#(“it worked for betty ross in the hulk comics!”)

[cantsayidont]

July 1961. While Silver Age and Bronze Age stories mostly depicted the Kents as small-town shopkeepers rather than farmers (and there's reason to think Smallville was originally supposed to be in the East, not the Midwest), a character who definitely DID grow up on a farm in the Midwest was Lois Lane, pictured above with her parents and her younger sister Lucy in a flashback from SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE #26. Modern Superman media depicts Lois as an Army brat, but before the Crisis, Sam Lane (pictured above left) was a farmer, not an Army officer, and he and Lois's mother remained on their farm in the small town of Pittsdale until the 1986 reboot.

Lois Lane's sister Lucy, a flight attendant and Jimmy Olsen's on-again, off-again girlfriend, first appeared about two years before this story, in SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #36. In the 1940s, the Superman comics showed Lois with an unnamed, probably older sister with an obnoxious daughter named Susie Tompkins, while the radio Lois had a younger sister named Diana. A 1980 "Mr. and Mrs. Superman" story identified Susie Tompkins as an Earth-2 character and gave her mother's name as Lucille, making her Lucy Lane's Earth-2 counterpart. I don't think Diana ever had a comics equivalent.

[daydreamerdrew]

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #264

[misscammiedawn]

Plurality Weekend

Hey all. This post is for anyone discovering my blog for the first time this weekend. My name is Cammie Dawn and I write a lot about DID and Hypnokink. Both of these things will be quite relevant this weekend.

I'm attending The Plurality Positivity World Conference (info in link) this weekend after our therapist sent us to last year's event and it went well. Unrelated to the event, I'm also a panelist for a talk on hypnokink and plurality tomorrow (Saturday 5/18 at 1pm-3pm CST - info in link)

Networking at the PPWC for my Media, Myself and I essays (one kind person has already reached out to us about them which makes me glow with pride and grateful to know my stuff is getting out there) and providing my links to the panel tomorrow, I imagine I may get a few first time visitors to my blog. I thought I'd do a quick "resources and links" post.

For Media Essays:

Recontextualized Memory and Unprocessed Trauma in Umineko - A visual novel about generational trauma goes over how a young woman goes over and over the events of a tragedy in her childhood and how adult knowledge will recontextualize our adult recollections.

Derealization in Night in the Woods and Metal gear Solid 2 - Describing the sensation of derealization where the brain stops connecting associations between the self and the things one perceives in their surroundings. One example displaying how this impacts a person living with DPDR and the other showing an example of a game attempting to make a player share the experience with the player character.

DID and the healing process in Mr. Robot - A run down of the experiences of discovery, exploration, rejection and healing within DID as displayed in each season of Mr. Robot, along with a disappointed rundown of why the final episode fumbled the ball.

Bruce Banner and the roles of his alters - A breakdown of the formation of The Incredible Hulk’s DID and what roles his many alters play.

Romantic relationships with systems - A look at the marriage between Bruce Banner and Betty Talbot-Ross Banner in Hulk comics and a frank discussion between Betty and one of Bruce’s alters about how relationships function in a system.

Personality Play in Penlight - A review of one of the routes for a hypnokink visual novel called Penlight in which the protagonist hypnotizes a woman to have an alter personality, along with some descriptions of how dangerous play like that works in real life and what the consequences could be.

For Hypnokink Resources (more in our Hypnokink Writings tag):

Hypnosis and Dissociative Disorders - A Rebuttal to a recent claim at a hypnosis convention that we shouldn't practice with those who dissociate as part of a mental illness.

Ethical Personality Play - A discussion about the real psychological damage that can and will happen if you play with personality play in hypnokink without setting safeties and grounding as part of your play.

Unreality and Hypnosis - A small note about how derealization symptoms mingle with hypnokink and why grounding and ensuring "reality remains in the scene" is important.

Anyway. Thank you all. For those who follow me normally, I appreciate you indulging the link spam.

[thebibliomancer]

Earth X #7

Hulk’s the strongest of the verse, you know him well

He’s finally back to kick some tail!

Iiiiii still don’t know why the Hulk is a gorilla now.

The opening two-page spreads that recap people on Hulk stuff tries to explain it as the Celestial seed in Bruce absorbing so much gamma radiation that it wanted to be independent.

