All 16 of the Hulk’s Deaths in the Comics Explained

One of the things that we know about the Marvel Comics world is that there are a lot of different durable characters who are incredibly tough to kill or even hurt. The Hulk is one of the guys who are incredibly hard to defeat due to how durable and invulnerable he is. Even though the Hulk is quite durable, he isn’t immune to death.

The Hulk has died 14 times in the comics

While it may be true that the Hulk is incredibly durable, there have been instances wherein he actually died. It isn’t rare for the strongest comic book characters to die, and the Hulk has his fair share of deaths in the world of comics. The Hulk has also faced his fair share of powerful opponents. And some of these enemies are just as strong or even more powerful than the Hulk himself.

As such, for a character who has been around for a while already, the Hulk has seen many deaths already. He has died a total of 14 times in the comics. However, most of his deaths in the comics happened in different timelines or universes. Some of these deaths even include different versions of the Hulk. That said, let’s look at all of the Hulk deaths in the comics.

Every Hulk death in the comics

1. ‘Old Man Logan’

In the ‘Old Man Logan’ storyline, which is considered one of the best Wolverine comics of all time, Hulk was an angry warlord who had inbred children who were tasked with collecting rent from the people living in his territory. Essentially, he was an angry and evil version of the Hulk and was willing to torture and kill people who weren’t able to pay their rent on time.

Wolverine, however, didn’t have enough money to pay rent, so he had to find a way to pay the Hulk. But when he got back to his family, he saw their murdered bodies. An enraged Logan decided to go on a rampage, killing all of the Hulk versions he could find, including the warlord Hulk, who was mainly responsible for killing his family. In a way, the Hulk got this coming, and we’re not even sad about his death in this comic book storyline.

2. ‘Civil War 2’

One of the things that we know about the Hulk is that he is more vulnerable whenever he is in his regular human form. Bruce Banner may be the host of the Hulk, but he isn’t immune to pain and injuries. There are times when he would transform into the Hulk after getting hurt so that he wouldn’t die. But in ‘Civil War 2,’ that wasn’t the case.

In this storyline, Bruce Banner was killed when he took an arrow to the face. This was one of the most surprising deaths in Marvel Comics, as there is just something unnerving about seeing Bruce dying from an arrow to the face.

3. ‘World War Hulk’

‘World War Hulk’ is one of the greatest Hulk storylines of all time because we get to see an incredibly angry and powerful Hulk wreaking havoc throughout the entire world. Of course, every hero on Earth wanted to defeat and stop the angry green giant after he tore New York apart. That was when the Sentry arrived to try to match the power of the Hulk at the green giant’s angriest state.

These characters matched one another until they eventually started losing their strengths due to exhaustion. The Sentry could force the Hulk back to his Bruce Banner form. However, Miek killed Rick Jones to give Bruce Banner another reason to get angry, as the Hulk re-emerged angrier than ever. Tony Stark had to use a powerful satellite canon to put the Hulk down, as the world thought he had been killed despite the fact. That Banner was merely taken to a different facility.

4. ‘Maestro’

We have another version of the Hulk who isn’t a good guy. Maestro is a version of the green giant a century into the future, and this version isn’t exactly a nice person because he had become a warlord of an Earth that had lost almost all life after a nuclear war. The amount of radiation the Hulk absorbed after the nuclear war turned him into Maestro, a man with the same intelligence as Bruce Banner but with the strength of the Hulk and the madness of a dictator.

Maestro ended up fighting his past version, and this ended in an all-out brawl between the two giants. While Maestro is able to break the Hulk’s neck, the Hulk eventually defeats him. Dr. Doom sent Maestro back in time to when the original Gamma Bomb that created Hulk exploded, and Maestro was killed in the blast.

5. ‘Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe’

Of course, the ‘Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe’ was supposed to feature a lot of different deaths, as the Punisher had to kill many different characters in this storyline. While this comic book series was meant to be crazy, it was able to actually make things work within the context of the Punisher’s character.

