After 4 Years, Spider-Man’s Official Hulk Form Is Still Beyond Epic
Spider-Man may be a Marvel character who exudes goodness and friendliness and warmth, but it’s a testament to how nuanced and well-rounded he is that the character also lends himself well to more of a grotesque horror atmosphere. Spiders-Man, Man-Spider, Pestilence, Savage Spider-Man, Doppelganger, and Patient Zero are only a few examples of how much darker iterations of Spider-Man have transpired.
However, no terrifying Spider-Man variant is more ludicrous than when Spider-Man became the Hulk. This Spider-Man is deeply unnerving, and his savagery and grossness are matched only by how tragic his character is.
Hulk Looks Cute Beside Spider-Hulk
Hulk (2021) #4 debuts the Unfriendly Neighborhood Spider-Hulk, a gigantic monstrosity that is far more ‘Hulk’ than ‘Spider,’ in one of the most dizzying and unhinged Hulk stories. Spider-Hulk is roughly five times the size of Starship Hulk, towering over him unmistakably in the final splash page of issue #4. He’s undeniably muscle-bound, like Hulk traditionally is, but is also more gangly, with his two legs separating into multiple appendages each.
Spider-Hulk has massive talons as arms, and his flesh is a muted gradient of reds and blues, with hairs on his shoulders and traps. His head is bald when he transforms into Spider-Hulk, and he somehow has the shape and color of Spider-Man’s black-and-white lenses on his face, mimicking the iconography of Spider-Man’s mask.
Instead of shouting “Smash,” Spider-Hulk shouts, “Pwrrr!” and “Rssponblty!”
Spider-Hulk Gives Midnight Spider-Man A Run For Its Money
Donny Cates and Ryan Ottley’s Hulk run explores an alternate reality found within a pocket dimension, where Peter Parker’s life is far more tragic. Explaining how Spider-Hulk came to be, as well as his role in this comic, Hulk’s recap/credits page reads as follows:
“Bruce Banner has somehow managed to split the Hulk into three distinct parts: the Hulk’s body has been turned into a starship. Banner’s psyche pilots it from within the Hulk’s mind. And the Hulk’s psyche fuels the starship with his anger, which Banner harnesses by locking the Hulk in the “Engine Room” and sending escalating levels of opponents for him to fight.
Hulk was pulled into an alternate reality by another version of Bruce Banner, one who never became the Hulk. And rather than heroes, this reality has “abominations”—victims of radiation from the gamma bombs this reality’s Banner successfully developed and that his father-in-law, President Thunderbolt Ross, then used to establish the United States as the undisputed global superpower.
This reality’s Banner has watched hundreds of “abominations” be created and destroyed and had hoped to study Starship Hulk to find a cure and atone for his part in the violence. But before the two Banners could come to an agreement, President Ross attacked them with every gamma weapon in his arsenal—including a gamma-irradiated Peter Parker!”
This reality’s Dr. Banner describes Peter as a research student of his who was “like a son” to him, and who was bitten by an irradiated spider. President Ross kept Peter captive and then unleashed him on Hulk’s Starship Hulk.
Midnight Spider-Man’s horrific Spider-Man redesign has been teased with a repulsive spider creature clinging to Peter’s chest. No matter how his powers are realized or evolve in this new iteration of Spider-Man, Midnight Spider-Man has an uphill battle in front of it if it hopes to compete with how scary, tragic, and revolting Hulk’s Spider-Hulk is.