Meet the Original Hulk in Marvel May special

Immortal Hulk: Time of Monsters #1 cover — (Image credit: Juan Ferreyra (Marvel COmics))

You may think that Bruce Banner was the first Hulk, but now Marvel Comics has revealed there was another.

In May 19's Immortal Hulk: Time of Monsters, a flashback story to 8000 B.C. reveals a young boy who becomes the Hulk - a character Marvel is calling "The Original Hulk."

"10,000 years ago, something green and glowing comes to poison the ancient ground of the Fertile Crescent — and the hearts of its people," reads Marvel's description of this one-shot from its just-released May 2021 schedule. "One boy is left to bear the consequences — and, for the first time...to open THE GREEN DOOR."

The Green Door is a metaphysical gateway into a dimension called the Below-Place - introduced in the current Immortal Hulk run by writer Al Ewing. It is a version of Hell for those with gamma abilities, but with the ability to come and go from it - i.e. be resurrected - under certain circumstances. In Bruce Banner's origin story, it was retconned that he died during the Gamma Bomb test but was resurrected as the Hulk. All of Hulk's various personas - and any creature associated with gamma energy - is connected to the Green Door dimension.

This lead story in Immortal Hulk: Time of Monsters #1 is by writer Alex Paknadel (co-plotted with Ewing), with art by Juan Ferreyra.

This 40-page one-shot will come with a back-up story by new Marvel writer David Vaughan and an unannounced artist. "Bruce Banner faces a challenge unlike any he’s seen before" in their story, according to Marvel.

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Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)