Villain Profile: Red Hulk

Alright, you’re probably wondering how desperate a measure this Red Hulk could be. Well to clarify,  Hulk continues to establish there really isn’t any way to stop him. Heck, the last time they tried to, they launched him into space. What did he do? Return with an army of alien bad asses collectively known as his Warbound, declared the World War Hulk storyline and tried to take over the world. Ross tried to stop him with a battalion of his own, but they are quickly trounced and captured. They finally stop the power mad Hulk by using some sort of satellite weapon that reverted him back to Banner. Ross, humiliated again, is approached by a group known as the Intelligencia, think an evil smarty pants version of the Avengers lead by The Leader and MODOK. So it's that desperate of a measure, a Deal with the Devil, if I've ever heard one.

Me mind on fire, me soul on fire
Feeling hot, hot, hot.

Ross is promised two things, one the power to destroy the Hulk and two, the return of his dearly departed daughter. Ross agrees. The Intelligencia puts him through gamma radiation treatments, transforming him into a new Hulk. A bright red Hulk, or Rulk, if you will. No, his name is not that creative, we know. Ross starts off with a bang, killing the Abomination. He beat the other  irradiated titan so hard that it caused earthquakes across Russian, and then shot the Abomination with a small cannon, which for him is like that little pistol a spy has on his/her ankle. Needless to say, Abomination bid fair well to most of his blood. Don’t mess with a guy’s daughter, it never ends well. He then attacked the SHIELD Helicarrier, ripping it to pieces, and beating the heck out of She-Hulk and Iron Man. He also throws down with the latest Hulk initiate, A-Bomb, thoroughly kicking the ass of the new gamma warrior. After that, he sought out his namesake, the original Hulk. Dr. Banner was being held in a secret underground prison after that World War Hulk fiasco. Red Hulk busts him out, Banner transforms, and the two titans throw down. Rulk is able to get the upper hand on Hulk, knocking him out. He then carried the Jade Giant to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, to publicly execute him. His efforts cause a major Earthquake in San Francisco, killing or injuring thousands. His initial rampaged is finally stopped by the team up of two of Marvel’s strongest heroes, Hulk and Thor. Thor distracts Rulk for a few minutes while Hulk recovers, and then Hulk takes over. In one of those instances where he shows he's not as dumb as he acts, Hulk formulates a plan. Basically, he lets the Rulk hit him without fighting back. This makes Rulk mad. The madder Rulk gets, the hotter he gets, until he passed out from Heat stroke. He recovers quick enough and escapes. 

Rulk spends the next several issues evading capture, and stopping anyone trying to discover his secret identity. X-Factor super-assassin Domino learns his real ID, but escapes Rulk's fury. He's forced to recruit a team to catch her, and his proto-Thunderbolts throw down with the cover ops version of the X-Men, X-Factor. While this is going on, the Intelligencia decide their Rulk is too dangerous to control and replace him with Red She Hulk, who nearly murders him. Rulk escapes, but barely. He later throws down with the Hulk again, and uses his energy absorbing powers to forcibly and permanently turn the Hulk back into Banner. But, as Rulk sees the Intelligencia's plans start to amp up, which involve an LMD of his real self, General Ross, he turns to Banner for help. The two begrudgingly work together, thwarting the Intelligencia whenever they can. They start by 'killing' Ross's robotic double. After a few more throw downs, Rulk attacks the Intelligencia at their mobile base, the Hell-Carrier. Their initial plan is revealed, to use a Red Hulk to power a device to Hulk-ify an small army of Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) volunteers, making a Hulk army. They also use this machine on a dozen heroes that had been tracking Rulk. Rulk is able to over power them, and destroy the machine. Its also here that we learn that Ross = Rulk, and that Red She Hulk = Betty. To get back at the Leader and MODOK, Rulk goes the incredibly cruel route. He uses his energy sucking powers to de-Gama the two, reverting them back to their human forms. For MODOK, this isn't too bad, as he was already an AIM scientist, but the Leader was a janitor before getting his super-brain. Rulk left him alive, always remembering what he once was, but now with no way to reclaim said intellect.
With his foes defeated, Red Hulk goes to intercept their master stroke. Phase 2 of the Intelligencia's plan was to kill as many people in the government hierarchy as possible, and leave an LMD of Major Glenn Talbot in place to be the Intelligencia’s puppet dictator. The original plan was to use Ross/the Ross LMD, but obviously that didn't work out. This plan might of worked, without the Red Hulk's interference. He destroys Robo-Talbot on camera and claims America as his. Hulk arrives, having reclaimed his powers, and beats the crap out of his former father-in-law. When it looks like Red Hulk might try to evade capture by reverting back to Ross and playing possum, Hulk points out the glaring flaw in the plan. Simply, Ross has already had his "greatest day." It was his funeral. He was interred at Arlington, many bigwigs of the US government and Avengers attended, and he was eulogized by several heroes, including Banner himself. Revealing himself to be alive would ruin his reputation, and legacy, forever. Red Hulk relents and allows Hulk to arrest him. Red She-Hulk escapes, what a surprise Bruce couldn't do anything against his former wife. I'm sure she’ll never be a problem again.

