10 Marvel Superheroes With Tortured Pasts

6. Bruce Banner/The Hulk

Iron Man Tony Stark
Marvel Comics

He may now be known as the guy who's "always angry", but Bruce Banner didn't start out that way. In fact, he was a genius scientist whose only goal in life was to advance mankind no matter the cost and, unfortunately for him, that price ended up being quite high.

Rushing to save Rick Jones from being caught in the explosion of a gamma bomb, Banner is transformed into the creature that plagues his life even to this day. The Hulk has never been anything but a massive thorn in the side of Bruce and has been responsible for some of the most tragic events in his life.

He seriously harms Jones after he is separated from his host and is allowed to rampage free and he is the reason that Betty Ross is put through the kind of Hell that is usually reserved for the works of Dante. He is hated and hunted in equal measures, and this results in him being fired off into space by his so-called friends when they realize that they have no way of controlling him.

He finds happiness with a new love but, as you'd expect, this ends badly when on the return trip to Earth she is killed.

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Contributor

Jack of all trades, Master of none. The former rocker of the big beard.