General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross is a fictional character who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually depicted as an archenemy of the Hulk. Ross is a United States military officer, the father of Betty Ross, ex-father in-law of Glenn Talbot,e father in-law of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, and was head of the Gamma Bomb Project that turned Banner in the Hulk. After the creation of the Hulk, Ross pursues the creature with a growing obsession, and after learning that Banner and the Hulk are one and the same, Ross hunts Banner as well. In 2008, Ross first appeared as the Red Hulk, into which he had been transformed in order to better combat his nemesis.

In 2009, Thunderbolt Ross was named IGN's 71st Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.^[1]

Fictional character biography [link]

Ross is a General in the Air Force who is in charge of Bruce Banner's gamma bomb project. His daughter, Betty, takes a liking to the young scientist, a fact which only enhances the dislike the rough Ross has for the "weakling" scientist Banner. After Banner's transformation into the Hulk, Ross spends years chasing the monster, becoming obsessed enough with it to commit treason by allying himself with the Leader, MODOK and the Abomination^[2] in order to destroy the Hulk. Dishonorably discharged, he shows up at Betty and Bruce's wedding with a gun, and shoots Rick Jones. He is recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Clay Quartermain to merge with the electric creature Zzzax, a process that gives Ross superpowers, but also makes him mentally unstable. He is later restored to human form but retains some residual energy-generating powers.

Finally, a mutant who drains people of their mental energy attacks Gamma Base in search for a strong host, in this case the Hulk. After witnessing Rick Jones (who was the Hulk at that time) and Banner heroically engaging the mutant, Ross, realizing that he has been wrong about the Hulk being a mindless monster, saves his daughter from being slain by allowing the mutant to latch onto him, and discharging the energy resources he retained from Zzzax. Giving his blessing to Bruce and Betty, he dies in his daughter's arms.

Ross' body is later stolen by the Leader, who uses the powers of one of his followers to resurrect Ross. He turns him into a mindless replacement for his fallen soldier Redeemer. Ross is eventually recovered and revived by agents of the alien Troyjan, and returns to the Air Force. He would later come up with a more cost-effective method of confronting the Hulk when he is in his child-like stage: active non-resistance. He and his men simply do not fire on or engage the Hulk in any way. The Hulk, confused, does not smash and leaps away.

Ross would make friends with Banner, but when Betty is seemingly killed due to what both Ross and Banner believed to have been Banner's gamma-irradiated DNA interacting with hers, he once more pursues the Hulk with a vendetta.

Around this time, General Ryker takes over the pursuit of the Hulk. Ross is indirectly involved, observing when Ryker mentally tortures Banner to try to figure out how the Hulk works. The Hulk escapes from Ryker's control and after several adventures, is lost in space.

After the Hulk returns from exile and initiates "World War Hulk", General Ross, now wearing the stars of a full general, makes his own return, electing to bring the fight to his nemesis once more after Iron Man is felled by the Goliath. After a failed assault on the Hulk, Ross and his men are captured and placed in chains under the watch of Hulk's Warbound, the army he has brought back from space. The Hulk is eventually defeated via satellite weapons that fire upon him, reverting him to human form.^[3]

Military branch [link]

Ross' military affiliation has been inconsistently portrayed in the comics. Many early Hulk stories depicted Ross as an Army general trying to capture or destroy the Hulk with his U.S. Army battalion, called the "Hulkbusters". However, he is also frequently seen in an Air Force uniform, as in his first appearance in Incredible Hulk #1. However, stories about his service during World War II portray him as an Army officer in the Army Air Forces, as the Air Force was not a separate branch of the Armed Forces until September 18, 1947. In a November 2010 Q&A column, then-Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada clarified that Ross is a member of the Air Force, and that inconsistencies in his uniform can be explained via the artistic license with which artists attempt to present a more dramatic-looking uniform, and that Ross may be a part of a special unit of the Air Force, or the Marvel Universe's version of it, which has its own unique dress code.^[4]

The army continuity is also followed in various Hulk adaptations, such as in the original 1966 and 1996–1998 cartoon versions of the Hulk, as well as the 2003 Ang Lee movie, Hulk in which he is portrayed by Sam Elliott, and in the 2008 superhero movie The Incredible Hulk, in which he is played by William Hurt. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Hulk 2004 issue officially indicates Ross to be a 3-star Lieutenant General in the U.S. Air Force.

Red Hulk [link]

Red Hulk (also known as Rulk^[5]) was introduced in 2008 in Hulk #1.^[6] The Red Hulk was created to boost sales and create buzz in the lead up to the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk,^[7] and depicted to be an uninhibited, tactically intelligent adversary to the Hulk.^[8][9] Although Kenneth Johnson, the creator of the 1970s TV series The Incredible Hulk, had suggested a red Hulk for that adaptation decades earlier,^[10] Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada proposed the idea for the comics to debut a red version of the character, whose human identity was a secret.^[11] Initially, Red Hulk's identity was unknown both to the characters in the story^[12] and to the reading audience.^[13]

The 2008 opening story arc of the current Hulk series established that the character is very aggressive, as the Red Hulk murders Hulk foes the Wendigo and Abomination; destroys the Helicarrier of the spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D.; defeats several Marvel heroes, and, after causing an earthquake in San Francisco, is finally defeated by the combined efforts of the Hulk and the thunder god Thor.