Where does the mustache go? I feel like we're missing a frame.

Afterwards, Captain America approaches the Red Hulk. Having known Ross as a patriotic hardworking man, Capt. makes him an offer at redemption. Ross agrees. Bruce tinkers with him a little to make Red Hulk more manigable, and then sends him to stop a few doomsday scenarios that the Intelligencia had set up if they're defeated. Afterwards he earns a spot on the Avengers. An angry Red anti-hero has been born.

Ross gained a number of powers after his gamma radiation treatments. Some powers are similar to Hulk, some are unique to Ross. When he transforms into the angry red Titan he gains immense strength, on par with the Hulk post transformation. Granted, the Hulk becomes stronger the angrier he gets, but just after transforming they're equal. Ross also heals at an incredible rate, putting him back into his physical prime. It’s why his hair turns black in his Hulk form but becomes grey again when he changes back. And his blood is yellow and glows in the dark. Creepy.

The powers that are unique to Red Hulk are heat related. While the Hulk gets stronger the angrier he gets, as Ross gets angrier he gets hotter. Now, this sounds a little silly when you first hear it, but think about it for a second. Mildly annoyed, he probably raises the room temperature a degree. No big deal. Really piss him off, and he gets so hot dry plants burst into flame. If he got too hot, he could cause forest fires or melt steel. The one down side for the Rulk is that he lacks a cooling mechanism. So, he’ll pass out from heat stroke if he is too hot for too long, but his healing powers give him a lot more time to work with. He can also absorb energy, which can fuel his strength or be discharged in a super heated blast. So yeah, he's dangerous.

Now there's a trustworthy face. No evil hidden behind that grin.

And his greatest power of all is the ability to rapidly grow a mustache. Seriously. As Ross, mustache. As Red Hulk, no mustache. When he changes back it just sprouts from his upper lip. I understand why they'd remove his facial feature initially when the character was introduced, the Mystery of the Red Hulk was kind of what they were going for. But why make the mustache come back when he turns human? It's just plain weird.

Red Hulk is a relatively new character, he was made only in 2008. He hasn’t had the popularity explosion of say Deadpool or X-23, but he’s appeared in a few things.

Red Hulk appeared in the second season of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. In this version, he’s injected with a sample of the Hulk’s blood, transforming him into the blazing monster. He destroys the SHIELD Helicarrier, framing the Hulk in the processes. SHIELD falls for it, Director Maria Hill saying that “he used to be gray,” as to explain how the Hulk could be a different color than normal and still be the Hulk. Stupid, I know, but we have to deal with it. Hulk was arrested, partially thanks to the machinations of a Skrull in the shape of Captain America, and afterwards the Red Hulk vanishes. Later, a returned Rogers gets Hulk pardoned. Rulk then pops up, making the Hulk seem like a rampaging monster using an implant, and make himself look like a hero. Captain America still believes Hulk is innocent, releases him again, and forces the Rulk to reveal his evil intentions. The Avenger’s take him down, and see him locked in the Hulk's cell. Take that Ross.

I bet he's had dreams about doing that.

Red Hulk is also in Hulk and the Agents of SMASH. He’s a weird mix of soldier stereotype and Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both the modern antisocial Raph, and the much older snarky turtle from the 90s. Yeah, just picture that for a moment. It’s that weird. Show is meh, watch it if you want to see five Hulk’s breaking things.

Red Hulk hasn’t been in any movies as of yet. Part of my edits to The Incredible Hulk movie was to set up his creation in a later movie. Picture that, a pair of Titian’s smacking down for most of the movie. It’d be like when he fought Abomination in Hulk, but much, much longer. It’d be awesome.

Ross is basically the same character as Red Hulk as he is a normal man. The only thing that’s really changed is that he now has powers to cause some real damage. One of the best lines I remember hearing him say was in EMH, he’d badly battered the Hulk and was gloating over his apparent victory. “Is that all? I've waited for this moment. All I've wanted is this moment. And now--now I'm stronger!” This line of course was delivered just before his defeat. It summarizes Ross story arc perfectly. He’s given everything he had at a chance to destroy the Hulk, and for a good while he lost any redemptive qualities he had. He sold his soul and was smacked down. He’s sought redemption since his debut as a villain, but there’s still some evil heat waiting behind his blazing eyes. He’s big, he’s mean, he’s the RED HULK! Next time, still working on that one. It’ll be DC related, I promise.

I feel his next line is, "Banner, eat your heart out."

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