I was just wondering…Is Marvel’s Hulk* himself radioactive? Is Bruce Banner? Does he emit radiation when transforming, or as he gets angrier, or anthing?
I should know this, but it’s slipped my mind. Can anyone enlighten me?
*As opposed to DC’s Hulk, from the Justice Smashers of America, of course. 
His blood is.
Transformed Banner’s cousin, Jennifer Walters, into the Sensational She-Hulk. LINK
If I’m a very good little Bosda, maybe next year, Santa will bring me…nah.
Was it explicitly the gamma radiation in his blood that transformed Jen? Or was it some other thingy?
Rick Jones once attempted to give himself super powers by exposing himself to gamma rays and only wound up with terminal cancer (The Beyonder cured him).
Having not followed the Hulk for a long time now, the answer is not really. You can’t track him with a geiger counter. You don’t need a lead apron.
However, considering the many changes he has gone through- OTTOMH
Started out grey, changed from Banner to Hulk at night.
Green, changes when angry.
Green, but with Banner’s mind.
Green, back to dumb and destructive.
Grey again. Changes at night. Hulk changes name to Mr Fixit and finds work as muscle for Vegas mob. (Hmm during this time a character named Half Life was introduced. It was clearly stated that Half Life was radioactive. But, I don’t know if this was meant to be true of all gamma mutated beings, or just HL. HL’s powers were not radiation based. By night, he was strong, fast, and his body healed quickly, severed parts even reattached themselves. By day, he was a radioactive corpse.)
Green, changes when angry, tearing off Banner’s skin through a large scar on his back.
For a while, the Hulk was green with the green Hulk’s superior strength and abilities, Banner’s inteligence, and Mr Fixit’s nasty attitude.
I’m not sure what his situation is now.
At various times he was certainly radioactive, having been caught in additional gamma bomb detonations.
AFAIK Marvel character transformed by radiation do not remain radioactive unless otherwise stated.
Not in a way that will make people sick or anything. He used to pal around with normal people quite often and to my knowledge none lost hair or teeth.
That’s not to say that there aren’t risk involved in hangin with the hulkster. He has temper issues like you wouldn’t believe and he seems to attract trouble, but he’s no Chernobyl.
DocCathode, I don’t know if this is still a theme in the comics. For a while there was talk that everyone who gained powers from the gamma radiation were related distantly somehow.
That was a while ago though. Might have just been a writers speculation, but it explains how some got green and huge and Rick Jones just got sick.
Harborwolf
That would make no sense. Besides Hulk and She Hulk, we have OTTOMH
Betty Banner (briefly transformed into Harpy)
Abomination ( a Soviet spy observing the test that transformed Bruce)
The Leader ( I don’t remember. But when Hulk went grey again, Leader went from having a 3-foot tall head, to having an oversized and visible brain)
Half Life (I know he wasn’t anywhere near the original site.)
Doc Samson (Transformed himself with IIRC Hulk’s blood. 70% as strong. Medical doctor. Psychiatrist)
IIRC Gargoyle ( Soviet scientist transformed during Soviet gamma bomb test.)
Gremlin (Son of Gargoyle.)
That’s it OTTOMH.
NOTE- It was long thought that gamma radiation transformed Dr Whatsisface Lakowski or something into Sasquatch. It was eventually revealed that the accident had just ripped open dimensional barriers allowing him to be slowly possessed by a Great Beast.
In FF#167, the Hulk’s radiation caused Ben Grimm to revert to human form; this lasted for several issues, until #175, when a vindictive Galactus changed him back.
There was a plotline in the 90s where the Hulk’s radioactivity caused Betty Ross Banner’s death, but I think a later writer retconned this into some villain’s manipulation.
Is Hulk radioactive? Depends on the needs of the story.
I’m pretty sure I read an issue of Hulk around '97-'98 in which the army or someone tried to encase the Hulk in a big metal vault-type thing and his ambient radiation melted it around him.
DocCathode, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it tweren’t my idear.
If I’m remembering correctly, it was a side story in a Hulk annual from the early nineties when he was green with banners brain and fixits attitude. The theory was Doc Sampsons, and the relations were distant. I’m not talking grandmothers cousins or anything even remotely that close.
It’s a massive stretch. No doubt there. Marvel was just trying to address how a small group of people got all mighty when exposed and most just died.
Didn’t Betty Ross Banner die of radiation poisoning from having hung around with the Hulk too much in the last Peter David issue?
But on another occasion Rick became a Hulk-like creature after exposure to gamma radiation. IIRC Banner drained off the gamma radiation but Rick absorbed it, or something.
I believe you’re thinking of the accident that turned the Hulk grey again. A previous experiment had seperated Banner and the Hulk. It turned out Banner would die unless they were re-united. He said fine, as long as the monster dies too. Vision used his phasing abilities to rejoin Banner and the Hulk.
But, they were coming unstuck again. There was a huge amount of equipment and lab apparatus used to try to rebond them. Generall Ross was against it and tried to sabotage the process. Rick tried to stop him. Ross knocked Jones into a big tank of chemicals that the Hulk had been lowered into. Somebody threw the big switch. There was an explosion.
The Hulk and Banner had been joined. But, the Hulk was back to being grey and coming out at night.
Rick seemed fine at first. He had actually absorbed some Hulkiness through the chemical stew. For a while, he transformed into The Another Hulk. IIRC, the Leader found Jones and drained the Hulkiness into himself, giving him greater power and changing his head as previously mentioned.
Also note: on the Hulk’s first transformation, the giger counter on the table went wild. (IH #1)
Don’t forget The Radioactive Man , now he’s radioactive.
Close. The grey Hulk appeared in two panels, and then was totally (phyiscally) repressed. I don’t think the Annual which came out at the time could be considered cannon, as the Grey Hulk came out during periods of stress. It was obviously written with the green hulk in mind.
The Grey Hulk finally came out “full time” when his repressed personality convinced Banner to use his old Gamma Gun to bring out the Green, controlable Hulk from IH #4-6.
Tim (The guy who sat down one day in 1994 and read every IH issue he owned at the time) Chew
