Immortal Hulk's Returning Villain, Explained!

WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s Immortal Hulk #5, on sale now. Additionally, this article contains depictions and descriptions of spousal and child abuse integral to the backstory of Bruce Banner, the Immortal Hulk.

This week's Immortal Hulk rocked the world of both the Hulk and Bruce Banner by revealing that the ghost of Banner's father, Brian, has possessed Sasquatch (in a similar manner to how Walter Langkowski's spirit almost took control of the Hulk's body years ago in a Hulk/Alpha Flight crossover). The Hulk seemed to foil his father's return by absorbing the gamma radiation that powered Sasquatch and returning the hero to his Langkowski form, thus depriving Brian Banner from having something to possess, but the end of the issue made it clear that the spirit of Banner's father is not going to be going away any time soon.

So, what is the deal with Brian Banner exactly? How did this ghost haunt his son and the Hulk years before he actually began to attack him as a literal ghost?

Brian Banner seemingly made his debut in an odd fashion in Incredible Hulk #267 (by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema), where the Hulk encountered the powerful being known as Glorion, who could turn people's dreams into reality. We see the Hulk relive Bruce Banner's past through his dreams...

However, the interesting thing about dreams is that you are not stuck with what happens in a dream as if it is accepted fact. So you could take this happy memory and reveal that there is a really bad truth behind it. That's precisely what Mantlo did years later in Incredible Hulk #312 (art by Mike Mignola and Gerry Talaoc), where we see Dr. Brian Banner arrive at the birth of his son and we see him worry about the effects of the atomic research that he had done over the years and whether they might have affected his son. We also see that Banner is an alcoholic jerk who only cares about his wife and not his unborn son.

Later, we see that Brian Banner is resentful over the attention that his wife gives to their son...

When he discovers that his young son is a genius, he assumes that the radiation caused him to be a mutant and he begins to abuse his son, which leads to young Bruce seeing his father as a fantastical monster...

The theory established here (and accepted by later Hulk writers) is that it was Brian Banner's abuse of young Bruce that, in effect, created the Hulk "monster" persona that came out when Bruce was exposed to the high levels of gamma radiation as an adult...

A "temporary insane" Brian Banner later killed his wife, Rebecca, and tries to kill Bruce, as well, when Bruce was visiting her grave...

Brian Banner was later killed, ostensibly by muggers, but years later, Bruce remembered the truth. Bruce accidentally killed his own father.

This being comics, of course, that was not the end of Brian Banner...

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During the Onslaught crossover, Bruce Banner and the Hulk were split apart from each other. When they reunited, they also ended up in a sort of hell dimension where Brian Banner continued to try to torment his son, although Bruce was ready for it this time (in Incredible Hulk #360 by Peter David, Adam Kubert and Mark Farmer)...

The relationship between Bruce and his dead father got even weirder when Bruce came down with a degenerative illness and Reed Richards was able to find a cure for Bruce by exhuming Brian Banner's body and using his DNA to cure Bruce. So Bruce had to deal with the fact that his life was saved, in a way, by his despised father.

Brian Banner hung heavy over Bruce's life many times over the years. Whenever Bruce went too far, he was often haunted by his father. Whenever he would get too destructive, he would begin to remind himself of his father and he would find a way to pull himself back so that he would not completely redo the sins of his own father.

However, Brian Banner's impact on Bruce's life was not always a spiritual one. During the Chaos War crossover event, the dead came back to life and so Brian Banner returned to life as a mixture of some of the worst aspects of the Hulk ever in Incredible Hulks #619 (by Greg Pak, Paul Pelletier and Danny Miki)...

Luckily, while teaming up with the other Hulks (which is why the title was called Incredible Hulks at the time), as well as being inspired by his lost love, Jarella, who made an appearance in the same storyline (since people were all coming back to life), the Hulk was able to seemingly once and for all defeat his father...

At least that it seemed like things were done. It is never quite that simple for someone as tortured as the Hulk, of course, and in the recent Immortal Hulk series by Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose and Paul Mounts, another gamma powered being, the Alpha Flight hero known as Sasquatch, had been dealing with some strange personality changes while in his Sasquatch form.

After Sasquatch fought the Hulk in Immortal Hulk #5, the jade giant realized the truth. Sasquatch's monster form had now been taken over by the spirit of his father...

Even when the Hulk succeeded in the end in getting rid of the Sasquatch body so that Brian could no longer take possession of it, the issue ends with the Hulk seeing his father's spirit in the reflection of a car window and it is clear that the spirit of Brian Banner is far too evil to be put away for good. He appears to be here to stay, or at least here to stay for the duration of this series.

The sins of the father are truly coming home to roost.