But that doesn’t really work when Bruce needs Hulk to see and Hulk seems to do anything Bruce wants. The two are more dependent than they were in one body.

The opening Hulk explanation also debunks the idea that Hulk’s different personas were any kind of Disassociate Identity Disorder thing. Nope, Bruce’s mental health has nothing to do with it according to Earth X. It’s always just been a result of Hulk absorbing more and more gamma over time.

Let’s just say that’s one ball from Earth X the main verse won’t pick up and run with.

Earth X! It’s Bad Future! There’s a mind control squid and a mind control kid causing a fuss! Humanity has mutated due to reasons unknown but probably not Reed Richard’s fault! The Avengers are dead, the Fantastic Four is disbanded, and the X-Men are all circus performers! Iron Man hides from the world! Thor has been rule 63’d by Loki! Peter Parker is retired but his daughter is Venom! Hulk and Bruce went to see Sorcerer Supreme Clea to visit Mar-Vell in the Realm of Death to ask why Bruce keeps dreaming about him!

There’s a lot going on! Much of it is a mess!

Also, last issue blind Uatu the Watcher bullied Aaron Stack Machine Man into erasing his own brain.

This causes some trouble because Aaron was one of the comic’s narrators and now he has zero interest in anything going on and has to be cajoled by Uatu to still work as his seeing eye robot.

After the six preceding issues where Aaron always had an opinion on things, it’s chilling to have narration that’s now just matter of fact strict recitation of the facts.

You’re a dick, Uatu.

I’m going to get the appendix stuff out of the way now. The stuff that explains in brief what several not-appearing characters are up to.

Doc Sampson: he was the Skull’s therapist when the kid was just a normal kid. Unfortunately, therapy made the Skull’s powers manifest, unleashing the psychic pulse that took out every other psychic in the world. And when his power let him take control of Sampson, the Skull forced him to turn himself inside out, for laughs. That’s not really a survivable process.

General Ross: his crusade against the Hulk eventually escalated to the point where he wiped out a town, wrongly believing the Hulk was hiding there. He was court martialed, because yeah, and killed himself.

The Leader: he was psychic. The Skull’s awakening killed him.

Abomination: he irradiated Betty Ross until she died of it. Instead of killing him back, Bruce somehow cured him of being the Abomination.

Uatu figures that Bruce must have accidentally removed the Celestial seed from Blonsky, meaning there was nothing to allow gamma mutation to take place. And he seems glad Bruce never figured out how he did it because that could really derail the Celestials’ plan.

Nighthawk: apparently at some point he got prophecy eyes from Mephisto and he’s been driven insane by upcoming events.

Gargoyle: Lives with Nighthawk and writes down his insane ramblings. Including a bit that says Captain America’s attempt to gather an army to fight the Skull is doomed to failure. Thanks for the spoiler, jerk.

One last interesting tidbit that Uatu mentions is that though the Skull is an important part of the Celestials’ plans, the mass empowering event happened two hundred years early and Uatu has no idea if things are off the rails or if he just lost the plot.

Anyway.

Last issue, Reed Richards retrieved a Cerebro from the abandoned X-Mansion.

He teleports to New York and is reunited with Ben after all this time.

That’s nice.

Of course, Reed being Reed, he’s not here to reconnect with his best pal. He’s on a mission and he needs some notes he left with Ben.

Reed has a Cerebro but you need to be a little psychic to use Cerebro, some of the times. Reed isn’t psychic but at some point he took extensive notes on Charles Xavier’s brain.

So with the notes, Reed can just

Stretch his mind. To use Cerebro.

(I don’t know for sure but I think Earth X is the first to explicitly say that Xavier’s mutation was a physical change in his brain. So Earth X gets a tally for things that inspire the 616 because Red Skull later grafts Xavier’s brain to his own to get psychic powers.)

Meanwhile, over at the Sanctum Sanctorum, Thor has joined this side of the plot between issues with no explanation.

And Clea creates a portal to the Realm of Death which Bruce sends Hulk through.

In the past times I’ve seen Death’s Realm, it’s been a rather generic wasteland. In Earth X, it’s a ruined looking New York and the inhabitants are in inverted colors and horizontally flipped?

They act out what they were doing before death and seem unaware they’re dead.