In a subsequent storyline, the Collector teams the character with other villains in a team called the Offenders, an evil version of superhero team the Defenders, in a bid to prevent the original Hulk from reuniting with past love Jarella.^[14] The subsequent "Code Red" story arc^[12] made further allusions to Red Hulk's real identity, and introduced a Red She-Hulk character.^[15]

It is later revealed that the Red Hulk was created as part of a Super Soldier program by persons including Doc Samson,^[16] and the criminal think tank Intelligencia,^[17] headed by the Hulk foe MODOK.^[18]

In Fall of the Hulks: Gamma, Red Hulk is related in flashback to have killed General Ross at the behest of Bruce Banner, with whom he has formed an alliance.^[19] However, the 2010 "World War Hulks" storyline reveals that Red Hulk is Thunderbolt Ross himself, the Red She-Hulk his daughter Betty,^[20] and that the Ross who was "killed" was a Life Model Decoy used to convince the world that he had died. Red Hulk then thwarts the Intelligencia's plan to take over the United States with a Life Model Decoy of Glenn Talbot by destroying the Talbot LMD, and attempts to take over the country himself.^[3] He is thwarted by a restored Hulk (in possession of Banner's intelligence) who beats Red Hulk. Red Hulk tells Hulk that it was his idea to fake Ross's death and that he can never again resume that identity. After imprisoning Red Hulk in the Gamma Base, Banner makes arrangements with Captain Steve Rogers for Red Hulk to join the Avengers.^[21][22]

Captain Steve Rogers then recruited Red Hulk to help him as Banner claimed that he removed the energy-draining ability from him since he was dying from it. Red Hulk managed to stop Intelligencia's failsafe plan called Scorched Earth. It was shown that Red Hulk still had his energy-absorption ability meaning that Banner was lying about having removed it.^[23] After the events of the Scorched Earth program, Red Hulk was occasionally assaulted by Thunderbolt Ross' former protege General Reginald Fortean (who used a special gun that caused remote-activated micro-mines to enter Red Hulk's brain that would take action if Red Hulk changed back), Zero/One (a scientist who was exposed to a virus created by MODOK), and Black Fog.^[24]

Red Hulk plays a vital role in the Infinity Gem crisis of the 2010 "Heroic Age" storyline. After being soundly defeated by a Power Gem-wielding Hood, he later helps Namor and Thor reclaim Namor's Time Gem from the ocean, and acquires the Power Gem from the Hood. Red Hulk is then inducted into the Avengers.^[25]

During the 2011 "Fear Itself" storyline, Red Hulk attempts unsuccessfully to stop the Thing (in the form of Angir: Breaker of Souls) from destroying the Avengers Tower,^[26] as MODOK Superior and Black Fog converge on both combatants during the fight.^[27] During the X-Sanction story arc, Red Hulk was infected with a techno organic virus by Cable,^[28] but was able to superheat his body and burn the virus out of his system.^[29]

During the "Avengers vs. X-Men" storyline, Red Hulk went up against Colossus. During the fight, Colossus, though in the process of finishing off Red Hulk, realizes they have damaged the pillar that holds up Utopia. Fearing he would continue losing control of his Juggernaut powers, Colossus then forfeits resulting in Red Hulk defeating him.^[30]

Powers and abilities [link]

General Thunderbolt Ross is a master strategist in war and military tactics.

Marvel editor Mark Paniccia has described the Red Hulk as "absolutely uninhibited, tactically intelligent",^[8] while writer Jeph Loeb states "The Red Hulk is the kind of Hulk we haven't seen before — a thinking, calculating, brutal weapon-toting kind of Hulk." To further distance the character away from the original: "Everything the Green Hulk isn't, the Red Hulk is."^[9] The character has abilities almost identical to those of the current Hulk. The Red Hulk, however, does not become stronger with anger, but rather emits increasing levels of heat.^[31] The character can also emit heat at will from his eyes during non-enraged periods, and can augment power levels by absorbing various types of energy, such as gamma radiation (in one instance causing the Hulk to revert to alter ego Bruce Banner)^[18] and the Power Cosmic.^[32] Red Hulk was created through a combination of gamma radiation and cosmic rays,^[17] and the satellites used to revert the Hulk to human form at the end of "World War Hulk" were used to power the device used to turn Ross into the Red Hulk.^[20] Unlike the green Hulk, the Red Hulk does not revert to human form when rendered unconscious, and his blood is a fluorescent yellow instead of green,^[31] remaining that color even in human form.^[3][20] Unlike the green Hulk, who gets stronger as his rage increases, Red Hulk's body temperature rises with his anger. Though the heat is intense enough to melt desert sand into glass, it causes him to weaken,^[31] as his physiology lacks a cooling mechanism to deal with the excess heat.^[20] Red Hulk has also been shown to have a weakness to Negative Zone energy, which caused him burning pain and drained him when he attempted to absorb it.^[33] He has recently displayed an ability to control this heat to the point where he was able to use it to 'cure' himself of the techno-organic virus that has plagued Cable for most of his life, burning it out of his system only a few moments after infection.

