WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The Immortal Hulk #8 by Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, Paul Mounts and VC’s Cory Petit, out now.

The Hulk has always left a path of destruction in his wake. It’s one of his defining characteristics, and has been from the start. It makes sense, then, that in all the years he's smashed his way across the galaxy, there’s always been a question as to the mortality rate of his rampages. Although Amadeus Cho makes the case that he’d never actually killed anyone by the time World War Hulk hit, there are plenty of animals, aliens, monsters, and even the occasional hero (RIP, Pod) that have fallen before him.

Frankly, Amadeus was wrong. With the tally increasing in this week’s Immortal Hulk #8, we take a look back at the character's history and learn, incontrovertibly, that the Hulk does have some decidedly dark murders on his hands.

RELATED: The Immortal Hulk Just Murdered Someone With His [SPOILER]

Like Father, Like Son

The first time the Hulk's actions led to someone's demise occurred before Hulk was fully unleashed. Brian Banner was Bruce’s father, and generally a cruel man. Vindictive of the love his wife paid to her son and the child's bourgeoning intelligence, he beat his wife to death and spent years in a mental institution.

In Incredible Hulk #312, we learned his final fate; Bruce eventually went to visit his mother’s grave and was shocked to find his father there. Brian attacked Bruce and in the scuffle, Bruce pushed Brian off of him, and headfirst into the tombstone. Brian was killed instantly, Bruce repressed the memory, and his father's spirit went on to become a haunting force in the Hulk's life for years to come.

RELATED: Captain Marvel Reforms Another Classic Team - To Hunt the Hulk

Bruce's dad amy be dead, but he's far from forgotten. His most recent role has been in Immortal Hulk, where he's become the personification of the darkness trying to escape through Gamma powered heroes and villains into the real world. Brian Banner appearing as his specter of darkness is a sign of just how much that first death has subconsciously weighed on the Hulk for years, and will continue to do so.

NEXT PAGE: Planet Hulk Ticked the Avenger's Body Count Higher

Marvel's Illuminati (consisting of Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Doctor Strange, Professor Xavier, Black Bolt, and Namor) had their hands in a number of events behind the scenes of the Marvel Universe. Among the events the group orchestrated was sending the Hulk off-planet, a maneuver that would become the inciting incident for Planet Hulk. The problem was, the Illuminati needed a good reason to effectively exile him.

Until then, Hulk rampages hadn’t actually left many people dead. The Hulk would occasionally attack an unnamed killer, or a hunter who just shot a deer (seriously), but they were never revealed to be civilian casualties. But the Illuminati was convinced it was just a matter of time before their fellow hero would go wild, and so, in order to justify the Illuminati’s decision to exile him, the Hulk saw his kill-count go up drastically. The official prelude to Planet Hulk saw the Hulk murder an attempted rapist with a single hand, but in the pages of the New Avengers: Illuminati special, things got even worse.

RELATED: The Incredible Hulk Works Best As a Horror Character

A retcon to a then-recent Hulk vs. Thing fight in the pages of Fantastic Four revealed that the rampage ultimately left twenty six civilians dead, including two children. It was a massive change to the character, and a slightly forced one at that. It was all an attempt to just justify the Hulk being shipped off world, and Marvel gave it to the Illuminati with an off-page mass murder.

RELATED: Iron Man Has Unleashed the Ultimate Weapon Against the Immortal Hulk

In The Name Of Science

To be honest, the most dangerous thing to do around the Hulk is to try and use him to bolster your own mad science. This is how three separate people met their demise over the course of decades. The first of them was Armand Jones, who attempted to test out his power-draining device on a sleeping Bruce Banner in an issue of Web of Spider-Man #69. For his troubles, the scientist got swatted by the Hulk, and eventually had an entire building dropped onto him.

Morgan Clegstead was recruited to bring down the Hulk in Incredible Hulk #150, and was eventually transformed into the monstrous Crawling Unknown. The Hulk finally figured out how to bring down by stabbing the thing with a steel girder, and then letting the metal get hit by lightning.

RELATED: Hulk Gets a Demonic New Name in Immortal Hulk #7

The thing about each of those deaths is that they can all be seen as more of an act of manslaughter than murder. The death of Brian Banner was an accident, the retcon of his largest mass murder happened off-page and is therefore suspect. Even his actual on-panel kills were directed at people who had become monsters, either figuratively or literally. All of that makes last week's very horrifying murder of Doctor Clive so much worse.

The mad scientist is caught in the Hulk’s reformation of his body, quickly swept up in the wave of organs and limbs. As the Hulk re-forms around him, the doctor begs for mercy, and the Hulk just straight-up does not care. It’s an incredibly dark moment, something Bruce Banner reflects on when he regains control of his body with the sunrise. Plenty of people of have died because of the Hulk, yes, but this one felt darker than many of the others, more murderous. It speaks to the tone of the current run on the character, and the series' embrace of the horror that lies at the core of the Hulk.

The Immortal Hulk #8 is currently on sale, digitally and in comic stores.