Brian Banner

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk #312

Relatives: Rebecca Banner (wife), Bruce Banner (son)

Origin: "In the life of Banner" from THE ULTIMATE HULK book

Powers/Abilities: Brian Banner has no super-human abilities but is capable of destroying a person's mind and life through physical and mental abuse.

Artist Representation Gallery

Origin: As a child, Brian, along with his mother, was subjected to severe psycholigical and possibly physical abuse from his father. Brian felt his father was a monster and was afraid that he had inherited the monster gene also and had no plans to have any more children so that he would not have the possibility of doing to his children what his father did to him. During college, Brian met and married Rebecca who was anxious to start a family. Brian never shared his personal history with her or of his desire to never have children. He was the youngest person to graduate from his college with a Ph.D. and he got his degree in physics. His post-graduate options were unlimited but he settled on going to Los Alamos to work on a government project to find a source for clean nuclear radiation. The stress of the job led Brian to start drinking which also led him to become more erratic and quick to anger with Rebecca and his fellow employees. After one night of excessive drinking, Brian tried to work on his project and accidently caused an overload of the equipment. Brian was court-martialed and released from the project. Even though he was behind a shield when the overload occurred and multiple doctors examined him and found nothing, Brian still felt that some amount of radiation go through and affected his genetic structure and was even more convinced not to have any children.

NOTE: All appearances by Brian Banner have either been in flashbacks or in the Hulk/Bruce Banner's mind.

GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY

The Incredible Hulk #312: Brian is shown in the hospital worrying about his wife, who is in labor. He reminds himself that he did not want to have a child in the first place. He tells the doctor that his wife is the first priority over the baby. He wonders to himself if all the years of research affected his genetic structure. Bruce is finally able to come home and Rebecca is glad and Brian doesn't want anything to do with the baby and is always finding excuses to be away. Early one Christmas morning, Brian catches a young Bruce putting together a complex toy and he gets angry and starts calling him a monster and starts to get violent. Rebecca comes down and tries to stop him and he hits her and also Bruce. Many years later, Bruce visits his mother's grave at the anniversary of his mother's death when Brian shows up. Bruce mentions that they let Brian out of the mental hospital. Brian attacks Bruce, calling him a monster and that he was evil. Brian says that he was just trying to save mankind from a mutant and monster like Bruce. He tells Bruce he will tell the world what kind of person he is and he turns around and leaves. Bruce just calls him mad.

The Incredible Hulk #377: During the process of Doc Samson trying to merge the different Hulk incarnations, the Grey Hulk,Bruce, and the Savage Hulk see different visions of his past with a large monster present(who I think is the Guilt Hulk) such as a monster scaring him one Christmas morning and a monster killing his mother. They realized eventually that the monster represents his father, Brian, and the monster reverts back into the shape of Brian and crumbles away.

The Incredible Hulk #403: The Red Skull captures the Hulk and uses Mentallo to try and break him. Mentallo projects all of the Hulk's best villians at him but the Hulk just keeps bouncing back and won't give up. Mentallo finally projects Brian Banner talking to a young Bruce telling him to lie to the judge about him killing his mother. Brian tells the young Bruce that he will go to hell if he speaks out against his father. The overpowering image of his father is finally enough to break him and the Red Skull gains mental control of the Hulk.

The Incredible Hulk #404: The mentally-controlled Hulk and the Juggernaut battle the Avengers. The Hulk sees the Juggernaut as his father, Brian, who gives him orders. As the battle goes on and the Juggernaut continues to tell the Hulk, who he calls Bruce, that he is doing a great job, the control starts to slowly break down. The Juggernaut continues to praise the Hulk until the Hulk finally realizes that it is not his father. His father would never talk to him like that, he would always heap on the abuse. The Hulk defeats the Juggernaut and Mentallo tries to regain control by presenting a Hulk image of Brian Banner surrounded by demons and monsters demanding the Hulk to obey him but Bruce rejects it and causes a mental backlash.

The Incredible Hulk #-1: Another flashback showed that what Bruce had thought happened with his father was just a false memory. After graduation, Bruce pitched the idea of a gamma bomb to General "Thunderbolt" Ross which would destroy metal, bricks, etc but leave people alive. After giving his pitch, Bruce was notified that his father was being released from the mental hospital after fifteen years. Bruce talked to the doctors but they felt he was ready to rejoin society. Bruce let his father stay with him for a short amount of time and Bruce admitted freely that he thought his father was still disturbed. Brian broke down and blurbed out the fact that his father had done things to him but it was obvious Brian Banner was up to something. Brian was acting stranger and stranger and Bruce said he should maybe check himself back in for more therapy. Brian shouted that maybe he had gotten better in the mental hospital because he was away from Bruce. Bruce just walked away and went to his mother's burial site because it was the anniversary of her death. Brian followed him there and started talking again about how Bruce was evil. They got into an argument which let to a physical confrontation. Bruce was on the ground and Brian was about to jump on him when Bruce pushed him back with his foot. Brian stumbled back and cracked his neck on the Rebecca's gravestone.

The Incredible Hulk #456: The Hulk agrees to be submitted to Apocalypses testing so that he can get the shrapnel out of his skull and to get some relief. During the process, the Hulk sees the ghost of Brian, his father, talking to him. Brian asks if this is some way to get away from him and that if Apocalypse kills him, Bruce will be with him and he will have won. Brian then thinks the Hulk is doing what he is doing so that he won't remember him but adds that he will never be rid of him. He then says that Apocalypse is some time of father-figure that the Hulk is trying to please. He says that it's a war and that he is going to win. Apocalypse lowers a helmet on the Hulk and makes the image of Brian Banner go away.

The Incredible Hulk #457: During a battle, the Hulk, still as War, casually swats Rick Jones aside and sends him flying into a wall. The image of Brian Banner appears on his shoulder and comments that the apple does't fall far from the tree and that he bet that Bruce thought he was rid of him.

The Incredible Hulk #458: As the Hulk tries to save an airplane with it's wing ripped off, Brian Banner appears and asks the Hulk if he is trying to make up for past sins or some type of penance. The Hulk just tells him to shut up.

The Incredible Hulk #460: When Bruce Banner is merged again with the Hulk, he goes through a lot of stuff within his mind. He wakes up in his bed and finds his father, Brian, eating breakfast at the table. Brian tells Bruce that he is dead. Brian goes over some of the darker incidences Bruce has gone through and says that he started haunting him to get an early start on spending time with him. Brian says that he has finally won and that now Bruce is on his turf. Bruce runs out of the house and runs into the Leader and Maestro but Brian tracks him down in a car and tells Bruce he needs to be punished for running out without eating the breakfast he prepared. Brian says it's payback time for what his son did to him and that he had always seen the evil in Bruce. Bruce says he has always hated his father because even though he always tried to get his approval, his father rejected him at birth and because his father terrorized his mother and him. Bruce decides he isn't afraid anymore and throws the car with his father in it aside. He chokes his father saying that the Hulk may be used for outer strength but the inner strength is his and he throws Brian aside and makes the merger complete.