Aside from the people we already knew were dead, there’s also She-Hulk. Meaning there’s nothing left to save from the Hydra. That’s sad.

Also, Phoenix is here but Jean is alive? Odd.

Hulk doesn’t find Mar-Vell but he does find Dr Strange’s dead astral form.

He tells Hulk/Bruce not to say anything. Then he reads the letter Hulk is carrying and tells Bruce that Mar-Vell is on his way to see him.

But that Bruce is in danger! Because the one that betrayed and killed him was Clea!

Dangit, Clea!

Although that does explain why she tried to get Hulk to turn back when he was getting close to Strange.

Thor rushes into the portal to retrieve Hulk when Clea warns that he may get trapped in Death’s Realm forever. And Bruce accidentally lets Clea know he knows when he begs Thor not to leave him alone with Clea.

Surprise, Clea and Loki are in cahoots. Kissing cahoots.

I have no idea how this ties into the mass empowering event, the Celestial plan, the impending destruction of Earth, the Inhumans looking for their missing prince, the Skull, or Hydra.

We now just have a Loki plot on top of all that.

And weirdly, ghost Strange suggests that Loki’s scheming may save Earth despite himself.

What a tangled web of plot and subplot.

Elsewhere, the Skull’s army arrives outside New York… oh, I’m sorry, New New York.

I don’t remember if a previous issue called the city New New York. And this issue came out a couple months after Futurama’s debut.

There’s a slim but non-zero chance that Earth X copied Futurama.

Wild.

And seven issues in, plotlines converge as Captain America and the circus X-Men Cyclops was training all arrive at Ben Grimm’s place.

I have to wonder what Cap’s plan is. He came up with one between issues and sent the circus performers to Cyclops for training and then booked it back to New New York.

How do you beat a kid that can mind control tens of thousands without any real effort? Reed could probably make a doodad. If he has Xavier’s brain on file, maybe he has Magneto’s helmet schematics?

Cap, please talk to Reed while you’re here.

[jimmythejiver]

Reminder that Peggy Carter sucks in both the movies/extended universe and comics, but for two different reasons. It is pointed out many times that movie/show version is based on comic book Nazi double agent Cynthia Glass, so much that they casted Haylee Atwell to look like her, and she's a British government agent. Nuff said.

Comic book Peggy is if you had Scarlett O'Hara but blond working in the French resistence with all the values dissonance that creates. Comic Peggy is a descendent of Virginian plantation slave owners (her being British in movie is an invention to bypass this uncomfortable fact while ignoring the complacency of British Imperialism and it's human rights violations) and in comics her and Sharon live that "genteel, romantic antebellum" inspired upbringing of exploited wealth and it's never explored in any way than as set dressing to these white writers because they think this archetye is 'murica girlboss and thematically contrasts Steve's northerner immigrant background, see. Comic Peggy married Howling Commando Gabe Jones who is black and nothing of her past is addressed about this legacy and then she gets alzheimers and thinks she's still with Steve causing a rift in her marriage and with Steve and Sharon's already weird relationship because before this development by later writers, it was never Stan Lee's intention that Steve dated both Peggy and Sharon who were originally sisters not aunt and niece and then great-aunt and great-niece as time passed from whenever Steve was thawed. Then Peggy dies of old age as the waste of space she was (liberating those poor French notwithstanding) and we still stuck with Sharon the S H.I.E.L.D. cop who shot Steve, but oh it's ok, see she was brainwashed, see. I hate the Carter's and knowing Marvel has no balls to make Bucky, Sam or Jack Moneoe his bf, if I wanted Steve with a woman, I'd rather it be with Bernie Rosenthal who he met sometime after being thawed and almost married before Sharon undied herself or Betty Ross who Peggy replaced in Canon as his war love interest because oops Stan Lee named Hulk's girlfriend that and we can't have both around…

Also another petty note: I didn't hate Haylee Atwell's Peggy initially, but after watching her play a slave owner who loses a fraction of her power marrying a man who inherits her property and has an affair with her once 'favorite slave' she abuses throughout, in the British series called The Long Song, I cannot unsee these two characters played by the same actress as the two sides of the white supremacist girlboss coin.

