Which version of the Hulk is the strongest? There have been many incarnations of the Hulk appearing over the years, all of them powerful in their own right, but is there one particular incarnation of the Jade Giant that stands above the rest? Fans have speculated for years over which version is the mightiest, with no real consensus ever being reached. Is it the snarky and cunning Mr. Fixit? The brutal Savage Hulk? Or the tyrannical Maestro?
Fans know the Hulk’s origin: scientist Bruce Banner was caught in a gamma bomb explosion, bathing him in gamma radiation and turning him into the Hulk. Many associate the Hulk with the brutish “Hulk Smash” persona from the movies, and while that is indeed one of Hulk’s personalities, and the one featured most commonly in other media, there have been several different versions, with varying degrees of strength and intelligence as well as different personalities. Mr. Fixit, one of the more popular versions, was gray-skinned (a callback to the Hulk’s original appearance) and possessed average human intelligence, while merged Hulk (aka Doc Green) is a combination of the Hulk’s strength and Banner’s intellect, but neither of these forms really compares to the main contenders.
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While there is no real consensus among fans over which version of the Hulk is the strongest, a few have been singled out as the top tier, with the World Breaker Hulk, from the World War Hulk storyline prime among them. This Hulk’s rage was great – having been exiled from Earth, he fought his way through the gladiatorial ranks on Sakaar, becoming a just ruler with a beloved queen before losing it all to a major betrayal. He returned to Earth, swearing vengeance on Marvel’s heroes, and came pretty close to destroying the planet in his anger.
Yet what of the Hulk’s fiercest incarnation, the Devil Hulk? How does his strength compare to these other versions? Born out of childhood trauma – and previously cast as the villainous voice within Bruce Banner’s mind – the Devil Hulk is immensely strong and possesses grotesque healing powers and the ability to siphon gamma radiation. Despite being the most cunning and destructive Hulk (and also the only one who kills freely and deliberately injures ”puny humans“) even Devil Hulk has referred to Hulk’s World Breaker gladiator personality, aka the Green Scar, as the strongest Hulk there is in the pages of Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s The Immortal Hulk.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily settle matters. The Green Scar may have displayed the single greatest instance of strength in the comics, but his day-to-day form was also a lot more susceptible to harm in 2006’s “Planet Hulk”, where he first made his appearance. In contrast, the Savage Hulk is generally shown as impervious to harm, and his childlike mind means that since his strength scales with his anger, he could be the most impressive Hulk there is given sufficient provocation (it’s just that the Green Scar has gotten angrier.) For now, there’s more than enough evidence to crown the Green Scar as the Hulk’s strongest form, but with a body that reacts to emotional states and a bottomless well of resentment, that’ll only be true until the next writer decides to give another of the Hulk‘s forms an even greater display of rage and power.
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