought to mention him.
• Killed Off for Real: Poor Jim dies of AIDS.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Sort of, more like Uncle. He discovers that The Falcon is his uncle.
• Very Special Episode: Jim's final issue had him contract AIDS, and he gets injured during a protest. He begs the Hulk (then in his Merged incarnation), to give him a blood transfusion that could save his life (The Hulk is immune to AIDS). The Hulk refused, as the possibility of his life being ruined by becoming like himself was too great. He does, however, stay at his bedside during Jim's last moments until he succumbs to the illness. Hulk later makes a donation to Jim's clinic large enough to keep it going until the next decade.

Fred Sloan

Alter Ego: Fredrick K. "Fred" Sloan

Notable Aliases:

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #231

Affiliations: Ally of the Changelings

Kate Waynesboro

Alter Ego: Dr. Katherine "Kate" Waynesboro

Notable Aliases: Ms. M.O.D.O.K., Kate Oldstrong

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #287

Affiliations: S.H.I.E.L.D., Warbound

A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was romantically involved with the Hulk. Upon Hiroim the Shamed's death, Kate gained his "Oldstrong powers" and took his place as a member of the Warbound.

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Her skin turned grey after inheriting Hiroim's Oldstrong powers.
• Badass in Distress: During Dark Reign, she's captured by HAMMER as part of a trap to re-expose Bruce to gamma radiation.
• The Bus Came Back: After disappearing from Bruce's life in 1984, she reappeared in the aftermath of World War Hulk, joining up with the Warbound.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: After becoming an Oldstrong and joining the Warbound, Kate has not been seen in a Marvel comic since the epilogue of World War Hulk. Presumably her disappearance is because she went with them to space, but when a few of them returned in Death of the Silver Surfer in 2025, she's nowhere to be seen.
• Dishing Out Dirt: She gains Hiroim's Oldstrong power when he dies.
• Forced Transformation: She was briefly turned into "Ms. Modok" by MODOK. When she turned on him for his cruelty, the process was undone.
• The Mole: She was assigned by SHIELD to look out for Bruce during a period when he was in control of the Hulk's body, in case the Hulk started regaining control. Bruce was understandably hurt to learn this.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: She left Bruce because she couldn't stand to see him failing to maintain control over the Hulk.

Janis Jones

First Appearance: Hulk: Future Imperfect (1992)

The granddaughter of Rick Jones from a dystopian future ruled by the Maestro, an evil version of the Hulk. Janis would travel back in time to recruit the modern Hulk to fight him.

• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: She returned to the modern day for a while in the 90s, then just vanished after Incredible Hulk #458. However, she has made appearances set chronologically earlier in her history, and an alternate version of her was a character in Secret Wars: Future Imperfect.
• Deadpan Snarker: Being written by Peter David, this was inevitable.
• Kid from the Future: Or grandkid, in this case. Rick's grandkid, specifically.
• Named After Someone Famous: She's named after Janis Joplin.
• La Résistance: She's part of the resistance against the Maestro in her time. Problem is he's too strong for them to beat.
• Raised by Grandparents: She was raised by Rick in the absence of her parents, killed by the Maestro.

Amadeus Cho

Notable Aliases: Mastermind Excello, Prince of Power, Iron Spider, Hulk, Kid Hulk, Amadeus Hulk, Brawnhammer, Chulk, Brawn

First Appearance: Amazing Fantasy Vol. 2 #1 (January, 2006) ^note As Amadeus Cho; Totally Awesome Hulk #1 (February, 2016) ^note As Hulk; Champions Vol. 2 #22 (September, 2018) ^note As Brawn

Affiliations: The Avengers, Champions, Agents of Atlas

The constantly proclaimed "seventh smartest" (actually possibly eight or tenth, as Dr. Banner hints that he was lying to Cho) person on the planet. His family was murdered in an explosion and he has been on the run since. Drawn to Hercules for protection following the disaster of World War Hulk. In the process of finding what happened to his family draws surprising connections to the Olympian gods Hercules. He teams up with Bruce Banner again after Hercules loses his powers during the events of Chaos War. Famous for his ability to make almost infinite mathematical complex calculations within moments. Later on, he becomes a Hulk himself. For tropes regarding that story arc, see The Totally Awesome Hulk.

He usually appears as a supporting character or sidekick in books featuring The Avengers, or individual members of that group, such as the Hulk or Hercules.