[meeedeee]

What I've Done

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Voltron Force (2011), Voltron: Lion Force (1984), Voltron: Defender of the Universe (Devil's Due Comics), Robotech/Voltron (Comics), X-Men (Original Timeline Movies), Hunter X Hunter, Iron Man (Movies), The Umbrella Academy (TV), Divergent (Movies), The Matrix (Movies), Dominion (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)

No Archive Warnings Apply

Allura/Keith (Voltron)

Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark

Four | Tobias Eaton/Tris Prior

Jean Grey/Scott Summers

James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers

Bruce Banner/Betty Ross

Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov

Keith (Voltron)

Allura (Voltron)

Lance (Voltron)

Pidge | Katie Holt

Scott Summers

Tony Stark

Killua Zoldyck

Four | Tobias Eaton

Diego Hargreeves

Thomas Anderson | Neo

Michael (Dominion & Legion)

Steve Rogers

(Feed generated with FetchRSS) source https://archiveofourown.org/works/35262301

[withoutincidents]

will work on a full timeline eventually but here's a wip list of divergences / headcanons for my bruce:

his first name is david, not robert. i just think it fits n.orton's portrayal ( whom my bruce is based on ) better, and david was also the name given to him in the script.

following comic canon, brian was abusive and killed rebecca in a domestic dispute when she tried to take bruce and leave. brian got arrested later, bruce cut all contact with him for years after that, and ( as a compromise with the little we do get about bruce's parents in the m.cu... this may change depending on my feelings about it ) brian died in the hospital about a year before bruce's accident. he hates the man, but has sometimes wondered what brian would've said to him if he had visited him on his deathbed.

he moves into avengers tower after the team is formed and has his own lab there. he also gets a puppy at some point between the avengers and aou, since he misses the dog that lived with him before and it turns out hulk is also fond of animals.

i do consider aou canon to my bruce, but no b.rutasha romance. he also doesn't get mind controlled by wanda. she tries, but he boots her out before any real damage is done. both bruce and hulk are pretty pissed off about it.

bruce doesn't wind up on sakaar in my main verse. i may make it a separate verse at some point because i like the concept, but that'll probably draw from the comics / other stuff instead of the mcu. this means i won't follow ragnarok, with the exception of the circumstances of brian's death as mentioned above.

related to the above, bruce can sire children ( ignoring the statement he couldn't in aou ) but in his main verse, he doesn't have skaar. in general, i don't consider the she-hulk series canon.

civil war... hm. we'll come back to that, but in cases where i acknowledge it as canon bruce is against the accords. ross' involvement is a big part of it, but he's also against the idea of more government oversight in general.

as a default, i don't follow infinity war or endgame as part of my canon. if necessary we can plot that out.

bruce stays in regular contact with betty, either as lovers or just good friends depending on the verse. she's one of the most important people in his life ( no matter how much the mcu tries to ignore it ) and he's not going to give up a chance at reconnecting with her.

[pageliveblogscomics]

He calls them brainless idiots, a very Banner insult. He doesn’t just think of humans as weaklings, they’re also fools.

The Hulk’s language is becoming less formal, which might mean less of Banner, although it could also indicate just that he’s less formal. Maybe he’s more secure, and doesn’t feel the need to talk like a brainiac just to prove he’s the smartest guy in the room. I’m never letting this theory go, just FYI and these comics are messy enough to let me. Banner is a narcissist, and Betty is psychic. Period.

Okay so he can’t change too often, or there are negative effects on Banner. Also, we see that he feels that he did have trouble controlling the Hulk, but doesn’t want to warn Rick. And Rick, for his part, knows what’s up, but is loyal enough to Bruce that he’s not going to confront him about it.

And that’s the end! There’s two comics in this one, but the first one had no real villain, it was just Rick and the Hulk, and it worked really well, I think. There were a couple of retcons, but even with those, it was great. Honestly, I think the biggest problem was that the stuff with Betty Ross and General Ross was completely pointless, even though it involved pretending that he didn’t know his own plan from the last issue. Rick could have fallen asleep, Hulk goes and saves someone, messes up a movie, grabs some food, and then Rick wakes up and tries to un-Hulk him. All in all, I’m giving this one Four Stars. I think that the Hulk series might actually be my favorite so far.

