Captain America: Brave New World Introduces Red Hulk. But Thunderbolt Ross’s Alter Ego Has History.

NO ONE WOULD call the U.S. presidency an easy job, but the newly-elected Thaddeus Ross has it particularly rough in Captain America: Brave New World. Not only does he come to the office with a reputation as a war-mongering hot-head, earning him the nickname “Thunderbolt,” but he has to negotiate a difficult multinational treaty concerning the remains of a Celestial in the Indian Ocean, as seen in the MCU movie Eternals.

Worse, he’s getting messages from Samuel Sterns, a scientist Ross wronged before taking the presidency. Sterns’s taunting messages compound the stress that Ross faces, driving him to embrace the internal anger he’s tried to leave behind.

Even if you haven’t yet seen Anthony Mackie’s first outing as Captain America, you probably know why Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) devotes so much time to prodding Ross (Harrison Ford). Every single commercial, trailer, and poster for Brave New World features Ross transformed into the Red Hulk.

Promotional spoiling notwithstanding, Brave New World treats Ross’s Red Hulk moment as a surprise addition to the MCU. But it isn’t that much of a surprise, given that the Red Hulk debuted in Marvel Comics in 2008, as part of the lead-up to the movie that most strongly influenced Brave New World, The Incredible Hulk (which, of course, starred Edward Norton—and not Mark Ruffalo—as the titular character).

Thanks to these connections, the Red Hulk is a natural fit for Sam Wilson’s enemy, a relationship underscored by the Red Hulk’s odd comic book history.

“Who is the Red Hulk?” was one of the most burning questions among Marvel Comics readers back in 2008, when writer Jeph Loeb and artist Ed McGuinness relaunched a new Hulk ongoing series. The first issue begins with a fantastic hook: longtime Hulk enemy the Abomination, the big bad of The Incredible Hulk (the character you remember being played by Tim Roth in The Incredible Hulk and later in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law), beaten to a pulp and shot with a gun.

Loeb and McGuinness stretched the mystery over several years, only dropping occasional hints about the person behind this angrier and much smarter version of the Hulk. Today, we know that Red Hulk is Thunderbolt Ross. But to truly understand the tragic irony of the reveal, it’s important to know the history of Ross’s rivalry with Bruce Banner, the green Hulk we all know so well.

General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross made his debut in 1962’s The Incredible Hulk #1, written by Stan Lee and penciled by Jack Kirby, belting out orders and demanding action. When Bruce Banner, the lead scientist on the gamma bomb project, suggests that perhaps the U.S. should be more thoughtful about the way it uses weapons, Ross balks, “Bah!! A bomb is a bomb! The problem with you is you’re a milksop! You’ve got no guts!”

Once Banner gets irradiated by the bomb and becomes the Hulk, he has plenty of guts. Too much, in fact, which gives Ross his life’s work: hunting the Hulk. From the ‘60s on, Ross goes to every extreme to bring in the Hulk, alienating himself from his daughter Betty in the process. Unlike his MCU counterpart, Thunderbolt Ross of the comics enjoys very little public support. His pursuit of the Hulk has made him into something of a monster himself.

That, of course, is the tragic twist at the center of the Red Hulk storyline. So desperate is Ross, so single-minded is he, that he allows himself to become the thing he hates the most. He undergoes a procedure to become the Red Hulk, without truly considering the source of his new power. Ross opens himself up to manipulation by Samuel Sterns aka the Leader, to the point that he threatens to overthrow the government and even attacks the capitol building.

By the end of Loeb and McGuinness’s Hulk run, Ross sacrificed everything to become the Red Hulk: his position, his dignity, and his family. He closes the story a broken man.

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How The Rage of the Red Hulk Continues

Despite the completed arc at the end of the Hulk story, the Red Hulk proved massively popular, and thus Marvel found ways to keep bringing him back. Steve Rogers himself recruited a reformed Ross to join the Avengers as Red Hulk, with whom he battled the demonic villain the Hood and a cursed version of the Thing from the Fantastic Four. When not with the Avengers, Ross led the Thunderbolts, a black ops version of the team that counted Deadpool, the Punisher, and Elektra as members.

Red Hulk had his own enemies to deal with, chief among them a former ally named General Reginald Fortean. Believing that Red Hulk killed Ross, Fortrean begins hunting the creature, inadvertently recreating Ross’s own treatment of Banner. Worse, Ross learns that his daughter Betty has followed in his footsteps, first becoming the human-looking Red She-Hulk and later a more monstrous, hideous harpy.

Finally, Banner used his increased intelligence to free Ross from his bestial persona, allowing him to rehabilitate his military career. But that wasn’t the end of the Red Hulk.

In the excellent, underrated 2017 series U.S.Avengers, by writer Al Ewing and Paco Medina, General Robert Maverick of the U.S. military gains Red Hulk powers through nanites invented by the super-science collective known as American Intelligence Mechanics or AIM. Although not as strong as the Ross version, Maverick had greater self-control than Red Hulk and thus worked as a more reliable team player than his predecessor. Plus, he retained his mustache while in Red Hulk form, making easily the most stylish and reliable Hulk yet.

At least, that’s how it seemed. In the new miniseries Sam Wilson, Captain America, Sam investigates a floating island created by shady tech bros only to find Maverick working as their security. Maverick clearly has some of his moral compass in check, but his frustration at what he thinks is an imposter Sam Wilson turns him into the Red Hulk, suggesting that maybe he’s not in control of himself anymore.

Return of the Red Hulk?

Although he’s only been around for seventeen years, the Red Hulk already has an interesting backstory. The tragedy of Ross’s downfall and the combination of the Hulk’s ability to smash with the precision of the U.S. military offers endless storytelling potential.

It’s too soon to tell how the general public will receive Captain America: New World Order. But as the Marvel Comics have already shown, the Red Hulk is one monster that will never go away, no matter how hard Sam Wilson fights to bring him down.