Warning: Spoilers for The Incredible Hulk #7!Marvel has given a horrifying answer to the question of what happens to Bruce Banner when Hulk is in control. It has seldom been depicted where Bruce Banner’s consciousness goes when the Hulk takes over his body. Many have long assumed Bruce and Hulk are one and the same, menaning, Bruce doesn’t “go” anywhere – however, recent Hulk titles have emphasized that this is very much not the case.
The Incredible Hulk #7 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Nic Klein, Matthew Wilson, and VC’s Cory Petit gave a bone-chilling answer to this question. In more recent years, the comics have made it clear that the Hulk and Bruce Banner should be viewed as two completely different, conflicting people begrudgingly sharing the same body.
With this in mind, each man’s consciousness needs somewhere to go when one is in control. The latest issue of Incredible Hulk reveals that when the big green guy is in control, the medium-sized human manifests as trapped inside a monstrous skeleton in his head. Given the circumstances of their journey together, this makes perfect sense.
‘Where Bruce Banner Goes’ When Hulk Is In Charge Explained
The Hulk’s new adventures have re-envisioned him as a monster slayer. He’s in conflict with a primordial evil calling itself the Eldest, which is awakening monsters across the planet to find and capture the Hulk, during his travels across the globe. His travels eventually put him on the same path as Charlie, a teenage girl who escapes her abusive home and leaps into Hulk’s life, becoming his sidekick after helping him defeat two monsters. When they finally get a moment to breathe in front of a fire, Charlie asks Hulk a question that readers around the world might have been wondering themselves.
Charlie wants to know what happens to Bruce when the Hulk is the one operating in the world, where Bruce “is” during Hulk’s time outside their head. “Where I put him,” Hulk answers. “Where he belongs.” The comic then hard cuts to a panel where Bruce is depicted as being helplessly held prisoner inside the dead carcass of an indescribable monster. Hulk’s disdain for Bruce Banner then pushes him to insist to Charlie that they do not talk about Bruce Banner, nor ask further questions about him. The panel is truly both stunning and jarring, and highlights the animalistic nature of the Hulk transformation – and Banner himself.
Being Inside Hulk Is A Prison For Bruce Banner
Much like how Bruce Banner has always metaphorically had a monster inside of him, in his relationship to the Hulk, Incredible Hulk #7 envisions him as literally trapped inside a monster when the Hulk is the one steering the ship. If Hulk experiences the same thing when Bruce is in charge, it makes sense as to why both are always so deadset on separating from each other, or making sure the other doesn’t gain control again. On top of applying a visual metaphor to their dynamic, the reveal highlights exactly how much Hulk hates Bruce Banner, and vice versa, since either’s existence places the other in such a personal hell.
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