[ao3feed-scarletvision]

Twilight of The Superheroes

by Maksvell

The world of Twilight is not a world where the superheroes have deliberately taken over, but one where they have inherited the Earth almost by default as various social institutions started to crumble in the face of accelerating social change, leaving the superheroes in the often unwilling position of being a sort of new royalty. Even though government and civic authority has all but disintegrated, the various areas of America each have their own coteries of protecting superfolk to look after them. -Alan Moore-

Words: 5034, Chapters: 4/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel, Fantastic Four (Comicverse), X-Men (Comicverse), Inhumans (Comics), Doctor Strange (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk (Comics), Guardians of the Galaxy (Comics), New Warriors, Ms. Marvel (Comics), Ms. Marvel (TV 2022), Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (Comics 2015)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: F/F, M/M

Characters: Valeria Richards, Franklin Richards, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Hank McCoy, Simon Williams, Gabrielle Kinney, Carol Danvers, Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, Miles Morales, The Vision, Wanda Maximoff, Bruce Banner, Betty Ross, Daimon Hellstrom, Satana Hellstrom, Clea Strange, Lauri-Ell (Marvel), Peter Quill, Lila Cheney, Galactus, Leech (Marvel), Phoenix Force, Screentime, Xiaoyi Chen, Kamala Khan, Lunella Lafayette

Relationships: Gabrielle Kinney/Valeria Richards, Emma Frost/Jean Grey, Hank McCoy/Simon Williams, Teddy Altman/Billy Kaplan, Wanda Maximoff/Vision

Additional Tags: Bad Ending, Alternate Universe - Future, Bad Future, trash future, Magic, Dark Magic, Horror, Body Horror, War, The Apocalypse is Canceled until I Say so., Skrulls - Freeform, shi'ar, Kree (Marvel), Murder, Deicide, Arranged Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Weddings, Wedding Planning

from AO3 works tagged 'Wanda Maximoff/Vision' https://ift.tt/yGMlOn2 via IFTTT

[yetanothercomicbook]

Where Falls the Shifting Sands?

The Incredible Hulk #113

Coincidences, inconsistencies and misunderstandings drive this average comic.

Sandman tries enlist the Hulk’s aid in stealing a new spaceship, from the military base under the command of Thunderbolt Ross.

Some things work well. Sandman is a fine foe for Ol’ Greenskin, and their battle is entertaining. The villain’s goals also make a lot of sense. Coming off events in FANTASTIC FOUR, he wants to reach/rescue a former partner.

The issue falls down in other areas. Hulk’s return to Earth is conveniently near the base. And Sandman. Hulk’s battle with the army is a misunderstanding. Worst of all is Betty’s near-collision with the truck. It’s contrived and comes across as amusing. Finally: does the Hulk need air? It all depends on which page you’re reading.

On Sale Date: December 12, 1968.

Stan Lee (6 of 13).

Herb Trimpe (8 of 86).

6/10

[docgold13]

365 Marvel Comics Paper Cut-Out SuperHeroes - One Hero, Every Day, All Year…

August 16th - Betty Ross

Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Ross was born in California, the only child of Air Force General Thaddeus Ross and his wife Karen. Betty’s mother died when she was quite young and her father rarely had any time for her, always buried in his work for the Air Force.  Following college, Betty went to live with her father during a time where the General was in charge of top secret ‘Gamma Bomb Project’ at Desert Base in New Mexico.  Here Betty met and ultimately fell in love with the project’s lead scientist, Dr. Bruce Banner.  

An accident occurred where Banner was exposed to a highly concentrated dose of experimental gamma radiation, causing him to transform into the monstrous hero known as The Incredible Hulk.  Betty came to discover the Hulk’s true identity as Bruce Banner and she aided him in evading capture by her father and the military forces.  

Betty and The Hulk would embark on many adventures together.  Being the girlfriend of The Hulk made for a frequently a perilous affair as Betty found herself embroiled in all manner of action and intrigue.  And Betty proved up to the challenge, acting as the hero and saving the day nearly as often as her gamma-powered partner.  

At one point, the villain known as MODOK abducted Betty and used a sample of The Hulk’s radiation to mutate her into a powerful being with greatly enhanced strength, wings supporting high-speed flight and sharpened claws. Under MODOK’s mental control, Betty became ‘The Harpy’ and battled The Hulk.  While The Hulk was unable to defeat The Harpy, his alter ego of Bruce Banner was able to create a device that caused her to revert to her human form.  

