Unlikely Comic Characters Who Have Beaten The Hulk

The Hulk is a legendary comic book character that is often billed as unbeatable. His whole shtick is that he gets stronger the more angry he gets allowing him to essentially have no peak limit to his strength. He’s big, he’s angry, he’s usually green, and yet he’s been beaten by a number characters over the years well under his power level.

Today we are taking a look at a few of the characters that have gone toe-to-toe with the Incredible Hulk and came away victorious. Some of these might surprise you in how they beat hulk and what they needed to do in order to not end up a pancake on the pavement.

What we’ve found is that is you want to take the the Hulk then your best best is to find yourself a Canadian. Puck, a member of the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight, is one of several people from the great white north to have beaten the Hulk.

Puck is a character that is a very small man born in 1914. He was a tall man who committed crime until some magic stuff happened and he gained some sort of vague immortality and became short. He joined Alpha Flight after being paroled in the 1980s without any superpowers outside the immortality thing.

By the time he faced off against the Hulk in Immortal Hulk #37 Puck had since lost his power and became tall and very old before regaining his power and short stature but without the immortality through a blood transfusion. He also gained super hard skin that he would activate at will that made him nearly invulnerable. Comics are weird, okay.

In Immortal Hulk #37, Puck is a member of Gamma Flight and tasked with taking down the Hulk. While the team keeps Hulk busy, Puck takes out a big gamma laser canon and shoots Hulk right in the head, killing him instantly.

It’s not a glamorous death and it’s a kill from a distance with no fisticuffs, but a kill is a kill. I guess giving Puck’s backstory was irrelevant considering he didn’t use any of his skills to kill the Hulk, but if I have to live knowing Puck’s backstory, you do as well.

Spider-Man and the Hulk tend to be on pretty good terms most of the time. A battle between the pair is pretty rare with Hulk easily outclassing him on power, but Spider-Man having a big edge on speed and smarts. But when they did duke it out in Amazing Spider-Man #328 things were a bit wonky for the pair of heroes.

Hulk wasn’t actually the bad-guy in the comic and Spider-Man had a new power set he was trying to wrap his head around. Hulk was also in his less powerful Gray Hulk form, but the form that allows Bruce Banner to keep most of his original smarts. A less powerful albeit far smarter Hulk is still a threat, and one that could give Spider-Man some real problems.

Unfortunately, Spider-Man didn’t need his speed or his speed or his smarts to easily defeat Gray Hulk. Spider-Man was in the middle of some comic arc involving Loki and the Enigma Force, the universal god of light and a sentient cosmic energy that can bond with a person to create Captain Universe. Captain Universe is considered to be the most power being in the universe as the powers granted adapt to the need of the person using it.

This means that Spider-Man essentially became a cosmic being and the most powerful person in the Marvel universe while bonded to it. In their fight Spider-Man simply punched Gray Hulk into orbit where he would have died due to the lack of oxygen, before being saved by Spider-Man. It’s a strange encounter and the book is memorable for seeing Spider-Man flying and not swinging out, which is a very strange look.

The Summers clan might be the most cured family in the Marvel universe. The family was seemingly killed in a plane explosion but the truth of the situation was that an alien ship appeared before them and blasted the Summers plane setting it ablaze. The mother grabbed the only parachute and pushed the kids out of the plane with it trying to save them.

Things only got worse for everyone as Scott landed on his head losing his ability to control his optic blasts. There parents were captured and tortured by the aliens that attacked them, with the mother dying after having her baby ripped out of her. Dad got free and became a space pirate and Alex (Havok) got powers that would kill him if used.

By the time Havok took on the Hulk he had managed to control his powers thanks to a special suit that would absorb and cosmic radiation and release it when he was near death. He eventually meet the X-Men and trained his powers to be able to release the stored cosmic radiation at will when he faced off against the Hulk.

Havok had no intention of fighting Hulk, but was forced into it when Hulk took Polaris, Havok’s love interest, hostage thinking Polaris was Hulk’s old partner because she had green hair and a green costume. Havok chased Hulk and played a lot of defense but eventually saw an opening when Hulk lifted up a mountain looking to slam it on the mutant.

With his death imminent, Havok accessed all of his stored energy and focused it into a tight beam that we fired at Hulk’s head, something he had never done with his powers before. Hulk was bombarded with cosmic rays at full blast giving him quite the headache. This took Hulk’s mind off the literal mountain he was holding up and with his focus lost, dropping the mountain on his own head. Hulk then passed out and Havok rescued his gal pal.

The Thing and the Hulk was battled it out on several occasion over the years with The Thing usually ending up on the losing end. If he’s lucky something happens at the end of a long fight that saves him, but not on this one occasion. The Thing is a man covered in rocks and rocks can be broken, especially by the likes of someone like Hulk.

But this fight The Thing isn’t dealing with Green Hulk, instead taking on the smarter but less powerful Gray Hulk. This version of Gray Hulk was tricked and manipulated by Doctor Doom into taking out The Thing as his new power increase makes him stronger than Hulk.

Gray Hulk then gets pissed knowing he’s beaten The Thing multiple times before and heads out to prove his strength. But The Thing is a much different character now than when Hulk fought him before. He’s now the leader of the Fantastic Four and has gotten a massive power boost during a previous adventure the team had.

The fight starts with Gray Hulk getting the drop on The Thing with a cheap shot that would have normally ended the fight before it began. The Thing shakes it off and doesn’t even believe that he’s fighting Hulk because of the gray color and the fact the Hulk was supposed to be dead.

Gray Hulk hits The Thing with everything he has but it barely phases him. The Thing quickly clobbers Gray Hulk tossing him about like a play toy. Gray Hulk even thinks to himself that at least he’ll lose without The Thing believing he was the real Hulk. But this time Hulk is saved when a robot Green Hulk shows up looking for a fight.

This is a strange matchup for a pure one-on-one fight. Daredevil is a cool character but one that doesn’t have any real superpower, certainly not one that can have him take on a creature like the Hulk. But that’s just what happens when Daredevil manages to handle Green Hulk on a pure rampage in New York after getting shot in the back of the head by a police officer after freaking out on the subway.

It actually turns out to be a really fun fight with Daredevil ducking and diving around Hulk, taking pot shots wherever he can. He is acutely aware that if Hulk gets his hands on him, he is done for. And this does happen happen when Hulk smacks him into a building breaking several ribs.

Daredevil even thinks to himself that he could stop right now an no one would blame him for backing down, that no one would even know the pair battled it out in the first place. But Daredevil knows that he would and he couldn’t live with himself if he let Hulk rampage in his city. So, Daredevil picks himself off and goes for round two with the green beast.

This second encounter happens in front of dozens of people and even gets broadcast on television. But everyone knows that Daredevil is no match for a wild Hulk, with people even going as far as to beg the police to intervene to save Daredevil. But even the police say that if they could step in that they would, but note the Hulk is simply too powerful for them.

Daredevil tries his and knows his only chance is to reach Banner and get the Hulk to calm down and revert to his human form. But Hulk eventually lands a decisive blow that nearly kills Daredevil. And even then, when Hulk lifts a massive portion of the street above his head readying to slam it on Daredevil, the man without fear shows why he earned that moniker by still standing up and reaching out to the Hulk wanting to help him.

This line is a callback to Matt Murdock telling Banner the very same thing while in his human form and realizing that Daredevil is actually his only friend and only wanting to help. In this moment Hulk leaps away in tears realizing that he might very well have just lost his only true friend. Daredevil is then left battered and broken, saved only by the EMTs and police on scene rendering aid and saving his life.

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