The Incredible Hulk (comic book)/Headscratchers

• Why is Betty's hair black in 626-629? Is it something to do with my theory?
  • Hasn't her hair always been black? Also, what theory?
  • Betty's hair is one of those things that'll depend on the artist. Traditionally it's been brown though.
• Why doesn't Bruce Banner get in touch with the Fantastic Four and get himself an 'unstable-molecule' suit, or an oufit made of whatever the one She-Hulk's is made of, so he doesn't have to keep buying new pants?
  • For that matter he could probably make a suit like that himself if he had the resources. Likely it has to do with iconography. Hulk in ripped pants is more iconic than Hulk in anything else.
  • In a recent storyline, Banner was given a tuxedo of unstable molecules that stretched when he became the Hulk. The suit wound up getting torn apart by a magical being, though, and the Hulk still ended the story in torn trousers.
• Something the Hulk pointed out in Fear Itself; why didn't Banner just stop the countdown for the Gamma Bomb from inside the bunker?
  • Without knowing the nature of the bomb, it's possible once the countdown reached a certain point it couldn't be stopped. If that seems like a serious design flaw, well, the military never did put Banner's Gamma Bomb into mass production, did they?
  • Official explanation is that the Hulk wanted to be let out, so Banner wasn't thinking clearly. Even before he was big and green (or gray), the Hulk existed as a part of Banner and had some influence in the back of Bruce's mind.
  • If this troper remembers correctly banner did tell his assistant to stop the countdown but said assistant was a spy and was hoping the bomb would kill Banner so he couldn't produce anymore weapons like the gamma bomb
• Has The Punisher ever met Hulk?
  • I haven't bothered cheking, but given that it's a Marvel comic I'd eat my hat if the answer to that question was no.
  • While he didn't meet the Hulk in the storyline that comes to mind, he did meet the Red Hulk, and tried to attack him with a knife. I'm going to repeat that. He attacked a Hulk with a knife. Such an act of supreme stupidity leads me to believe he's either never met the Hulk or that if he has, the meeting resulted in such extreme brain damage that he lost all memory of the encounter.
  • It isn't Too Dumb to Live, It just shows that The Punisher isn't scared of anybody.
    • Not being afraid of a super who has spent the last few months laying waste to some of the most powerful people in the world when you're a Badass Normal who isn't Batman with a week of preptime counts as being too dumb to live.
    • In MARVEL KNIGHTS #1, the Punisher tries to take on Ulik, king of the Asgardian trolls -- who is a guy who goes neck-and-neck with Thor in a slugfest -- with an assault rifle, a hand grenade, and a knife. And he keeps trying even after seeing that Ulik is completely invulnerable to all the bullets that he shot at him. Let's face it, Frank is just not the poster child for mental health.
• I always wondered why Hulk refers to everyone else as *insert insult here* humans, when he himself is technically still a human being. I assume it's because subconsciously he knows that everyone else considers him nothing but a monster, basically everything the opposite of human, but it's just something that bugged me, regardless of it being one of his catchphrases.
  • Hulk sees himself as completely distinct from Banner. Banner is human, but the Hulk sees himself as something else, something considerably above "human". It's kind of hard to argue with the logic, given the vastly different biology his transformation brings on.
• Bruce charges into the Hulk if he's angry, injured, or outraged--all adrenaline reactions. What happens if Bruce has a panic attack?
• I know we just take it at face value that Hulk becomes more powerful the angrier he becomes and that he could essentially become invincible if he got angry enough. How does this happen though? How does anger increase the intensity of the gamma radiation that gives the Hulk persona power, is gamma radiation sympathetic to emotions?
• The storyline that reveals to us that Dr. Banner's father was abusive as a child has the father say that he knew, "what monster he (Bruce Banner) would become". This implies that the Hulk already existed inside of Banner and that the gamma radiation that he was exposed to simply brought the monster out, and that the abuse Banner suffered as a child makes it so that he is always angry and it is a constant struggle to keep the Hulk in. The recent Avengers movie even went so far as to have Tony Stark tell Dr. Banner that the gamma radiation he was exposed to should have been instantly lethal to any living organism, no amount of luck could have saved him, and that it had to be the Hulk inside of him that saved his life that day. Is it accurate to assume that Tony and Dr. Banner's father are correct in saying that the Hulk has always been inside Bruce?
• How is it that the Hulk's pants stay on when he turns green, when the rest of his clothes have completely torn apart? I realize that there isn't a terribly large demographic of those who want to see the Hulk nude, but do they ever give an in-universe reason?
  • Maybe the pants are nylon?
• The very concept of the Hulk breaks all (okay, many) known laws of thermodynamics. Where does all the extra mass come from, and why isn't Bruce either ravenously hungry, horribly emaciated, or some combination of the two from the extreme energy burn when he turns back (like the Flash at least acknowledges sometimes).
  • Comic book physics! Seriously, what character in the Marvel Universe doesn't break the laws of thermodynamics? MST3K Mantra is pretty much our only solution here.