Art by Dale Keown, Mark Farmer and Glynis Oliver
Some readers of this blog may already be aware of why there is an action figure of the Hulk in bunny slippers.
In short, the bunny slippers reference is from a few panels in Incredible Hulk 390, published all the way back in 1992 from the storyline “War & Pieces”. The Hulk and the Pantheon (a secret organisation he had hooked up with at the time) were undertaking some “peacekeeping” in the middle east and crossed swords with X factor (one of the proliferation of X Men teams).
The Bunny slippers were a gift from Hulk’s wife Betty. Betty and Bruce as you can imagine have a difficult marriage. They were kind of “on a break “ at the time. Betty was taking some time to acclimatise to the latest evolution in the Hulk. This is the period of Hulk history where the child like Hulk and rational Banner personalities had merged. Hulk was no longer a rampaging beast, he remained a green skinned behemoth, but had the intelligence of Banner, along with a very sharp tongue : "Professor" Hulk.
In the seemingly endless attempts at resolving the problem of the Hulk, the psychiatrist to superheroes in the Marvel universe, Dr. Leonard Sampson, had merged the three personalities, of the Hulk, banner, wise cracking grey (or if you’re American gray Hulk) Hulk and the child like Hulk that we’re had all grown accustomed to.
At the risk of going down more rabbit holes, the gray Hulk was a personality that emerged after a significant event in Hulk’s life. It was with this persona that Banner the transformed at night into the Hulk and worked for the mob in Vegas as Joe Fixit . After all, in his first few appearances in Tales To Astonish, the Hulk was grey. It was only an issue with colour (color) reproduction that made Marvel turned him green.
This isn’t the first time there has been a major shift in the personality of the Hulk and wouldn’t be the last. The most recent has been the horror themed storyline run by Al Ewin and Joe Bennet, “Immortal Hulk”, already considered a classic run.
Anyway, if you aren’t aware of the Peter David run of the Hulk and you are a comic fan, you should seek it out. It’s a witty and imaginative take on the character and has a who’s who of great artists including Todd McFarlane, Dale Keown, Gary Frank, Angel Medina and Liam Sharp. Sadly, Peter David (also co creator of Spiderman 2099) died last year, but he left some great stories.
Or, just take a gander at the great Hulk and Marvel universe related action figures, toys and games that TGC Collectables and the Game Collection are offering. Including bunny slippered Hulk, scheduled for release 26.8.26
They will definitely last longer than Hulk’s bunny slippers.
