5 Things Proving that Hulk was a Good Adaptation of the Character

The 2003 superhero movie was more of a miss than a hit. Despite the great care the director put into making it, despite all the trouble the movie went through to be made, it did not do well with audiences and fans of the “strongest there is.” Not only was the runtime criticized, but the tone and the pace of the movie. Fans did not like that the movie was more of a drama than action and complain about lack of the latter. The movie suffered from sabotage as well, with leaks of footage with incomplete CGI released to poor reception before the movie came out, forcing the director to try to douse the flames of fury of the future viewers. This article aims to shed light on the movie and talk about the ways in which this movie was actually a good Hulk movie after all.

1. The origin was comic accurate

Bruce’s origin in the comics is messed up to say the least. His father was a nuclear physicist, and when Bruce was born and displayed above average intelligence, his father thought that he was some sort of mutant and it was hinted that he believed that his exposure to nuclear material may have had an effect on him and it passed on to his child. He became very bitter towards young Bruce and was jealous of Rebecca Banner’s affection towards their son. He ended up killing her in front of Bruce and that traumatized him even more than the daily abuse he already suffered at the hands of his father. The movie took things in a different route and made it so that David Banner was a tragic figure, simply trying to do his job and make soldiers’ lives easier on the battlefield and give them a better chance of coming back alone. Unfortunately, all the experimentation yielded results but on his son, and he was thrown out of the lab before he could cure his son, and in the chaos that ensued, he ended up killing his wife…not because he wanted to or was mad at her, but because he knew that Bruce was a danger to society and wanted to kill him before he was unleashed, since there was no way to cure him, and she got in the way. After she died, he was in so much shock that all he could do was stand there, still, mouth wide open, knowing that everything he once held dear in his life was gone forever. That scarred Bruce so much that he didn’t remember any of it happening, even though it all happened right in front of him.

2. The enmity between Bruce and Thaddeus

The enmity between these two goes back to the earliest days of their comic book appearances, with Thaddeus vowing to Betty that he would find and destroy the Hulk after a violent episode with him during one of his rampages that put her in danger. It was something that was made personal as the years passed and Thaddeus came to find out that the green monster was actually his daughter’s boyfriend (whom he didn’t like already). The movie made it even more personal and had him hate Bruce from the first time we see them on screen together. Bruce is oblivious as to what Thaddeus’ problem was with him, but Thaddeus made it clear that he knew everything he needed to know about Bruce and ensured everyone around him that Bruce was a problem that had to be dealt with – even before he knew of Bruce’s condition.

3. Bruce’s trauma is the cause of the transformations

This one hits deep, and it was definitely the director’s intention, seeing as how cerebral the movie is. It doesn’t jump into action. It’s a slow build to the action. It’s a very intricate piece of work and deals with aspects of trauma very well…so much so that people don’t even know why Bruce hulked out the first time. It’s easy to explain. Everything regarding his past was piling up in his mind. The exposure to the nanomeds that released the Hulk within him unlocked some parts of his memory. This all happened at the time that his father was released from prison – a father he thought was dead because he completely forgot absolutely everything about his past. All of this coupled with the stress building up due to the lab he worked in being targeted by a guy that Betty – his crush and ex, hates, who looks like he wants more than friendship with her too, led to his first transformation. The story continues and the most explicit transformation due to trauma is when he has the nightmare where he remembers what happened to his parents. It was his most powerful transformation in the movie. This is comic accurate. Due to his trauma, he has developed multiple personalities in order to deal with the trauma, leading to different “incarnations” of the Hulk. The one people are getting to know in the movies now is Professor Hulk, who has the body of the Hulk but Bruce’s mind is in complete control. There are others like Mr. Fixit, Savage Hulk, World Breaker Hulk and the like. It also leads to him being the most unique gamma-irradiated mutate in Marvel. He’s the only one with this kind of trauma.

4. Hulk-dogs

This one is another tough one to explain. In the movie, the dogs belonged to Brian Banner and he sent them after Betty in order to test out Bruce’s strength and see how much he understood regarding what he had done to Bruce. People make fun of this and talk about it as if it was made purely for the movies. It wasn’t. The Hulk-dogs exist in the comics. The difference is that they were created by the Leader, who appeared in The Incredible Hulk and is set to make his second MCU appearance in Captain America: New World Order. Why is a Hulk villain the main antagonist in a Captain America movie? Don’t ask. Regardless, Hulk-dogs are in the comic books and rejecting the notion as ridiculous is ridiculous in on itself.

5. The Angrier he got, the stronger he got

The most basic thing everyone knows about the Hulk is that you should never make him angry. The angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. Numerous times, we have been told in the comics that his strength is limitless. He has gone toe to toe with some of the strongest Marvel characters and has overpowered almost every single one of them with his pure brute strength. Simply put: the Hulk is not the kind of guy you ever want to arm wrestle. The movie nailed it better than the incarnations that followed it. Edward Norton’s Hulk was simply strong. We never see him get stronger. We simply see him just overpower his enemies (the Abomination) through sheer force of will, not necessarily because he got angrier. In fact, in the moment he finally overpowered Abomination, it seemed to be out of concern for Betty rather than being angry. Mark Ruffalo’s take on the character is far worse. His strength seems to have limits, as he is never seen getting stronger or overpowering anyone who gave him trouble at first.