Frank Castle’s family died in a war involving the Avengers, the X-Men, the Brood, and a few other aliens. The Punisher was devastated after seeing his family dead, and he ended up focusing his anger on the superheroes who were reckless enough to cause the death of Castle’s family. The Hulk was one of his victims as the Punisher killed Bruce Banner before he could transform into the green giant.

6. ‘Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe’

Similar to the previous item on this list, ‘Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe’ is another crazy killing spree comic book series that involves Deadpool killing various superheroes in the Marvel universe. The thing is that Deadpool was able to find a way to warp through dimensions, and he used this power to literally kill anyone and every single hero or villain he found in the different universes he stumbled upon.

One of his most interesting kills involved the Hulk as Deadpool confronts the green giant before getting torn to pieces. Deadpool, however, recovered from the fight as the Hulk was resting in his Bruce Banner form. This allowed the Merc With a Mouth to decapitate Bruce Banner before he could turn into the Hulk.

7. ‘The Incredible Hulk’ #422

In the Marvel universe, Hoarfen is the child of the Fenris wolf and one of the Frost giants. However, instead of introducing this wolf in the storyline of Thor, it was introduced in one of the Hulk comics as Professor Hulk was in the middle of a fight with an impostor Thor called Red Norvell. This led to a standoff with the Warriors Three.

After that, the Hulk was in Asgard chasing a former ally named Agamemnon. However, as the Hulk and his other allies recovered him, Hoarfen emerged from the ice and seemingly killed the Hulk and Agamemnon by swallowing him. The belief was that the Hulk died because there was a flash of green blood that could be seen.

8. ‘Nerd Hulk’

Nerd Hulk is a clone of Bruce Banner in the Ultimate universe of Marvel. In this universe, he has Hulk’s strength and Bruce Banner’s intelligence. But this ends up being more of a curse than a blessing because he is actually weaker in this state. In fact, Captain America defeated him without any problems. However, Nerd Hulk ultimately became a vampire and the leader of the vampires after he killed the original leader.

Vampire Nerd Hulk’s run was short because he was killed by Captain America, who used the hammer of the Thor imposter named Perun. The hammer can teleport people, and Cap uses the hammer’s power to teleport Nerd Hulk and his vampire horde to Iran, where it is daytime. The sunlight killed the vampires and weakened Nerd Hulk just enough for Cap to kill him using the hammer.

9. ‘What If’ Vol. 1 #45

There are many different storylines in the ‘What If’ universe of Marvel, and one of those stories involves the Hulk himself. This happened in ‘What If Vol. 1 #45,’ wherein Bruce Banner and Rick Jones become telepathically linked with one another. While there’s a benefit to this, it becomes a curse to both of them.

Thunderbolt Ross finds out about this link, and he uses this to his advantage by capturing Rick and torturing him to death. This causes the Hulk to go on a rage-fueled rampage as he focuses all his anger on Ross. In the end, the battle ends in the deaths of Tony Stark and Ben Grimm. Thor arrives and reluctantly kills the Hulk for what he did.

10. ‘The Mighty Thor: Lord of Earth’

In ‘The Mighty Thor: Lord of Earth,’ Thor became the ruler of all Nine Realms because he thought protecting them wasn’t enough. As the ruler of the Nine realms, he could care for them properly, according to his estimation. This resulted in the complete subjugation of Earth, wherein there were rehabilitation centers for those who didn’t want to embrace Thor’s rule.

Of course, there was a flashback scene wherein Thor had to fight the last heroes of Earth so that they could stop what Thor was doing to the planet. This resulted in the deaths of Wolverine, Captain America, and even the Hulk. While we know that the Hulk and Thor have almost always been a match for one another, Thor was as strong as Odin in this storyline, and that’s why he was able to kill the Hulk.

11. ‘What If… Planet Hulk’

The storyline of ‘What If… Planet Hulk’ brings us back to Sakaar, which we know is the war-torn planet that the Hulk ruled at one point in his life. In this story, the Hulk is the Green King alongside Queen Caiera the Oldstrong. However, in this storyline, Caiera doesn’t use her power to protect the Hulk because he tells her to use it on herself so that he can keep her safe.