• Aborted Arc: The Incredible Hercules had a subplot where Amadeus Cho visited his deceased family in the afterlife, only to discover that his little sister, whom he had presumed dead as well, was actually still alive. Maddy Cho did finally appear years later in The Totally Awesome Hulk, but her actual reunion with Amadeus apparently took place entirely offscreen.
• Affirmative-Action Legacy: Like many other heroes for the All-New, All-Different Marvel event, Cho is some sort of minority or marginalized group. In his case, Korean-American. He's this thrice over; introduced as Mastermind Excello, who was a white hero during WWII era comics, then Athena intended for him to succeed Hercules, then he becomes a Hulk.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Shown being a victim of racist bullies in a flashback.
• Artistic License – Biology: In Amazing Fantasy volume 2 #15, Amadeus Cho claims coyotes and domestic dogs are genetically indistinguishable because they can produce fertile offspring, which isn't how genetic distinction works. Being smart doesn't automatically grant one all knowledge after all.
• Ascended Fanboy: Amadeus Cho becomes the new Hulk, his favorite hero.
  Amadeus: Carol...I was just wondering...If I were to go crazy...what makes you think you could stop me?
• Asian and Nerdy: He's Korean-American and his superpower is being really good at math.
• Attack Reflector: When he has access to energy shields, he can tweak them to do this to energy attacks. Thor finds this out the hard way.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Able to perform extremely complex calculations in his head.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: When taking over the position of Prince of Power as well as the head of the Olympus Group (plus sponsoring Bruce Banner's research), Cho does all his work (including fighting supervillains) in an extremely expensive tailored suit.
• Battle of Wits: When he meets the person responsible for his family's death, the sixth smartest person in the world.
• Big Eater: Transforming burns a lot of metabolism, so Cho is constantly hungry—to the point that in the first issue, he delays his first on-panel transformation to finish eating a big meal.
• Brains and Brawn: He is the Brains and Hercules is the brawn.
• Breakout Character: Amadeus Cho was in Amazing Fantasy volume 2's second string poll, restricted to protagonists introduced in issue #15. While Marvel ended up granting a limited series to none of the options fans could vote on, Amadeus ended up getting more long term use than anyone else he was up against, Great Video, the new Monstro, Positron, and Steve stopped appearing altogether. Blackjack showed up again, as rivals to H.A.M.M.E.R. director Normal Osborn, but had increasingly little presence during Dark Reign, until they fell into Comic-Book Limbo, while Cho kept showing up semi regularly, eventually getting himself a miniseries anyway. Amadeus in fact became a bigger start than everyone on the first string ballot who wasn't Anya Corazón, who had an Arana series and an ongoing Spider-Girl series. Carmilla Black-Scorpion, Nina Price-Vampire By Night, and Death's Head 3.0, continued to show up, but didn't get their own solo series, while Vegas and Robert Dolan-Steam Rider never showed up again despite Vegas's story ending on a cliffhanger in a similar manner the way Cho's was. Even Gabriel Vargas, who was guaranteed a miniseries independent of fan response, ended up spending much of that series taking a backseat to established characters, as he and they took turns taking up the mantel of Captain Universe. Then Vargas got killed off during Annihilation.
• Brought Down to Normal: His intellect can fade if he doesn't have enough sugar to power it. In an few issues of The Incredible Hercules he becomes dumb as a brick until he manages to find some candy bars to eat (see also The Key Is Behind the Lock, below).
• Casanova Wannabe: Cho can't stop hitting on women—especially in Hulk form. Even women who state that they have boyfrends, or plainly state that they're not interested, don't stop his advances.
• Character Development: When first introduced in The Incredible Hercules he was an arrogant jerk who was willing to crash SHIELD's systems for the hell of it. His time traveling with Hercules taught him to be a hero.
• Character Shilling: Greg Pak flat out admits it. The reason that Cho showed up in just about every series Pak wrote was because he wanted to create a Korean-American superhero in a starring role, which Marvel lacked. His hope was that by slowly giving Cho exposure, fans would come to like the character and thus it would feel natural when he was given his own superhero identity. The Totally Awesome Hulk is the culmination of that effort.
• The Chessmaster: He has a knack for manipulating and tricking others into doing what he wants when he's relying on his wits, even managing to trick Athena herself. Unfortunately the trope becomes deconstructed when it becomes apparent that his manipulative tendencies that get others into trouble make him untrustworthy and hated in many superheroic communities with many despising him and others calling him a blatant sociopath for using people.
• The Chosen One: As far as Athena is concerned.
• Divergent Character Evolution: As a part of Marvel Fresh Start his gamma mutation has changed and he starts calling himself Brawn.
• Energy Weapon: When Cho inherits Herc's adamantine mace, he uses some of Bruce Banner's tech to shoot these from the mace as his main form of offense.
• Escapist Character: Deconstructed In-Universe in The Totally Awesome Hulk. Amadeus Cho is an Audience Surrogate for all those who would savor the power and invincibility of the Hulk, unlike Bruce Banner. However, as the recurring dream sequences symbolize, he isn't quite as in control as he believes, and being the Hulk comes with a lot of responsibility that a kid may not be mature enough to handle.
• Fanboy: of Hulk.
• Fatal Flaw: Hubris; when Cho reaches a conclusion and decides a course of action, he'll stubbornly ignore any information that'd change his mind and emotionally rush to confront the problem. This leads to the mentioned manipulative actions and eventually his sister icing him out because, as the Hulk, this tendency endangered bystanders on multiple occasions.
• Formulaic Magic: Cho has the ability to see the world as mathematical formulas.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Provides various gadgets for Banner's use, including a suit of unstable molecules (which remains intact when he becomes the Hulk).
• Genius Sweet Tooth: Cho's enhanced intellect requires tons of sugar to work. If he goes too long without sugar, his thoughts become increasingly muddled.
• A God I Am Not: The finale of the "Prince of Power" miniseries: Amadeus drinks the potion to grant divine powers, but consciously only uses it to find Hercules, then gives all of the power from said potion to Herc because he felt he couldn't handle it or the risks involved.
• The Hero's Journey: His story throughout the series.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In The Incredible Hercules #138, Amadeus Cho balks at Athena's suggestion that he should become the new Prince of Power, pointing to his 'skinny girl arms' as the reason, and jokes that "You're going to have to bombard me with gamma rays first or something!" Well, now that he stole Bruce Banner's gamma energy, became the new hulk, and still remains a gamma-powered hero to this day as Brawn, who knows, maybe that conversation gave him some ideas after all.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: "Hulking out", often depicted as lowering inhibitions in various ways, turns Amadeus into a Casanova Wannabe.
• If My Calculations Are Correct: His hypermind power.
• Insufferable Genius: Early on. One of his storylines has him slowly growing out of this. Still, was a pretty hard blow when he found out that he is NOT the seventh smartest, since the result came out when some of Earth's top brains were in space e.g. Bruce Banner and Hank Pym. When he saw Pym's laboratory and its capabilities, he said:

  Cho: Eighth. Eighth is good. I can live with eighth.

