10 Insane Alternative Versions Of The Hulk You Won't Believe Exist
2. Ruins
In Warren Ellison's two-part miniseries, Ruins, the various mutations, accidents, and close encounters with radiation didn't turn people into superheroes as they did on Earth-616. Instead, people had the kinds of reactions to a large burst of gamma radiation they would have in the real world, but in Bruce Banner's case, it was far worse.
In Ruins, Banner was working on a Gamma Bomb in the same manner as the normal continuity of the Marvel Universe. He also went out to save a young Rick Jones from the blast, but instead of turning into the Hulk, he became something far darker, which was summed up by Rick Jones with the following:
"He screames at me, 'It's a bomb...' And all I could thin of was that stupid sign on Woody Guthrie's guitar. 'This machine kills fascists.' Bit it didn't kill him. Not really. It hurt to look at him. His skin went black and dry, and cracked, and light shone out of him, like all his meat was on fire. Then he started to swell. And then the tumors broke him open. He just turned into a mass o' this cancer...and he was still alive, man... I could see it. They keep him in a vault under a lake now. Codename "Hulk," man."
And there it is. The Hulk in the Ruins wasn't a superhero, and he wasn't an unstoppable force of destruction. He was a horribly disfigured amalgamation of tumors, Bruce Banner, and what the Hulk might have become.