The Hulk Was Created As Marvels Answer To Captain America

The Hulk Was Created As Marvel’s Answer To Captain America

The Hulk’s debut spawned a new type of character, the scientist-turned-monster departing from the optimism of Captain America’s transformation.

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

Science is the glue that holds together many pieces of the Marvel Universe, and almost nowhere does it have a more central role than in The Incredible Hulk and Captain America’s origin stories. As heroes who were made, instead of born, they are both indebted to the expansive role that science has played in Marvel stories. However, the circumstances of their creation as superheroes differ vastly from each other.

Captain America (Steve Rogers) was transformed into a super-soldier during World War II by a serum developed by Dr. Abraham Erskine. Erskine’s Super-Soldier Serum that Rogers was injected with offered a hopeful glimpse into a future where even a weakling like Steve Rogers could realize his full potential as a hero. This contrasts sharply with Bruce Banner, a genius scientist who was accidentally transformed into the Hulk when he was hit with the full force of his own Gamma Bomb.

The Hulk debuted a little more than twenty years after Captain America first hit the pages of Timely Comics in 1941, and between that period of time, Marvel underwent its own scientific revolution that marked a major shift away from the myth and magic that so many contemporary superhero comics were imbued with. The early 1960s saw the creation of ordinary people-turned-superheroes such as the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, and the Hulk, contrasting with the genre’s Golden Age superheroes who were largely aliens, gods, or extremely wealthy people. Because they were not gifted with any innate qualities that set them apart from the general population, these new heroes got their powers from something much more concrete: science.

The advent of the everyman superhero spawned superheroes powered by scientific error, forever changing the nature of the genre’s relationship with science. While Captain America’s Super-Soldier Serum painted a rosy picture of how scientific achievement could be melded to create a new wave of morally-stable heroes, the debut of the Hulk in 1962 brought on a new wave of characters who had accidentally turned themselves into monsters through scientific experimentation. Characters like the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Lizard, Doctor Octopus, Morbius, and even Spider-Man on one occasion presented a much darker side to scientific discovery. The Hulk and this new cohort showcased a new perspective on science in the superhero genre, one that could disfigure just as much as it could enlighten.

The Hulk Shepherded The Genre Away From Magic And Wonder.

The Hulk’s origin steered the genre towards a new perspective on science, one that acknowledged its chaos even for Earth’s brightest scientists. In Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s The Incredible Hulk #1, Banner is quickly established as the world’s foremost experts on gamma radiation. Still, despite his expertise on the subject, Banner still becomes a victim of the very invention he created in the interests of the United States military after he rushes to push a wayward teenager to safety when he wanders into the vicinity of the bomb’s testing site.

Banner’s transformation is firmly grounded in horror, with Jack Kirby’s panels focusing on Banner’s screaming at the point of the ray’s impact, contrasting sharply with Steve Rogers’s experience with the Super Soldier Serum. Captain America’s transformation in Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Captain America #1 lacks any of the horror elements in the Hulk’s origin story. Steve Rogers is rendered in a well-lit, neutral palette, and his transformation focuses on the physical size of his body increasing, instead of the expression on his face during the process. Because of this, the reader does not get the sense that the transformation is painful or scary for Steve Rogers, so it is regarded as a scene of wonder, as opposed to horror.

The birth of the Hulk is not so much an aspirational story as it is a story meant to disturb by showing the main character in such extreme pain and fear. Becoming a superhero was no longer an empowering testament to humanity’s scientific mastery, but a process marked by error. The Hulk’s debut marked a new chapter for science in the Marvel Universe, demonstrating that monsters were not a thing of faraway magical worlds, but a symptom of twentieth-century scientific ambition.

The Hulk Set A Precedent In Marvel Comics As A Scientist Turned Monster.

The Hulk became the first of many scientists who accidentally turned themselves into monsters in the Marvel Universe. While not a monster in the conventional sense, Ant-Man debuted later that year in 1962 Tales to Astonish #35. The story centered around scientist Hank Pym’s terrifying encounter with ants after he shrank himself down to their size with his own serum. With the development of Ant-Man, scientific accidents were becoming more of a common occurrence in Marvel Comics.

The next year featured the arrival of Spider-Man villains The Lizard (Curt Connors) and Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius). A geneticist, Dr. Connors first became The Lizard after attempting to develop a serum containing reptilian DNA to regrow his amputated arm. The experiment backfired, however, when it transformed him into a reptilian humanoid. The Lizard perhaps best embodies this image of a scientist turned monster due to the fact that he wears a white lab coat. Doctor Octopus, another one of Peter Parker’s mentors, was driven astray when he telepathically bonded with the mechanical tentacle arms he invented for himself, bringing out a highly aggressive version of himself.

It is not surprising, then, that the next scientist turned monster also began as a Spider-Man villain. Michael Morbius, also known as Morbius the Living Vampire, debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 in 1971, in an issue where Spider-Man himself developed a serum which accidentally gave him four extra arms. Morbius was later revealed to have been a biochemist with a rare blood disorder, who sought treatment with vampire bat DNA and electroshock therapy. His experiment resulted in his acquisition of several elements of vampirism without actually being deceased like a vampire.

From these characters that sprung up in the wake of the Hulk’s debut in 1962, it is clear that science became a new vessel for which the more fantastical elements of the superhero genre could be explored. In short, scientific experimentation became the new magic but was revealed to be considerably more unreliable in practice. Whereas magic once captivated readers in moments of awe, science now gave them moments of horror.

From the Hulk to Morbius, many of Marvel’s scientists did not intend to become monsters. In fact, many of them were trying to develop solutions to help themselves or other people in need. The horror then lies in science’s cold objectivity and disregard for individual intent. All the virtue in the world is ineffective against the whims of nature in a faulty experiment.

Captain America’s positive transformation then comes across as an outlier in the Marvel Comics canon. It is a rare instance where the scientist achieved the results they were looking for without also bringing enormous stress on their test subject. The Hulk’s arrival in 1962 thus advanced the notion of science into previously unexplored territory (save for the Fantastic Four’s debut the year before), infusing the Marvel Universe with a sense of classic, science fiction horror that can be traced back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/hulk-captain-america-science-gamma-bomb-marvel-comics/

• The Big Bang Theory Pennys 5 Best Outfits (& 5 Worst)

• Supernatural 10 Classic Rock Songs Wed Love To Hear On Dean’s Playlist

• Teen Wolf Dylan O’Brien Thinks Stiles Would Take Over As Sheriff

• Star Wars 9 Had Only 8 Minutes Of New Carrie Fisher Footage For Leia Scenes

• Temple Of Dooms Human Sacrifice Scene Was Almost More Disturbing

• Star Wars 8 New First Order Walkers & Ships Revealed

• The 10 Funniest Scenes From Dragon Ball