  • Then he sees Banner's Bannertech, just has to take some of it, and finds out that he (Cho) is actually tenth smartest.
• The Key Is Behind the Lock: He is a super-genius who, however, needs high-sugar junk food for his brain to function properly. In one issue of The Incredible Hercules he is kept prisoner in a society where the only junk food is locked in a vault (long story), and his intelligence is faltering. He manages to reach the vault and says "After I eat the food inside I'll be smart enough to figure out how to open the vault", and only then realizes the flaw in his plan.
• Legacy Character: He became the new Hulk in The Totally Awesome Hulk. Before that he was briefly the second Mastermind Excello.
• Meaningful Name: "Amadeus" means "love god" and Athena tells him he must sacrifice his love for Delphyne for his love of the gods. Amadeus says his parents picked the name because they were Methodists and Mozart fans.
• Mental Fusion: The climax of his Incredible Hulk run ends with him accepting and absorbing his dark side, rather than erasing it completely, which changes his gamma mutation.
• Mission Control: To Bruce Banner at times.
• Mistaken for Gay: A Running Gag during his Incredible Hercules days was the Greek gods mistaking Amadeus for Herc's eromenos.
• Nerds Are Sexy: Amadeus Cho, the 7th smartest person on Earth (as verified by a soap company - oh, and Reed Richards), who managed to win the heart of a Perky Goth Amazon Gorgon girl.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Amadeus Comic Book/The Totally Awesome Hulk defeats Fin Fang Foom to impress Lady Hellbender... only for her to decide to capture him as part of her collection instead.
• The Perils of Being the Best: Amadeus Cho is regarded to be the seventh smartest person in the world and several of his enemies have decided to make his life hell and/or eliminate him because they cannot tolerate him being considered smarter than them. Amadeus's Origin Story involves a Corrupt Corporate Executive that, among other things, killed his parents with a bomb and pursued him all over the United States because of a cereal company contest giving him this rank. When a more precise intelligence test he takes later on actually downgrades him in rank to the tenth smartest man in the world, Amadeus actually feels relief about it).
• Pet Baby Wild Animal: He adopted a Coyote cub he named Cerberus (Kirby for short) while on the run. He eventually had to give it up when they separated and it mated, forgetting about him entirely.
• Prescience by Analysis: He possesses a "hypermind" capable of making a seemingly endless number of calculations in his head within seconds, predicting what's going to happen. Visually, it appears as numbers and formulas floating in mid-air. Later, we learn that it runs in the family as his sister Maddie can do the same thing.
• Science Hero: When Cho becomes more active in his heroism, he uses tech to stand toe-to-toe with demons and gods. He still relies on his wits most of all, however.
• Selective Obliviousness: It has been observed that Cho's key problem is that once he forms an opinion of things he has to be given a clear reason to be talked into changing that view, such as trying to shut down SHIELD because of his personal issues with the organisation rather than acknowledge the good they do, or focusing on how the Hulk has never destroyed the world even during his worse rampages instead of taking into account that it required outside factors to bring the Hulk back from the edge and this can't be taken as proof that the Hulk would never destroy Earth.
• Sidekick: To Hercules.
• Sidekick Graduations Stick: After Secret Wars, he becomes the new Hulk, and therefore a hero in his own right.
• Super-Intelligence: Cho has this ability, which is attributed to his "hypermind." He is repeatedly established as being among the most intelligent people in the world, ranking seventh amongst them all.
• Superior Successor: What Cho aims to be in respect to Bruce Banner. In this case, this isn't meant to upstage or belittle Banner, but to finally give the guy a break and let him deal with his issues as a normal human. In short, using all the good of the Hulk with as little of the bad as possible.
• Teen Genius: Like Peter Parker he is, but it's more pronounced as he was building things since he was a toddler.
• Too Clever by Half: Amadeus is undeniably intelligent but also undeniably immature and shortsighted at times. This goes back to his fatal flaw.
• Virtual Sidekick: He created one called Calvin who was built into a Powered Armor that resembled a 3 piece suit. During his adventure on the Savage Lands, he even tells the natives there that Calvin is his Spirit Advisor for convenience.
• What the Hell, Hero?: On both ends of this; he's called out the other heroes for not being considerate enough of Banner and the Hulk and been called out by his allies for not being as considerate as he should be of others' emotional well-being. The latter has extended into physical well-being after becoming a Hulk.