This causes the death of the Hulk instead of his survival. Of course, there were also a lot of different superhumans on Earth who ended up dying because of what happened here. That’s because Caiera was the one who went to Earth to show them what her brand of justice was, as she went on to watch the heroes burn for causing the death of her beloved.

12. ‘Hulk Robot Death’

The Hulk Robot was actually a mascot that was created for a college all-star game but ended up becoming a bit too dangerous. That was why it was never actually used. However, the Eternals brought life to the robot as it gained sentience and actually became almost as strong as the actual Hulk. It even served as a weapon for many different villains, including Dr. Doom, due to how strong it was.

It may have been just a manmade robot that looked like the Hulk, but the robot itself matched the Hulk’s base power levels. The robot crossed paths with the Red Hulk, who drained the Gamma radiation inside the Hulk Robot and destroyed him. While this wasn’t the Hulk himself, it still counts as one of the deaths of the Hulk due to the resemblance of the two.

13. ‘Hulk: The End’

In the storyline of ‘Hulk: The End,’ there was a future where a war ends violently due to a nuclear holocaust that took place. Of course, the Hulk was the only one who was able to survive this war. He ended up feasting on a breed of giant cockroaches daily because there were almost no other people left on the planet. 

However, while Bruce Banner took over the body and went to sleep, he had a heart attack in the middle of the night after having a dream about someone who looks like his beloved Betty Ross. The Hulk persona shows himself to Bruce upon waking up and allows Banner to die, leaving the Hulk alone in the world so he can separate himself from Bruce upon his death. The only reason why the Hulk wanted to keep on living was so that he could prove that he was the strongest, only for him to realize that there was no longer anyone to prove this to.

14. ‘Onslaught’

The ‘Onslaught’ storyline in the X-Men comics is one of the most popular stories because it gave birth to a mutant so powerful. After all, he was the combination of Professor X and Magneto. Of course, Onslaught became a threat to the world, and that was why the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four all teamed up together to fight the powerful entity.

What happened was that no one was strong enough to damage Onslaught’s armor. Jean Grey had to turn off the Bruce persona in the Hulk’s head to make him completely savage as the Hulk was able to destroy the armor. The explosion separated Banner and the Hulk as they were now two different entities instead of one. However, when the heroes threw themselves to the energy called Onslaught, Banner pulled the Hulk in to absorb the energy together, causing the two of them to die in the process.

15. ‘Thanos Wins’

It’s not a canon death, but its death nonetheless. ‘Thanos Wins’ takes place in a world where Thanos managed to wipe out nearly all the population of the universe by using the Infinity Gauntlet. Most of the superheroes and supervillains alike are dead, and only a handful of cosmic beings remain to offer some kind of resistance. Silver Surfer, riding on the back of the annihilation wave, comes to Thanos’ palace to finally put a stop to Thanos’ rampage, but Thanos unleashes the Hulk on him, who has been living in the basement of his palace as a pet for a millennia or more at this point.

Hulk was kept as Thanos’ slave and was exposed to the cruelest of torture. Thanos even went as far as to feed Captain America to him. Seeing Silver Surfer, something in Hulk woke up, and Bruce Banner took control, forcing transformation into his human form for god knows how long.. Bruce Banner and Silver Surfer embraced, only for Old King Thanos to stab them both in the back with the Twilight Sword. Bruce Banner died on the spot, while Silver Surfer was later finished by having his head impaled on the handle of Mjolnir.

16. ‘Space: Punisher’

This is not a Hulk death as much as its “Bruce Banner” death. It takes place in the ‘Space: Punisher’ storyline, where Bruce Banner was also transformed into the Hulk following the accident with radiation but became a ruthless monster that frequently attacked spaceships. This version of Hulk was so powerful he was able to kill the Fantastic Four, Hulk Buster, and the Watchers.

Punisher utilized Space Punisher Hulk to get vengeance on the Watchers, a syndicate of galactic criminals responsible for the death of his family. After Watchers have been dealt with, true Bruce Banner emerges from the wound in the middle of Hulk’s chest, and he begs the Punisher to kill him. Punisher accepts Banner’s wish and shoots him in the head. Space Punisher Hulk, however, survives and flies away, still carrying the corpse of the dead Bruce Banner within him

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