Later, Betty and Bruce were married and enjoyed a short period of happiness together before new perils would drive them apart.  Not long thereafter, Betty came to discover that she was suffering from fatal radiation poisoning.  At first this was thought to be a result of her elongated exposure to the gamma radiation emanating from the Hulk; yet it was later revealed to be a furtive attack orchestrated by the villain known as The Leader.  

It appeared as though Betty succumbed to the poisoning and died.  Not long thereafter, the mysterious Red She-Hulk appeared on the scene heading a mercenary squad named Code Red.  It was ultimately reveled that this Red She-Hulk was actually Betty Ross, having been transformed into a hulk by way of the machinations of the villainous group called The Intelligencia.  These villains were initially controlling Betty’s will but she ultimately regained full control of her mind and body after a battle with Skaar.  

Betty would go on to have many more adventures as the Red She-Hulk.  She was later once more transformed into The Harpy and has acted as a member of The Incredible Hulks and, more recently, Dr. Strange’s reformed iteration of the Defenders.

Actress Jennifer Connelly portrayed Betty Ross in the 2003 movie, The Hulk; while actress Liv Tyler has played the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The heroine first appeared in the pages of Incredible Hulk #1 (1962).

[daydreamerdrew]

The Rampaging Hulk (1977) #1

[sunder-the-gold]

Two Incompatible Hulks

I'm not referring to She-Hulk and the Hulk. Just different versions of Bruce Banner.

In the endlessly revolving door of Marvel comics writers, the rules of what the Hulk is have... flexed. And the MCU hasn't particularly cared to clarify which rules it uses.

But I feel there are basically two different kinds of Hulk that are fascinating character concepts, and both are mutually exclusive.

Green Adrenaline

First is the surface-level Hulk, where what you see is what you get. Bruce Banner suffers from a pseudo-magical condition where his adrenaline triggers a purely physiological transformation.

As he explained to Betty Ross in the pre-MCU movie, it's still very much "him" in the driver's seat, but his senses and emotions are cranked up to inhuman levels of sensitivity, so rational thought and self-control become difficult, especially when the USA military is shooting bullets and explosives at him.

This Banner isn't suffering from disassociative identity disorder. No amount of therapy can change his situation; the "Professor Hulk" is impossible. If Bruce can't cure himself or otherwise introduce a new change to his biology, the best he can do is live in controlled isolation while continuing to improve his self-control to avoid triggering his transformation, and possibly to better control himself while transformed. Getting the military off his back would work wonders.

If none of that happens, Bruce Banner’s life remains a compelling tragedy.

This version of the Hulk seems mutually exclusive with the existence of the She-Hulk (and Doc Samson). If Jennifer Walters contracted the exact same condition as her cousin, she should likewise become the same sort of hyper-sensitive, fight-or-flight creature when her adrenaline kicks in. Likewise Samson.

For the existence of She-Hulk and Doc Samson to make the most sense, the Hulk needs to be...

Multiple Identities

This version of the Hulk isn't triggered physiologically by adrenaline. The trigger for the physical transformation is instead entirely mental.

For someone like Jennifer Walters, her transformation (as I remember it from pre-MCU sources) was tied to her self-confidence. When she felt comfortable with herself, she became big and green. If she lost confidence in herself and began to feel like her old, mousy, timid self, that's what she turned back into.

As for Bruce... well, the exact picture depends on how bad his mental damage is. Did he suffer from DID before the gamma-radiation accident? Did the accident or the traumas following it build upon pre-existing issues so that he began to suffer from DID afterwards?

Is the Hulk the primary personality; the abused child who never grew up, who retreated behind the persona of a genius child who went on to become Bruce Banner? When he transforms into the Hulk, is the child responding to external threats by shoving Bruce out of the way to fight for survival?

Or is Banner the primary personality, and the Hulk is the persona he would use as a child to vent the rage he felt towards his father? When he transforms into the Hulk, is Banner trying to avoid responsibility for acting on a desire to hurt people, or is he retreating from the fear of danger and pain and using the Hulk as a survival mechanism?

Either way, it makes for a fascinating character drama, and that's where Doc Samson comes in: someone who contracted the same condition as Bruce Banner, but who remains completely in control and doesn't fly into violent rages. A trained psychologist and therapist who can help Bruce accept "the Hulk", while surviving the experience thanks to his similar levels of strength and durability.