Nadia Dornova

Alter Ego: Nadia Dornova Blonsky

Notable Aliases: Nadia Blonsky

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #382 (1991)

Affiliations: Home Base

Nadia Dornova is the wife of Emil Blonsky

• Commonality Connection: She and Bruce Banner bonded thanks to their experiences with domestic violence.
• Killed Off for Real: Nadia died when Home Base was destroyed and the Hulk was freed from Leader's mind control. That ended any chance of a romance between her and Bruce.
• Not So Similar: Nadia initially made contact with Bruce to lure him into a trap, but when she slapped the Hulk (Bruce having transformed in a sleepwalking state) and he didn't react with violence, she realised that he was different from her husband and chose to help him.

Sandra "Sandy" Verdugo

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 3 #36 (2002)

Affiliations: Home Base

Sandy Verdugo is a special forces agent who worked to track down the hulk. She's also the mother of Doc Samson's child Ricky Myers.

• Life Drain: She can speed up her recovery time by absorbing the life forces of other beings, through killing them.
• Resurrective Immortality: Her powers allow her to recover from non-lethal injuries. If actually killed, her body is soon restored back to life.
• Uncertain Doom: Both Sandy and Ricky seemed to die when Hulk destroyed the Home Base facility, but due to her abilities, it remains to be seen if they died for good.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: She hasn't been seen since her apparent death in 2004.

Jarella

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #140 (1971)

Affiliations:

Hulk's other, other true love, Jarella was the queen of a realm in the Microverse called Subatomica, which Hulk saved from the ultraterrestrial villain Psyklop. Notable mainly because she's had more influence on the comic after her death than she did while alive.

• Back from the Dead: During the Chaos War, queen Jarella is revived to assist the Hulk in fighting Abomination, a Zom-possessed Doctor Strange, and the forces of Amatsu-Mikaboshi.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: Her people resembled normal humans except for their green skin.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She had golden hair and was a noble and altruistic young woman.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During a battle between the Hulk and Crypto-Man in an unnamed town in New Mexico, she sacrificed her life to save a child from a collapsing wall.
• Lady of War: Jarella is a great warrior and a brilliant military leader. She was an excellent swordswoman and a superb hand-to-hand combatant.
• The Lost Lenore: One of the many love interests of the Hulk that have died.
• The Power of Love: It turns out that since Hulk's power is emotion-based and quasi-mystical in nature, the love he felt for Jarella makes her even more powerful after dying than his father's spirit turned from his rage. Bruce's mother also said that she by far preferred his more moral wife Jarella to his other wife, the Blood Knight Red She-Hulk.
• What Could Have Been: Len Wein, who wrote the story where she dies, later said that he never intended her to be really dead, but he got pulled off the book before he could complete the story, so the following writers took her death at face value. The resultant tale is all the more tragic for how random and arbitrary her death feels, and the Hulk's reaction when he finally understands that she's really, truly gone is utterly heartbreaking.

Bereet

Notable Aliases: Bird Woman

First Appearance: Rampaging Hulk Vol. 1, #1 (Jan. 1977) ^note Later revealed as a fictional story created by Bereet / The Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #269 (1982)

Affiliations:

Bereet is a female Krylorian techno-artist who uses her alien technology to produce films concerning fictional adventures of herself and the Hulk.

• Bird People: Similarly to the Shi'ar, Krylorians descend from bird-like aliens, although the only indication of her ancestry is the crest on her head and her three-fingered hands and two-toed feet.
• Bizarre Alien Limbs: Has only three fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot.
• Canon Discontinuity: Bereet first appeared in The Rampaging Hulk magazine, where she was an important character and became a full-fledged romantic interest for the Hulk. The main Incredible Hulk comic later retconned those adventures to have just been movies she was making back on her home planet, based on her interest in the Hulk from afar. When she finally does come to Earth, the two never actually hit it off, and she remains a very minor figure in the Hulk's adventures from then on.
• Cool Helmet: With a giant crest on it.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: Other than red skin and a crest, she's pretty similar to a human and very attractive.
• Statuesque Stunner: Barely but she's 5'8"/173cm tall, and not bad looking.
• Stripperiffic: She essentially walks around in a bikini with boots.

Glorian

Alter Ego: Thomas Gideon

Notable Aliases: Dreamer, Shaper of Dreams

First Appearance: Fantastic Four Vol. 1, #34

Affiliations: Shaper of Worlds

Glorian was a dying young man who was given great power by the Shaper of Worlds.

• And I Must Scream: As of 2012's Silver Surfer, he's wound up stuck in the land of Couldn't-Be, Shouldn't-Be, which hasn't done any wonders for his sanity.
• Bald of Evil: Starting off with curly hair, by Annihilation, he's gone hairless. And quite, quite nuts.
• Body Horror: On his reappearance in Defenders: Beyond, his powers are now fueled by him using parts of his body. The fact he's missing several chunks by the time the Defenders stumble upon him raises a few questions.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Perfectly ordinary boy Thomas Gideon was granted the power to shape dreams by the Shaper of Worlds. Unfortunately, he began to go mad.
• Godhood Seeker: Tried to replace Eternity during the whole mess of 2015's Secret Wars, but that failed and left him stuck in Couldn't-Be, Shouldn't-Be. When the Defenders find him there, he's still determined he could create a new, better multiverse than the one that already exists. The non-team disagrees.
• Hate Plague: During Annihilation Ronan, Glorian uses his powers to draw people to Gothab Omega and make them fight, so he can harness the energy unleashed. Might've worked if the Annihilation Wave hadn't been passing through.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: His schtick is to try and give people illusions based on their heart's desire. And then wig out when they inevitably reject it.
• Pretty Boy: What he started off as. Less so in modern times.
• Sanity Slippage: Given his origin involved his father dying of radiation poisoning, followed by being given cosmic power, going mad was probably inevitable for the poor kid.

