Won't the Real Hulk Please Stand Up? The Infernal Hulk comic series grants Bruce Banner his wish of separation from his monster, but the progression of the story reminds us to be careful of what we wish for. One of the most unsettling ideas in The Infernal Hulk is not that Bruce Banner loses the Hulk, but that losing him doesn’t bring relief. Banner is free of the monster, yet he is weaker, disoriented, and haunted by something that refuses to stay gone. The Hulk persists, not as a body, but as an absence that still shapes Banner’s life. This dynamic closely mirrors what philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes through the phantom limb. Amputees often continue to feel sensations in limbs that no longer exist. For Merleau-Ponty, this happens because the body is not merely a physical object, but a lived structure, a body schema through which we orient ourselves in the world. When something is removed, the body’s orientation does not immediately adjust. Banner’s condition in The ...
Won't the Real Hulk Please Stand Up?
The Infernal Hulk comic series grants Bruce Banner his wish of separation from his monster, but the progression of the story reminds us to be careful of what we wish for. One of the most unsettling ideas in The Infernal Hulk is not that Bruce Banner loses the Hulk, but that losing him doesn’t bring relief. Banner is free of the monster, yet he is weaker, disoriented, and haunted by something that refuses to stay gone. The Hulk persists, not as a body, but as an absence that still shapes Banner’s life.
This dynamic closely mirrors what philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes through the phantom limb. Amputees often continue to feel sensations in limbs that no longer exist. For Merleau-Ponty, this happens because the body is not merely a physical object, but a lived structure, a body schema through which we orient ourselves in the world. When something is removed, the body’s orientation does not immediately adjust.
Banner’s condition in The Infernal Hulk operates in precisely this way. The Hulk was not just a curse; he was a structuring presence that shaped Banner’s movements, fears, and relationships. His removal does not restore balance. Instead, Banner moves through the world as if the Hulk were still there, anticipating danger, loss of control, and consequence. The monster becomes a phantom limb of the self.
This absence strains Banner’s relationships, particularly with Betty Ross, and exposes a deeper philosophical tension: can identity be healed through subtraction? The series suggests not. Even destructive elements of the self can serve orienting functions, and removing them may create instability rather than peace.
The Infernal Hulk ultimately rejects the fantasy of purification. Drawing close to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, it shows that what shapes us is not only what we have, but what we have lost, and the ways those losses continue to structure our lives long after they are supposed to be gone.
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