Brian Banner
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Brian Banner is a character from the Marvel Comics Universe; created by Bill Mantlo and Mike Mignola, Brian Banner is the abusive father of Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk.
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Character history
As a child, Brian Banner and his mother were physically and emotionally abused by Brian's father; regarding his father as a monster and believing that he had inherited a "monster gene" from him, Brian promised himself that he would never have any children, for fear of bringing another Banner into the world.
In college, Brian meets Rebecca, whom he falls in love with and later marries; gaining a PhD in physics, Brian finds a job in Los Alamos working for the government as a member of a project trying to develop a clean way to create nuclear energy. The stress of his job eventually leads Brian to become an alcoholic and begin to develop anger problems, lashing out at others. Becoming drunk on the job one day, Brian accidentally overloads some machinery, causing an explosion that causes him to get fired. Despite doctors stating that the explosion has caused him no harm, Brian becomes convinced that the explosion in Los Alamos has affected him on the genetic level.
Despite his vow to never have children, Brian impregnates Rebecca, who gives birth to Bruce Banner. Instantly hateful of the young Bruce, who he believes to be a monster created from the radiation he was exposed to and the "monster gene", Brian ignores him completely and attempts to keep Rebecca away from him, leaving Bruce in the care of the neglectful Nurse Meachum. When Bruce wakes up early one Christmas morning and opens a present from his mother, a complex model, he assembles it easily despite his young age. Brian's discovery of this convinces him that his belief that Bruce was abnormal and different was correct and results in him beating Bruce and Rebecca when she comes to their son's aid. Forced to endure heavy abuse from Brian for several years, Rebecca attempts to escape him with Bruce. Finding Rebecca as she and Bruce are packing their belongings into a car, Brian attacks Rebecca, killing her by smashing her head against the pavement in front of Bruce. Under the threat of severe punishment, Brian manages to stop Bruce from testifying against him at his trial for Rebecca's murder, saying that if he did so, he would go to Hell. Intimidated by Brian, Bruce lies to the courts, stating that his father never abused him or Rebecca, who he says tried to run away for no reason. Brian escapes conviction due to lack of evidence, but is later arrested when, after becoming drunk, he boasts about how he beat the law by bullying his son. Taken away, kicking and screaming, Brian is at first put in prison, and then a mental institution.
After fifteen years of confinement, Brian, who is believed fit for reintroduction into society, is released into a reluctant Bruce's care. Living with Bruce causes Brian's delusions to begin again and, on the anniversary of Rebecca's death, Brian and Bruce engage in a verbal and later physical fight at Rebecca's grave during the stormy night. During the fight, Bruce accidentally kills Brian by knocking him into Rebecca's headstone with enough force to crack his head open.
Brian's ghost would continue to haunt Bruce's alter-ego, the Hulk, after his death, often appearing to taunt him, stating that he was no better than him; villains such as Mentallo, the Red Skull, Devil Hulk and Guilt Hulk would also use the image of Brian Banner against the Hulk, in an attempt to weaken him.
When Bruce Banner and the Hulk are fused back together after the events of Heroes Return, Bruce finds himself in Hell, where he meets Brian; at first terrorized by Brian, the Leader and the Maestro, Bruce eventually stands up to his father, attacking and strangling him before being returned to Earth by the spirit of his deceased wife, Betty Ross.
When the Hulk began to suffer from Lou Gehrig's disease, Mr. Fantastic, in order to cure him, has Brian Banner's grave dug up and his corpse exhumed, so as to collect some of his DNA; with this, Mr. Fantastic manages to successfully cure the Hulk. After this incident, Bruce Banner visits his father's grave and laments to himself that now he doesn't know how to feel about him.
In Avengers: The Initiative, the mutant hero Trauma, who has the power to change into an opponents worst fear, adopts the guise of Brian Banner to use against the Hulk. Unfazed by Trauma's transformation into Brian and other enemies of his, the Hulk beats him while stating he is afraid of nothing.