Jackie McGee

Alter Ego: Jacqueline "Jackie" McGee

First Appearance: The Immortal Hulk Vol. 1, #1 (June, 2018)

Affiliations: Arizona Herald

A reporter from the Arizona Herald working on a story about the reappearing Hulk. Introduced in The Immortal Hulk.

• Adaptational Diversity: Her original counterpart was a Caucasian male. She on the other hand, is a black female.
• Age Lift: Her original counterpart was around the same age as David Banner when Banner first became the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (1977). While an adult now, this version was a teenager during an early rampage of the Hulk.
• Angry Black Woman Stereotype: Subverted. She points out that she lives in a society that tells her she can't get angry, no matter how much crap is thrown her way. She calls out the Hulk on how he, a genius white man who turns into a walking superweapon, can be given government pardons and statues no matter how much destruction is left in his wake, while she can't so much as become angry at whatever injustice befalls her.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: She has dedicated her life to finding Bruce to discover how she could become like him, with her anger recognized and accepted rather than dismissed and looked down upon. However, after actually spending time with Banner and seeing the horror show that is his life along with what being the Hulk has cost him, she regrets taking his situation at face value.
• Canon Immigrant: Loosely based on Jack McGee from the 1977 TV show.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The Hulk ran through her neighborhood when she was younger and destroyed her family home. Insurance wouldn't cover it because Hulk attacks are considered an "act of God", and this put considerable stress on her father who ended up dying more or less destitute.
• Gender Flip: The original character was a white man.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Feels that her Gamma mutation is kind of sucky, since it only allows her to see horrible things, but at the climax of Immortal Hulk, it helps defeat the One Below All-possessed Leader.
• Intrepid Reporter: She is a normal reporter who traveled across the country to follow the Hulk.
• I See Dead People: Discovers she's become a gamma mutate who sees ghosts and astral forms when she loses her concentration.
• Race Lift: The character she's based on was a white man.
• Wham Line: When she finally managed to catch up to the Hulk directly, she asks.
  Jackie: "How do I get to be what you are?"

Charlene McGowan

Notable Aliases: Dr. McGowan

First Appearance: The Immortal Hulk Vol. 1, #6 (September, 2018)

Affiliations: U.S. Hulk Operations, Gamma Flight

The head scientist of Shadow Base, McGowan acts as the voice of reason to the increasingly tyrannical and irrational General Fortean. After Fortean's downfall, she joins up with Banner as his second in command.

• Anti-Villain: The only reason she's following Fortean is that he's the only thing keeping her out of jail, thanks to her past in a drug lab. Eventually, she decides to relieve him of command of Shadow Base because — as Rick Jones points out — he's not the general who got her out of trouble anymore.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: She always wanted to meet Daredevil... just not when he was breaking up the drug lab she worked at.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: You'd be forgiven for not connecting her first appearances to her recent ones. She had a much different face shape and skin tone, and possibly a tattoo.
• Good Is Not Soft: Generally, Charlene's an empathetic and caring woman, but at the same time she can be dangerous when crossed, so much so even Absorbing Man and Titania are a little impressed by her. She's got mad science, she knows how to use it, and will if pushed.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: She's primarily a biochemist, but as the head of Shadow Base's science team she's responsible for pretty much everything they cover, particularly translocation.
• Token Good Teammate: To the Shadow Base leadership. She's increasingly horrified by Fortean's disregard for the lives of civilians or even his own troops and throws her lot in with Team Hulk at the first opportunity.
• Transgender: While working in the MGH lab she synthesized her own estradiol, and suggested to her employers that they expand into black market hormone replacement therapy as a way of relieving her own guilty conscience. Issue 30 implies that the Minotaur intends on outing her to the public, something which his subordinate Randolph feels is unnecessarily cruel even for Roxxon. In Issue 32, Charlene comes out to Samson while the two discuss Xemnu, and she explains how she doesn't want someone telling her how to think or see themselves as something they're not.

Teen Brigade

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #6

Affiliations:

• Technology Marches On: Goes from HAM radios to smartphones and the internet.

Enkidu

Alter Ego: Tammuz

First Appearance: Immortal Hulk: Time of Monsters (May, 2021)

An early version of the Immortal Hulk, he was a prehistoric human who was the first to encounter the Green Door entity.

• Been There, Shaped History: He was considered the beast-man Enkidu, and had various encounters with Gilgamesh.
• Cannibalism Superpower: He was sacrificed to a meteorite emitting Gamma radiation by his crazy clan chieftain, which turned him into a monster and got him hunted down to be eaten. His chief intended to take his strength to conquer other tribes. However, Enkidu returned and killed him.
• Dead Guy on Display: He died eventually, with his remains ending up in the study of an ancestor of Samuel Sterns'. Whether he's actually fully dead is a little unclear.
• Eye Scream: Died the second time around by being shot in the face with an arrow right through the eye. The eye remains broken even when he resurrects.
• Fully-Embraced Fiend: Being supposedly betrayed and killed by his best friend (who didn't recognize him in his mutated state) led to Tammuz willingly embracing the One Below All, and going on a murderous rampage against his clan.
  Tammuz: I would like to break things now. I would like that very much.
  One Below All: MY WEAPON IS HATE.
  Tammuz: As is mine.
• Horned Humanoid: He has horns growing from his head (some artists give him horns all over his body).
• Meaningful Name: His human name was Tammuz, named for the Mesopotamian god of fertility. In context, it refers to his resurrection ability.

