The recent 80th anniversary feels like a giant green reward for putting up with a lot of lesser versions of Hulk over the years. While still not “perfect,” it is by far my favorite of any Hulk figure, and I am willing to buy as many variations of it as Hasbro wants to pump out.
We’ve already seen the random leak of a gray version pop up on Amazon Mexico, with some people receiving the figure already. This is a figure that has yet to have an official reveal from Hasbro, so the entire situation surrounding this figure is odd. Whenever it does become easy to acquire, I will be all over it, even if I know a gray Hulk shouldn’t be the same size as a green Hulk. I know this, my brain knows this, but dammit I don’t care. I will buy it and I will love it and hug it and rub it and take it out for walks.
And it’s not just comic Hulks that are being well done. The recent ML MCU Endgame Hulk was also an excellent figure. It’s smaller, in keeping with the movie’s depiction, but it is still my favorite MCU Hulk.
But this list is purely about the comics, so in no particular order these are the five Hulks I’d like to see next.
Mr. Fixit
In keeping with the gray theme, gray Hulk always remind me of Mr. Fixit, and to me there is nothing as appropriately bizarre as the Hulk dressed up in a three piece suit doing his best gangster impersonation. From the hat down to the white gloves, this is as nattily dressed as the Hulk has ever been. Peter david took the Hulk in one of the most unique directions ever when he had an intelligent, thuggish Hulk working as an enforcer for a mobster. Many figures seem to depict this look in a more battle-damaged way, but for me I’d want him fully dressed up. Reusing certain aspects of the Kingpin body seems to be the general consensus. I don’t know if that would work or not—I’d have to see it all put together—but this is something that needs to happen.
Red Hulk
This isn’t Bruce Banner’s Hulk, but it’s large and red, and that immediately gets my attention. The 80th Hulk would work perfectly as the red Hulk ( I refuse to call him “Rulk”), torn pants and all. All I’d need would be two heads: one without mustache for the Thunderbolt Ross version, and one with the full on gammastache that the Robert Maverick version has that separates him from any other Hulk.
Smart (Professor) Hulk
The Hulk had been written with varying levels of intelligence before, and had even been written with Banner in control of the monster, but when Peter david joined every version of the Hulk together in one unified form it was something brand new and led to one of the Hulk’s more definitive runs. Without some of the overt savagery of previous versions, this was an extraordinarily powerful and dangerously intelligent Hulk that no longer dressed in tattered purple pants. Any version of this Hulk would absolutely need removable pink bunny slippers.
Maestro
The megalomaniacal despot of a dystopian future Earth that keeps a trophy room full of the remnants of his dead foes, the Maestro version of the Hulk is a sadistic, bearded tyrannical version of the Hulk. It is everything Banner fears about himself come true. We got a version of the Maestro way back in the Toybiz days, but a new version to go with the new Hulks is necessary now .Just don’t call him Bob Cobb.
Bikini Brief Savage Hulk
Sometimes you get tired of tattered purple pants and want to go with the freeing comfort of a pair of purple briefs, you know? Back when the Hulk was at his most savage, as a completely mindless brute with no trace of banner’s psyche to keep him grounded, Hulk smashed in his skimpiest look ever.