Where Doc Samson acts as the mediator between the Hulk and Banner, Jennifer Walters acts as the mediator between her cousin and the world. She not only legally represents her cousin against the abuses of the government and the media and anyone else, she also displays by her very existence that her cousin CAN become a safe and productive member of society if that society will stop hunting him and start offering him the help he needs.

And there's also the Hulk villains like the Leader and the Abomination, who likewise contracted gamma-radiation transformations without ending up with Bruce's Jekyll and Hyde situation.

[pla-teau]

WHAT IF...? EPISODE THREE THOUGHTS

GIF CREDIT @lankybrunettepartdeux EPISODE 03: WHAT IF...EARTH LOST ITS MIGHTIEST HEROES? SPOILERS AHEAD! i didn't think phil coulson and i would have the same taste in men.

i’ve missed natasha and fury talking. i didn’t realize how much until the opening scenes of them in the car. love how natasha’s over with fury’s speech about the avengers, i think it hones in that it is a really corny speech. also really loved nat’s animation in this episode like ma’am, please marry me.

seeing tony in the donut again was also awesome. glad we got a little tony before killing him off five minutes later. didn’t think this episode would quickly go dark but it did. and i’m happy it did because i am all for marvel going dark and not having everything be a possible double meaning to something darker. i wanna see that gray areas and the gory stuff every once and a while.

for a second i really thought pierce was going to be the main bad guy due to fury suggesting someone tampered with the antidote. again, completely love nat’s fight sequence in the car. really wish brumlow said fuck cause i would too if i was in his shoes.

phil coulson my beloved. i love love love how we all have collectively agreed that he’s a got a thing for buff blonds with blue eyes. same phil same. thor is gorgeous with or without that long hair but they really made it shine this episode even if it was brief. i think you can actually see the crisis coulson was having upon realizing that the man is basically steve rogers but with long hair and he’s simping. again, phil my dear - same. i’m a simp for steve and thor.

nearly sobbed seeing thor being killed by clint because i’m never gonna be prepared for thor dying on us. i actually can’t fathom it since i love him so much. from promo clips, i figured this would be its own episode like “what if…clint killed thor?” but i’m kind of happy we got to see it in this episode as it makes you believe for a split second barton was the one killing the avengers off one by one.

betty ross? okay, didn’t think we’d ever ever see that woman again especially in the mcu. also, banner? i didn’t know what i thought bruce would look like in this show but it wasn’t like that. don’t get me wrong, i like the animation style of banner, i guess i pictures something closer to looking like mark. either way, was really hoping hulk would be the exception to the plot here since yeah, he really can’t die but boy were we proven dead wrong once more.

loki in this episode was basically if he had no character development and actually got his way with earth under the premise of avenging thor. which i think loki did want. i believe he was hurting that thor was killed but despite this being loki that was still hellbent on being king, he used it as a cover to then actually take over earth. not me thinking he’d change and actually be in the avengers. really thought we were going that route with him as it would’ve been cool to see loki finding purpose being in the avengers in thor’s place and doing a sort of 180 on his whole glorious purpose shtick.

hank pym being revealed as the man behind the killings of all the avengers did take me for a loop because i was wondering who would want to do this. i was going through a whole rolodex of people in the mcu as to who it could possibly be. the fact that hope was working for S.H.I.E.L.D. made me wonder if had she not died, she would be a part of the original avengers lineup like in the comics. also, saw a lot of people pointing to the fact that bucky is the one who killed hope in that mission. odessa, ukraine is the same place natasha said was shot by the winter soldier in captain america: the winter soldier. so this must also mean that nat probably came to work for fury later on in this timeline since she’s usually his go-to agent. anyways, back to hank being the villain. he’s also clearly wearing the yellow jacket armor as he did in the comics. hank has always had disdain for S.H.I.E.L.D. as he didn’t trust them with his pym particles which would be correct to assume since we also know HYDRA is already masking as S.H.I.E.L.D. during this time. i just wonder if HYDRA did influence hank in this timeline to push him to kill everyone.

