There have been plenty of Hulks over the years, but Ultimate Marvel’s Nerd Hulk may be one of the most tragic.
There was quite a lot of opportunity to invent and explore in the Ultimate Marvel line, and if any character proves that a beloved character could be reinvented it was Nerd Hulk. The brainy brawler was everything from a clone to a vampire in his short lifespan, and he still stands as one of Ultimate Marvel’s most strikingly bizarre creations,
Introduced in Ultimate Comics Avengers #3, by Mark Millar, Steve Dillon and Andy Lanning, the origins for the man that came to be known as Nerd Hulk date as far back as the rivalry between the genius billionaire Tony Stark and his genius billionaire brother Gregory. Never one to be outdone by his brother, Gregory set out to create his own super team to not only rival the Ultimates but in fact to improve upon them in every way possible. Toward that end he knew he needed his own Hulk, but how do you improve on the strongest one there is? You make him smart, naturally.
Enter Nerd Hulk, cloned from DNA recovered from Bruce Banner and created to retain all of Banner’s intelligence while housed in the powerful body of the Hulk himself. The concept is not an idea altogether unfamiliar to Marvel, wherein the mainstream continuity instances like Professor Hulk showed just how much the powerhouse could accomplish when focused with the keen intellect of a super genius. The Ultimate Universe’s take on “smart” Hulk was that this version actually turned out to be a whole lot less than the sum of his parts.
After finally going into his first combat assignment — once he finally found the right clothes and glasses to make him look dignified — Nerd Hulk swiftly had his keister kicked by Captain America even when the star-spangled superhero was drastically outnumbered by the rest of Nerd Hulk’s team. When Cap put the eloquent behemoth down he called Nerd Hulk’s creators idiots. “You took away his edge!” Cap exclaimed. That first fight set much of the pattern for Nerd Hulk thereafter, and what proceeded was the peculiar life of a Hulk more often bullied than beastly.
Nerd Hulk did not have the original’s true power because he could not be the open wound of raw rage the Jade Giant is best known for. His own insecurities and apprehensions held him back, limiting his usefulness in a critical fight against the Red Skull and causing him to quickly be overrun by vampires during an infestation in New York. His vampiric infection proved to be his swan song story arc: with the vampiric powers drastically increasing his lethality at the cost of his soul, he turned Stick and Daredevil to the dark side and even killed the Thor-like Perun. But in the end, it was Captain America yet again who would put him in his place.