Doc Samson

^{Click here to see Spoiler}

Alter Ego: Leonard "Len" Sampson

Notable Aliases: Green-Hair, Len, Lennie, Brother Leonard, Samson, Doc Sasquatch

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol 2 #141 (July, 1971)

Doctor Leonard Samson is the gamma-irradiated friend, rival, and psychiatrist of Bruce Banner. Once possessing the superhuman strength equivalent to a relatively calm Hulk, Leonard is now more powerful than ever as his darker alter-ego Samson. Incalculable strength, virtually limitless endurance, and an extremely high degree of durability.

• Always Someone Better: When M.O.D.O.K. provoked Samson into a psychological breakdown, one of the issues that provoked Samson's darker half was how he never received much recognition as a superhero as there was always someone better than him at some part of his "job".
• Anti-Hero Substitute: Dr. Leonard Samson was a nerdy little nebbish scientist who managed to de-Hulkify Hulk, turning him back into Bruce Banner. He then used a portion of the stored gamma energy to turn himself into Doc Samson, who wasn't really an anti-hero so much as he was just kind of an egotistical jerk. When he started wooing Betty, it convinced Bruce (who was initially thrilled to be himself again) to use the rest of the stored gamma energy to turn himself back into the Hulk.
• Boring, but Practical: Doc Samson has noted that for a fraction of what General Ross and other have wasted trying to build robots/containment/powered armor to take down/control the Hulk, you could just get a satellite array going that would warn people in urban areas to evacuate when he starts getting too close. Naturally no one will consider this. General Ross objects because America's enemies might get ahold of them, and what would they do then?
  Doc Samson: Send condolence cards to America's enemies.
• Contagious Powers: He used the Hulk's own gamma energy to gain super strength
• Death Is Cheap: He was killed attempting to help a returned Hulk contain all of the Gamma radiation from the Hulked-Out Heroes. However, he is alive and well again in the post-Secret Wars (2015) universe. He dies a few times over in Immortal Hulk, but thanks to the Green Door tends to come back.
• Epiphany Therapy: Doc Samson uses this with Bruce Banner/The Hulk to merge their different personalities into one, creating the Merged/Professor Hulk. This was subverted though, as Samson had insisted on following up with regular therapy sessions, and Hulk kept skipping them. It might have stuck if he had followed the doctor's advice.
  • This was later altogether retconned away with Therapy Does Not Work That Way to establish that Samson had really just created a new, if more stable, alternate.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Most of Banner's closest allies see Samson as a completely ineffectual quack at best. The Devil Hulk and Joe Fixit, in particular, have little more than contempt and grudging tolerance towards him.
• Genius Bruiser: Being a doctor with Super-Strength will do that.
• Go Out with a Smile: His death in Fall of the Hulks has him trying to reassure Bruce before he's killed.
• Hero Killer: One of the acts his "Samson" personality did was the murder of Clay Quartermain.
• Home-Run Hitter: Occurs in a standalone mini-series, where Doc Samson dares Hulk to hit him, offering him the first punch. The path his flying body describes could best be called a projectile arc...
• Meaningful Name: He is a doctor, and his real name is Leonard Samson.
  • In his early years, he got weaker when his hair was cut like the biblical hero, Samson.
• Names to Run Away From: Of the biblical variation. Doc Samson, a psychiatrist who has a green-haired Genius Bruiser transformation. Predictably, his hair grows long in his transformed state, and his power is dependent on his hair just like the mythical Samson. It's been noted that he never lets his hair grow beyond a certain length as it gets in the way, but this limits his strength level.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: The fact he tried dating Betty that one time.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Has occasionally felt this way about the more violent Hulk personas, even attempting to convince the Avengers that he has a better chance at stopping the Hulk's rampage without collateral damage:
  Samson: All by himself he carved out a swathe through this town that'll take years to rebuild. But if all five of you went at it for any length of time you could level half of New Mexico! Only one of us can stop the Hulk without adding to the damage and death. And that one has to be me.
  Iron Man: Okay, your logic is indisputable, Samson.
• Only Sane Man: Practically the only gamma-mutant that seems to have few issues with his new existence. As a psychiatrist, he's usually reaching out to the Hulk, and even the more reasonable of the Hulk's enemies, to try to help resolve their issues. Sadly, the rule of drama means he's almost certain to fail.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: As he himself has noted, he has a tendency to be an insensitive idiot.
• Possessing a Dead Body: After being killed by the Leader, he ends up possessing Walter Langkowski's deceased body, gaining his Sasquatch form in the process.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Has long hair every time he gets into his power phase.
• The Shrink: Despite being said to be one of the most renowned psychiatrists on Earth, his good intentions often lead to poor results:
  • He actually managed to merge various versions of the Hulk in one personality but lied about the result being the real Banner.
  • He was the Hulk's shrink during the Pantheon saga. In the end, Banner completely fell apart and Fury commented that Samson was acting more like his own patient.
  • His regression therapy of the Punisher was hijacked by a third party and led to Castle going berserk and seemingly killing Nick Fury.
  • In his own limited series, he tried Talking Down the Suicidal, only for said suicidal to jump when Samson was done talking.
  • During Immortal Hulk, Brian Banner mentions that when he passed through the Below Place, Len tried psychoanalyzing him. Given the personality involved, you can imagine how well that went.
• Split Personality: When M.O.D.O.K. placed Doctor Samson under mind control it produced a split personality. This led to a powerless Leonard who was defined as the good one and an evil Samson whose abilities are greater than She-Hulk's.
• Split-Personality Takeover: The reason Doc Samson turned evil in Hulk (2008); he developed another set of personalities- his current persona, the identity of Doctor Leonard Samson PhD, and the more ruthless 'Samson'- and a 'psychiatric evaluation' in his own mind organised by M.O.D.O.K. saw Samson kill the other two.
• Suddenly Ethnicity: During Peter David's run as writer, we learn that Leonard is Jewish.
• Superpowered Evil Side: His evil personality was created by M.O.D.O.K. Samson grows larger in size, his hair grows out and in this form, he is stronger and faster than She-Hulk. He also has a lightning bolt scar across his chest. This personality refers to himself only as "Samson".
• Super-Strength: And the usual Required Secondary Power of resisting damage, he possessed sufficient superhuman strength to lift about 70 tons. But he's definitely lower down the scale than the Hulk or most of the Hulk's rogues' gallery. He's claimed to be "as strong as a calm Hulk", while ruefully admitting this isn't much of a measuring stick when Hulk is never calm.
• Super-Toughness: Samson's gamma-ray enhanced physique is much harder and more resistant to physical injury than a normal human. Samson's skin can resist penetration wounds from high-caliber bullets or blades composed of most conventional materials. Samson is also physically durable enough to withstand multiple blows from the Hulk, while in an enraged emotional state, and sustain little to no injury.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: To the Savage Hulk and the Grey Hulk.
• Unexplained Recovery: After dying in Fall of the Hulks, he reappeared in 2016 at the beginning of Civil War II with literally no explanation beyond "I got better". It wasn't until Immortal Hulk that any explanation was given (and it turns out "I got better" is just the best explanation Len could give.)
• Unskilled, but Strong: One of the few Genius Bruiser examples, even. He's in the upper-tier of Super-Strength, but he's nowhere near as experienced and battle-hardened as Hulk and has the combat training you'd expect of a psychiatrist. This is best shown when various super-strong Earth heroes were tested by the Champion of the Universe; Samson was disqualified after being smacked around like a dope by the practice equipment.
• The Worf Effect: He's quite prone to getting beaten up.