coulson being the absolute fanboy he is for steve rogers with that password is a mood. like phil my beloved, we’ve all probably had a similar password dedicated to america’s ass one way or another. knowing that HYDRA is posing as S.H.I.E.L.D. by this time, i’m wondering how they still didn’t get to steve or if fury had found him on his own- hence why he’s alone when he wipes some ice from the shield. maybe this was something between fury and a few other trusted agents as maybe he did have an idea that HYDRA was already infiltrating the agency. either way, was pretty happy to see captain marvel appear too when he said “welcome back, captain.” as to say it to both captain america and captain marvel since they’re gonna be co-captains for this new team to take down loki.

overall, i liked this episode and really shocked that they went pretty dark for this third episode. i hope that they have more episodes like this in the season. i figure the dr. strange episode will have a similar tone but i hope there’s more episodes than just these two for darker themes and darker animation.

i know i slipped with the second episode but that was because i got too emotional watching it and was sobbing by the end of the episode. i did love episode two and i think in terms of the fun, adventurous tone, it’s the best episode so far (and i think it really should’ve been the premiere episode instead). looking back on the first episode, it really wasn’t anything spectacular in terms of a new storyline or anything rather creative. it’s just replacing steve with peggy in the first avenger movie. as for the second and third episode, there was a lot changed in storylines and consequences of those changes. ie: thanos being talked out of mass genocide by t’challa and so he joins the ravangers and doesn’t torture nebula to the point of making her fully cybernetic. the most we got from the first episode was that peggy came through the tesseract portal not loki so there’s implications of that but we’re not shown much else. while with this episode and t’challa’s star lord episode, there’s a hell of a lot more changes to the storyline that we’re shown rather than left to guess and it was refreshing to see that.

[makiruz]

So I’m gonna tell you how the “Merged Hulk” came to be in the comics:

Back in the 80s Peter David decided that Bruce Banner had Dissociative Identity Disorder, yes what Moon Knight has, and the classic Hulk and grey Hulk (which David named “Mr Fixit”) were his other personalities, or in modern terms, his alters.

The deal was that the Gamma bomb didn’t create the Hulk, it only freed him; he was there since Bruce was a child, he embodies all his repressed anger and pain at the hands of his abusive father, in essence the Hulk is an angry child; Mr Fixit was born during Bruce’s adolescence and young adulthood, and he represents Bruce’s sexual frustration and teen angst (hence why he’s such a creep and a douche). My guess is that Bruce was repressing them all his life, and the trauma of the bomb and his transformation made him unable to repress Hulk any more and that’s why he got out and claimed the gamma body as his own.

Now onto the Merging: So after a lot shenanigans (including Mr Fixit doing a hostile take over of the body to go to Vegas and work of the Mafia) Bruce is reunited with Rick Jones and his wife Betty Ross and Hulk’s therapist, Doc Samson, triggers an integration of all 3 alters, Banner, Hulk and Mr Fixit, into a singular identity who’s always in Hulk form because why wouldn’t you be? I don’t know if it’s stated openly, but I always assumed Bruce could turn into his human form if he wanted to, he just didn’t want to.

While I really like this era of the Hulk (Bruce is such a jackass), it kinda misses the whole push and pull between Banner and Hulk so it was undone; it was revealed that Merged Hulk was not really Bruce Banner, it was a new alter with elements of the other 3 that Samson has created by accident, and Banner, Hulk and Fixit had gone dormant or something; I don’t know if that’s a thing, but I’m not sure the creators did either

And that’s the story of the Merged Hulk, hope you have a nice week

[meeedeee]

What I've Done

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Voltron Force (2011), Voltron: Lion Force (1984), Voltron: Defender of the Universe (Devil's Due Comics), Robotech/Voltron (Comics), X-Men (Original Timeline Movies), Hunter X Hunter, Iron Man (Movies), The Umbrella Academy (TV), Divergent (Movies), The Matrix (Movies), Dominion (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)

No Archive Warnings Apply

Allura/Keith (Voltron)

Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark

Four | Tobias Eaton/Tris Prior

Jean Grey/Scott Summers

James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers

Bruce Banner/Betty Ross

Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov

Keith (Voltron)

Allura (Voltron)

Lance (Voltron)

Pidge | Katie Holt

Scott Summers

Tony Stark

Killua Zoldyck

Four | Tobias Eaton

Diego Hargreeves

Thomas Anderson | Neo

Michael (Dominion & Legion)

Steve Rogers

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