Other versions
House of M
In the House of M timeline created by the Scarlet Witch, Brian believes Bruce to be a mutant created through the radiation he experimented with and attempts to kill him; murdering Rebecca when she gets in his way, Brian, before he can harm the young Bruce, is shot to death by police who arrive at the scene. This is very similar to the scenario involving in the Hulk film (see below). Hulk (House of M) - Marvel Universe: The definitive online source for Marvel super hero bios
In other media
Television
In The Incredible Hulk television series, John Marley plays Brian, renamed D.W. Banner. D.W is a simple farmer who has a deceased wife, leaving David (as Bruce Banner was called on the show) and his daughter Helen with him. He was unaware that David had returned home after he visits his mother's grave. David in the flashback is more close to his mother, and both had antagonizing relationship where David wanted to go to a different college, D.W wanted him to go to an agricultural college. Before David leaves, D.W's final words to his son was "You can go anywhere you want to. You can go to hell for all I care!"
Later, when David transforms into the Hulk, Hulk flips over D.W's truck, and D.W. pursues after him, then sees David with Helen. D.W attempts to rekindle their relationship by inviting friends and family in their Thanksgiving dinner, but David declines due to becoming the Hulk, and puts another strain in their relationship. When D.W went to go flying with a friend, David notices screws on the plane were taken off by a man named Dean Eckart. David attempts to save them both while D.W witnesses David becoming the Hulk, who managed to save them. In an attempt to save him, D.W tells Hulk to run to prevent capture. When Jack McGee comes to the Banner farm, D.W. secretly gives David his belongings and gives Jack his hospitality while David goes away from home.
Film
In the 2003 Hulk film, Brian, renamed David Banner (a reference to the TV series), appears as a main antagonist and is portrayed by Nick Nolte, and Paul Kersey in the film's prologue and subsequent flashbacks. The character, as stated by Ang Lee, is simply called The Father.
In the film, David is a genetics researcher who, in his quest to improve on humanity, experiments on himself; after his wife, Edith Banner gives birth to Bruce, David, seeing that Bruce is not normal, barely showing emotion and gaining patches of green skin when he does, feels that he is responsible, realizing that his experiments on himself have affected Bruce. Trying to find a cure for Bruce's condition, David has his research shut down by General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross; going into a rage over the loss of his work and the hopelessness of Bruce's situation, David accidentally destroys his laboratory and kills Edith during a fight, before being arrested and confined to a mental institution; blocking his memories of David killing Edith, which haunt his nightmares, Bruce is taken into foster care.
Some years later, David is released from mental hospital and gets a job as a janitor at the research institute Bruce works at, in the same field as his father. Confronting Bruce on the night after he is blasted with radiation and nanobots, David reveals his relationship to him (Bruce had previously thought his biological father was dead) and steals some of his mutated DNA. Experimenting with Bruce's DNA on animals, David also sees his son's first transformation into the Hulk, which he soon becomes obsessed with copying.
Releasing three dogs he had mutated to kill Betty Ross, who had confronted him over what has happened with Bruce, David calls Bruce and tells him of this. Defeating the mutant dogs and saving Betty, Bruce is tranquilized and taken to a military facility, which David follows him to. As Bruce is held captive, David subjects himself to the same devices that gave Bruce the ability to change into the Hulk, giving himself the ability to absorb the properties of everything he touches (similar to the villain Absorbing Man from the Hulk comics). Finding Betty, David tells her that he will turn himself in if he is allowed to see Bruce one more time, also revealing to her that he had intended to murder Bruce (believing he would mutate out of control) when his research was originally shut down and that instead he ended up killing Edith when she tried to stop him.
Taken to Bruce, David is placed in a room with him, where they are placed between two electrical generators that will kill both of them if things got out of hand. Having descended into megalomania, David rants to Bruce about how the military has ruined their lives, also stating that the Hulk is his true son, and Bruce is just a shell for him. Biting some electrical wires, David becomes a being of pure electricity (similar to the villain Zzzax from the Hulk comics) while Bruce, upon seeing this, becomes the Hulk. Breaking out of the military facility and engaging each other, David and the Hulk crash into a lake, where David, becoming a being of stone and water, tries to absorb all the Hulk's energy, which the Hulk allows. Unable to contain the Hulk's energy, David swells into a gigantic energy bubble, which is blown apart by a Gamma Charge Bomb launched by General Ross, killing David.