The Hulk Has Outgrown Banner In Disturbing New Art

Summary

Hulk's demand for control and violent transformations highlight the strained relationship between Hulk and Bruce Banner.
The Hulk brutally tears his way out from beneath Banner's skin, symbolizing his refusal to be contained.
The transformations demonstrate the complete separation between Hulk and Banner, with Hulk tormenting Banner and casting aside his weak human form.

Warning: Spoilers for The Incredible Hulk (2023) #6 ahead!The link between the Hulk and Bruce Banner has reached an all-time low, and nothing drives this home more than the Hulk's demands for control and his increasingly violent transformations. In a disturbing new sequence, readers are treated to a scene of the Hulk brutally tearing his way out from beneath Banner's skin, emphasizing how the powerful creature refuses to be contained by Banner any longer.

Philip Kennedy Johnson, Nic Klein, and Matthew Wilson's The Incredible Hulk (2023) #6 picks up with Banner and his new sidekick Charlie walking a road through the desert in an attempt to reach the next town. Although they are picked up by farmers and led to their camp for the evening, Banner runs off in a panic as the Hulk begins to take control without any prompting or forewarning.

The transformation is unusually graphic even by Hulk's standards, with the Hulk's form stretching and pushing at Banner's skin from beneath until the Hulk literally rips his way out of Banner's discarded, shredded body.

There has been a long history of Hulk and Banner expressing differing personalities and even separate consciousnesses (such as when the Hulk the events of the "Starship Hulk" story, however (in which Banner trapped Hulk inside his psyche and used his rage as "fuel"), Hulk has made it very clear that he no longer wants anything to do with Banner. Throughout The Incredible Hulk (2023), Hulk has taken a perverse glee in tormenting Banner, claiming ownership of Banner's body and locking Banner's psyche away as retribution for his own abuse at Banner's hands.

These new transformations make it incredibly clear how separate Hulk and Banner have become. Banner no longer grows in height and muscle to become the Hulk; in a horrific inversion, the Hulk rips and sloughs off Banner's weak skin to cast aside the human form that imprisons him. There is no longer any harmony between the two, merely an explosion of violence as Banner's weak self fails to contain the Hulk's fury and Hulk again throws him aside.

Banner's treatment of Hulk as "Starship Hulk" was monstrous, and Hulk aims to repay every bit of pain upon Banner in turn. The two cannot go on like this for much longer while inhabiting a single body; at this rate, they seem destined to tear each other apart (as Hulk has demonstrated quite viscerally with these new transformations). Something must give lest this cycle of violence continue on in perpetuity - and unfortunately for Banner, it seems that his body and mind fray apart far more readily than Hulk's.

The Incredible Hulk (2023) #6 is available now from Marvel Comics.