Sasquatch

^{Click here to see Sasquatch}

Alter Ego: Walter Langkowski

Notable Aliases: Sasquatch

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 #120 (April, 1979)

A long-time member of Alpha Flight, Walter Langkowski can transform at will into the fearsome and powerful Sasquatch. He gained his powers while trying to duplicate the conditions that had created the Hulk, but inadvertently fused his body with the essence of the Great Beast, Tanaraq, instead.

Thundra

First Appearance: Fantastic Four Vol 1 #129 (December, 1972)

Thundra is from an alternate reality designated Earth-715. In the 23rd century, Thundra is the mightiest warrior from the United Sisterhood Republic, a country populated and ruled by the Femizons, a matriarchal society of Amazon-like women warriors.

Sabra

Alter Ego: Ruth Bat-Seraph

Notable Aliases: Ruth Ben-Sera, SA-1980 (military code designation), Ruthie Bat-Seraph

First Appearance: Incredible Hulk #250 (August, 1980) ^note Cameo Apperance; Incredible Hulk Vol 1 #256 (February, 1981) ^note Full appearance

Ruth Bat-Seraph was born in Israel and is a member of the Israeli secret service known as Mossad. She later fought alongside the X-Men and joined the X-Corporation.

• Anti-Hero: She's geniune in her goals to defend Israel and capturing terrorists, but she's a little too zealous on the latter front.
• Badass Israeli: She's a Mossad Agent with mutant powers.
• Captain Geographic: "Sabra" is the term for a Jew born in Israel (or before 1948, in Palestine).
• Captain Patriotic: The national superhero of Israel.
• Combo Platter Powers: She has plenty of powers that make her a certified heavy hitter.
  • Healing Factor: If she is injured, she can rapidly heal damaged tissue about 3 times faster and more extensively than an ordinary human. However, she can't regenerate missing limbs or organs.
  • Super-Reflexes: Sabra's reflexes are similarly enhanced and are about twice as fast as those of the finest human athletes.
  • Super-Speed: Sabra can run and move and speeds surpassing those of the finest human athletes. At her peak, Sabra can reach a top speed of about 60 miles per hour.
  • Super-Strength: Sabra possesses superhuman strength sufficient to lift about 50 tons with supreme effort.
  • Super-Toughness: The tissues of Sabra's body are much harder and more resistant to physical injury than the bodily tissues of a normal human. She can withstand great impact forces, high-caliber bullets, falls from great heights, exposure to temperature and pressure extremes, and powerful energy blasts without being injured.
• Commuting on a Bus: While Sabra often travels outside of Israel on her various counter terror missions, she passes on Professor X's suggestion to join Excalibur, as well as Storm's to join the X-Men. While Excalibur isn't a strictly UK team, evidence by Professor X, and the X-Men aren't strickly a USA team, evidence by Storm, asking Captain Israel to be a regular is a bit much. Sabra does end up joining X-Corporation, however.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Sabra is convinced the Hulk is an Arab terrorist weapon, despite the fact Hulk speaks English and consisently demonstrates very unterroristic traits like asking to be left alone and warning those fightng them that he's about to escalate the conflict and how to stop him from doing so. Even those she doesn't think are Arab, including Jews and other Israelis, aren't safe from being targeted by her, though sometimes she's right.
• Flying Brick: Not only is she super strong and tough, her cape houses certain anti-gravity devices, enabling her to fly through the air at speeds greater than 300 miles per hour.
• The Fundamentalist: Sabra's purpose in life is to fight terrorism, in whatever form it takes. Unfortunately she has a bad habit of applying the label of terrorisms liberally and applying anti terror tactics where they're counterproductive. She also has a complicated relationship with the X-Men, as on one hand they're associates of Magneto, a former terrorist not in jail, which makes them her enemies, but they're also frequently targets of terrorism, which means they have to be protected.
• Hand Blast: Sabra utilizes wrist gauntlets that fire plasma bursts.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She's not wrong about the Hulk being dangerous, but her methods for dealing with him leave much to be desired
