With a name that sounds like a battle cry, Hulk’s son Skaar was easily the best and most brutal of Marvel’s Dark Avengers. Skaar was conceived by Hulk and his alien lover during the Planet Hulk storyline but Skaar grew into his own twisted character in the Dark Avengers run.
After the demise of Norman Osborn’s first Dark Avengers, defeated by the true-blue Avengers, Skaar and some Avengers rip-offs like a cyborg Thor and Hawkeye’s brother formed a team. Rather than having aspirations to take over the world as the original Dark Avengers, this crew fought mostly for good before realizing they were supporting a corrupt government. They first banded together at The Raft, a supermax prison for maximum, super bad guys, and worked off their sentences by doing some good as the member-interchangeable Thunderbolts.
But Skaar led the Dark Avengers with something closer to conscience than the other bad boy teams. He was brought up on Sakaar and learned the rules of kill or be killed pretty quickly. Before he was a Dark Avenger he had it out for his absent father. But any tussle with the Hulk usually ends with the big green meanie winning, even against his own impressive progeny. Unsatisfied with his initial confrontation, Skaar didn’t get another chance to punch his dad until the World War Hulks storyline where the two again go blow for blow. Hulk loses focus when the fight reminds him of Bruce Banner’s own abusive father and he turns human. Skaar, touched by Hulk’s tenderness, also turns human and the two to embrace both learn a little empathy. But that’s all forgotten when Skaar shows up in other comics and still wants to sock his dad in the jaw.
Skaar joined the second incarnation of the Dark Avengers after Norman Osborn escaped custody. This version of the team was more in line with Osborn’s vision of a super evil group to rival the New Avengers. But Skaar was always a double agent and revealed as much after the Dark Avengers kidnapped Captain America. The flip-flop clad Skaar turned on his former teammates and helped the New Avengers save Cap.
The loincloth-wearing lummox has had a mixed history but mostly seems on the good guy side. He has powers on par with Hulk but his relationship with his dad is a bit scattered. It seems like every time they meet they come to blows. But at one point they had worked out their issues. Skaar had no problem defeating his former teammates and turned them all out with his Hulk-like strength. He calls the New Avengers in to mop up, but really Skaar had it handled.
Next: The Hulk’s Darkest Secret Is That Bruce Banner Actually Needs Him
