The Incredible Hulk 

Marvel Comics has reportedly killed off Bruce Banner, the not-so-mild-mannered scientist who becomes the Hulk when agitated.

Killing Banner seems to be the most common comic book thing done to the Hulk. What’s more comic book-like than killing off a character? Especially when readers think, well, how long will this last?

After all, the comics have killed off Superman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Robin, Captain America, etc., etc., and for the most part, the characters come back.

Dying is just another plot twist in comics.

As for the Hulk, it is the latest development in years of convoluted storylines.

To the casual observer, the Hulk is a one-note character in a one-way scenario: Angry, strong green man, summed up with his catch-phrase, “Hulk smash.”

But through the years, the Hulk has been grey and insidious, green and dumb, green and mean, the Hulk’s body with Banner’s mind, a mindless growling Hulk, grey again and devious, grey and working as gangsterland muscle Joe Fixit, a green agent of SHIELD, split from Banner, a conqueror of another world, the Earth-conquering Maestro of the future, the cannibal overlord of another future, the Red Hulk (though this is another character whose alter-ego is the Hulkbusting Gen. Thunderbolt Ross), etc.

He’s been the pivot point of “World War Hulk” and viewed anew with the storyline “Planet Hulk.” He was Marvel’s first live-action hit with the 1970s television show “The Incredible Hulk” but a flop in more recent live-action solo movies (”Hulk,” “The Incredible Hulk”) but one of the most joyous characters to watch in “Marvel’s The Avengers.”

So, the Hulk is anything but a one-note character. With Banner gone completely … for now, the current series may well be a worthy reminder of why the character remains “incredible.”