The 1970s The Incredible Hulk TV series is best remembered for a classic moment from its first episode when Dr. David Banner (Bill Bixby) warns meddlesome tabloid journalist Jack McGee (Jack Colvin), “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” (Watch below.)
The joke here is that when Dr. David Banner gets angry, Bill Bixby returns to his trailer and is replaced by the significantly larger and stronger Lou Ferringo, who’s covered in green body paint and caveman prosthetics because they didn’t have CGI in those days. (He’s also “David Banner” on the TV show and not “Bruce Banner” like in the comics for a combination of reasons that are all ridiculous.) The Hulk is powerful but incapable of reason, which makes him extremely dangerous. It can seem that most of our modern politics is an extended Hulk out, although Dr. Banner’s essential good nature put life-saving restraints on the Hulk’s rage.
Banner’s doomed love interest Dr. Elaina Marks (Susan Sullivan) reassures him at one point that he’s not a homicidal monster, even when green and Lou Ferrigno. “It’s the same thing as if someone is under hypnosis,” she explains. “Unless they are a potential killer, you cannot hypnotize them and make them kill. Now this creature is an outgrowth of David Banner. It’s his primitive emotions run wild. It may be undisciplined, it may tear the hell out of a pressure chamber. But it won’t kill because David Banner won’t kill.”
This is true in the Marvel movies, as well, as the Hulk is only a true threat when external influences seek to weaponize his rage for their own nefarious ends. In 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) hexes Dr. Bruce Banner and turns the Hulk loose on Johannesburg, South Africa (it’s not racially motivated, that’s just where they are at the moment), and in 2026’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) mentally manipulates Dr. Banner’s “Smart Hulk” form until she loses control over him and inadvertently releases the “Savage Hulk.” (Banner doesn’t have a great history with redheads.) Rage is the engine driving most modern politics these days, and it’s usually someone safely behind the scenes steering the wheel.
If MAGA or Trumpism is one extended, nightmarish “Hulk out,” there is not much evidence of any successful internal moderating influence. It’s actually the reverse — MAGA’s “Hulkish-ness” is corrupting. Vice President JD Vance, who once correctly identified Donald Trump’s monstrous nature, now openly relishes in MAGA’s unrestrained dark side. He is more like the villainous Dell Frye (Harry Townes) in the 1981 Incredible Hulk episode “The First.” Banner learns that there was another Hulk decades before him. Dr. Henry Clive had used gamma radiation to cure Frye of a blood infection, but instead created a true Frankenstein’s monster. Frye, in his Hulk form, had murdered a local farmer who’d bullied him. He craved strength and power so he could lord it over those he believed had wronged him. Trump’s administration is filled with Dell Fryes: JD Vance, Stephen Miller, and Pete Hegseth are all small men who are so weak inside they think might alone can make them strong.
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Of course, MAGA “Hulk outs” are especially dangerous because they command genuine power and strength through numbers. There are many contrasting “Hulk outs” nowadays that boast the same mindless rage but without the brute force.
In 1994’s Incredible Hulk No. 425, Bruce Banner’s “Smart Hulk” persona is so afraid of losing control and reverting to savagery that he unconsciously creates a “mental block” so that when he becomes too enraged, he transforms into his powerless human form, but with what passes for the savage Hulk’s mental state. He’s reduced to a scrawny Bruce Banner shouting maniacally about “smashing” and “destroying” his enemies. It’s both laughable and pathetic. Although “Savage Banner” still sees himself as the massively powerful green behemoth, in reality, his rampages are mostly just irritating to his enemies, and he only ends up hurting himself. The “Savage Hulk” tosses around tanks and sends soldiers fleeing. The “Savage Banner” just winds up institutionalized and wearing a straitjacket.
I’ve noticed far too many people behaving like “Savage Banner.” Their preferred position has the support of a fraction of the electorate but they proceed as if they represent an overwhelming majority. When you operate as if you see only Lou Ferrigno in the mirror, you can end up on the losing end of almost every fight. During a social media thread about ways to encourage more people to ride public transit post-covid, someone declared that “more people will ride public transit once we’ve taken away all the cars!” Someone else declared on Bluesky that people who hold a position in opposition to their own would “violently radicalize them.” Another online activist boasted that they would “concede nothing” even if in the minority. These are true “Banner Smash!” moments.
Dr. Banner’s true strength in the comics and TV/movies was always his intelligence. We should try to keep our cool and reason through our problems even if we have the masses behind us. But when we don’t, it’s especially important that we don’t succumb to rage. Political Hulk outs are rarely productive.
If the polls are correct about the midterms, look for the maga hulks, especially trump, grow even more enraged and dangerous. I don't put any kind of evil out of reach for them to try to hold on to power. Aided and abetted by the small people who think they have power through them, including members of the media who have kissed trump's ring for over 10 years.
Pretty fair parallel. Thanks.