It was the early 1960s when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby put their heads together to come up with a character that could take on the military around the world. They decided to take a lesson from Victor Hugo's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and add a sci fi twist to their creation, the Incredible Hulk.

At first the Hulk was gray in color due to some printing accident or maybe he was green and then turned gray. Anyway, the Hulk hit Marvel's fans like a tornado. They couldn't get enough of him and fifty years later he's now featured in one of the top box office blockbusters of all time.

Yes, the Incredible Hulk, the tortured being not fit for humanity but always seeking a place to rest his head from the onslaught of military industrialists who want to use his power for their sinister purposes.

The Hulk's origin takes place in the deserts of the South West. There, mild mannered genius scientist Dr. Bruce Banner is about to test his Gamma Bomb, a weapon designed to be of extraordinary power. The U.S. Military are counting on Banner to win the Cold War for them should the communists attack. There in the bunker where the military brass have hunkered down, they await Banner's great experiment. Suddenly, Banner sees a car outside in the desert and rushes out to save young Rick Jones from the impending blast. Banner, having just saved Jones is caught in the Gamma radiation of his own bomb. Almost dying, Banner is placed under hospital care until he suddenly turns into the Incredible Hulk and almost destroys the facility. Soon he is hounded night and day by the military and super villains who all want his power for their own.

At first Banner turned into the Hulk at a full moon or night but Lee and Kirby and later artist Herb Trimpe had the Hulk transform due to his boundless rage. Never knowing when he'd turn angry Banner then wandered from place to place ever encountering menaces to mankind where his sheer rage and power would defeat.

The Hulk is one of Marvel's most powerful characters and has been known to take on cosmic powered beings and those of mythical creation. The bottom line with the Hulk is that the angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. In that condition, hulk is unstoppable.

This is what makes the Hulk such a threat to the entire world and more. Sometimes the Hulk would be a mindless brute, destroying anything in his path. On other occasions he's a somewhat lucid and able to control himself, and at other times he's his brilliant Bruce Banner self, helping to save the free world and being a part of several superhero groups.

His original love was Betty Bryant, daughter of his arch nemesis General Bryant. The Hulk's earliest and most popular villains were the Leader and the Abomination. Both were spawns of gamma ray experiments and became quite the foils for the Hulk.