20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About Marvel
12. Hulk's Real Name Came From Stan Lee's Forgetfulness
The Hulk’s secret identity is Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. This has been a given fact for many years, but it was not always so. Back in the day, Stan Lee wrote A LOT of comics, which meant hundreds of characters he had to keep track of. Smartly, he used alliterative names as a way to help him remember them all, but even that didn’t always work.
Initially the Hulk was Bruce Banner, but early on, Lee forgot this and referred to him repeatedly as Bob Banner. As this took place for many months, it would have been fairly embarrassing for Lee to admit his mistake. Instead, he saw an easy way out and made Hulk’s name both Bruce and Bob. Now known as Robert Bruce Banner, Lee remarked that he couldn’t go wrong no matter what he called him. It’s somewhat comical that such an iconic character has their history rooted in a creator’s forgetfulness.
For whatever reason, this problem would plague the Hulk again as the famous TV series opted to call him David instead of either Bruce or Bob, but that’s a whole other can of worms.