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Sabra" means both a native of Israel and a kind of prickly pear.
  • Her surname, in Hebrew, declares her the "daughter of Seraph".
• My Suit Is Also Super: In addition to the powers that come from her x-factor gene, her cape and gauntlest contain science fiction gadgetry and weaponry.
• Not Quite Dead: She was shot from afar by Crossbones during Ends of the Earth, only to turn up alive sometime later, since it was just a glancing hit.
• The Paralyzer: Sabra utilizes a cape that fires paralyzing quills.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's 5'11"/180cm tall and very pretty.
• Super-Empowering: Sabra can transfer up to half of her own life-energy into someone else, enhancing their strength, speed, stamina, and occasionally giving them superpowers. She can also take that energy back... at least once, killing the subject because they hadn't healed from the wounds that were the reason that she gave them her life energy in the first place (it's okay; they turned out to be a bad guy).
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: When she was introduced, she wore a blue and white outfit with the Star of David emblazoned on her chest, and a bandanna with another, reminiscent of the Israeli flag. Years later, she traded her flagtastic costume for a secret agent outfit in white and dark blue colours.

The Thing

Alter Ego: Benjamin Jacob "Ben" Grimm

Notable Aliases: Blackbeard the Pirate, Angrir: Breaker of Souls, Dr. Josiah Verpoorteen, El Morrito

Debut: The Fantastic Four Vol 1 #1 (August, 1961)

Ben Grimm, better known as the Thing, is the original quintessential tough guy of the Marvel Universe. But, because of his transformation, he's also the tragic member of the Fantastic Four. Ben was an ace test pilot until exposure to intense cosmic radiation mutated him into a rock-skinned monster with immense superhuman strength. Ben's exterior is much harder than stone which gives him a rather gruff disposition; but deep down, he has a heart of gold.

Wolverine

Alter Ego: James "Logan" Howlett

Notable Aliases: Logan, Jeremiah Logan, Patch, Weapon X, Death, Mutate #9601, Emilio Garra, Weapon Chi, Experiment X, Agent 10, Peter Richards, Mai' keth, Black Dragon, Captain Canada, Captain Terror, John Logan, Jim Logan

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Vol 1 #180 (October, 1974) ^note Cameo appearance; The Incredible Hulk Vol 1 #181 (November, 1974) ^note Full appearance

A long-lived mutant with the rage of a beast and the soul of a Samurai, James "Logan" Howlett's once mysterious past is filled with blood, war, and betrayal. Possessing an accelerated healing factor, keenly enhanced senses, and bone claws in each hand (along with his skeleton) that are coated in adamantium; Wolverine is, without question, the ultimate weapon.

Thor

Alter Ego: Thor Odinson

Notable Aliases: Siegmund, Siegfried, Dr. Donald Blake, Jake Olson, Sigurd Jarlson, Eric Masterson, Odinson, Herald of Thunder

First Appearance: Journey into Mystery Vol 1 #83 (August, 1962)

Thor Odinson is the All-father of Asgard /God of Thunder, offspring of All-Father Odin & the Elder Earth-Goddess Gaea. Combining the powers of both realms makes him an elder-god hybrid and a being of limitless potential. Armed with his enchanted Uru hammer Mjolnir, which helps him to channel his godly energies. The mightiest and the most beloved warrior in all of Asgard, a staunch ally for good and one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse/omniverse. Thor is also a founding member of the Avengers.

Alpha Flight

First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 #120 (April, 1979)

Alpha Flight is Canada's premiere superhero team. Amongst its members are Guardian, Sasquatch, Puck, Vindicator, and Northstar. Even Wolverine has been counted among their ranks.

Gamma Flight

First Appearance: Alpha Flight Vol 1 #1 (August, 1983) ^note Original Team; Immortal Hulk Vol 1 #8 (November, 2018) ^note Alpha Flight Space Program

Gamma Flight, allies of the Alpha & Beta Flight teams of Canada. They are a second-tier training team, formed to replace Alpha Flight when the Canadian government deemed them uncontrollable. After Alpha Flight transferred to a Space Program, Gamma Flight became a Hulk tracking team.

The Winter Guard

First Appearance: Iron Man Vol 3 #9 (August, 1998)

The Winter Guard is Russia's elite superhuman strikeforce. It was born out of two other former Russian Superhero teams, namely