Red Hulk reception [link]

Comics featuring the Red Hulk have sold well, but received mixed reviews. The first five issues of the Hulk title sold out, and second printings featured new covers.^[34] Issue #6 was the second best-selling title of September 2008,^[35] and issue #10 was sixth in February 2009.^[36]

Augie De Blieck. Jr., of Comic Book Resources gave the first six issues a positive review, describing it as a "silly fun action romp" and a "popcorn comic". De Blieck liked Loeb's lack of subtlety when giving out clues, saying "this is a book where anytime someone is about reveal the solution to the big mystery, they get knocked out by a slap in the face from the Red Hulk or a machine gun to the gut". His one criticism was that, although he liked the artwork, he would have preferred Dale Keown as the artist.^[37]

IGN reviewer Jesse Schedeen was generally critical of the series, citing a lack of character development and the emphasis on continuous action sequences over the ongoing question of Red Hulk's identity.^[38] Schedeen also derided the treatment of other mainstream Marvel characters within the pages of Hulk, saying about issue #5 "The series has already treated She-Hulk and Iron Man like ragdolls who crumple under the awesome might of Red Hulk. Now it's Thor's turn".^[39] Claiming bad dialogue, poor pacing and maltreated characters, Schedeen stated that Ed McGuinness' artwork was the only saving grace for the title.^[38][39] In an interview with Loeb, Z. Julian Cenac of ComixFan.com noted that some readers were upset that the Red Hulk was able to thrash other powerful Marvel characters, and were concerned that such a high power-level would not be sustainable. Loeb replied, "I tell the best stories I can."^[40]

Other versions [link]

• In the Marvel 1602 sequel 1602: New World, an Admiral Ross of the Royal Navy captains a vessel sent to Roanoke to quell the "Witchbreed", including the 1602 version of the Hulk.^[41]
• In the 1995–1996 crossover "Age of Apocalypse", General "Thunderbolt" Ross is a member of the Human High Council, a movement dedicated to protecting humans from the murderous rampages of Apocalypse. ^[42]
• In Amalgam Comics, Ross appears as the head of Project Cadmus. He is depicted far more sympathetically, as he adopts Spider-Boy and gives him the name Pete Ross after feeling sorry for the clone. He plays a role similar to Uncle Ben, as he is called "Uncle Gen" by Pete. After he is killed by a mugger, Pete decides to become a hero.^{[volume & issue needed]}
• In the alternate world of newuniversal, General Thad Ross is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He comes under criticism for his use of nuclear weapons on superhumans.^[43][44]
• In the Ultimate Marvel universe, General Ross (clearly identified in Ultimate FF #1 as an Army general) is the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.. He later retires from that role and becomes a government liaison to the think tank that runs the Fantastic Four, with General Glenn Talbot assisting him.^[45]
• In Chris Giarrusso's all-ages series Mini Marvels, Thunderbolt Ross' Red Hulk form is depicted as a friendlier character with limited intelligence, and a friend of the Mini Marvel Green Hulk and Blue Hulk. His human form is seen in the "Hulk Date" story^{[volume & issue needed]} letting Betty go on a date with the Hulk but sends a Hulkbuster robot after him to keep him from trying any "funny stuff."
• In the "Marvel Noir" universe, a man named Ross is mentioned by Edwin Jarvis as a person he knew in World War 1. ^[46]
• In the 1996-1997 "Heroes Reborn" storyline, Ross was present during World War II, and was present as Captain America protested the use of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima when meeting with President Truman. This would prompt Ross to put Nick Fury in charge of the new S.H.I.E.L.D agency to deal with Captain America.^[47] Decades later, Ross was made the Chief of Staff for the United States military. At the time of his first recorded appearance, he was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. He was visited by his daughter Liz Ross, who was then security chief at Stark International.^[48]

In other media [link]

Television [link]

• General Thunderbolt Ross appears in the 1982 NBC animated series The Incredible Hulk voiced by Robert Ridgely.
• In the 1996 UPN The Incredible Hulk animated series, General Thunderbolt Ross is voiced by John Vernon. As in the comics, is a 3-star general who sends Army forces and Hulkbusters to capture or destroy the Hulk. He also fights the Hulk personally, using a laser gun Bruce Banner created against the creature in "Return of the Beast, part 1 and 2", and again in "Darkness and Light part 3".
• Thunderbolt Ross appears in the Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes episode "Hard Knocks." He made a cameo at the end when the Army arrests Agent Pratt and his men.
• Thunderbolt Ross appears in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes voiced by Keith Ferguson. He and his army have been pursuing Bruce Banner. Thunderbolt Ross caught up to Hulk during his desert fight with Absorbing Man. When Black Widow and Hawkeye arrive with some S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and is told to stand down, Thunderbolt Ross stated in a transmission to Black Widow that he told Nick Fury to stay out of his hunt for Hulk. During Hulk's fight with the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, Thunderbolt Ross goes against Black Widow's orders and fires a missile which Hulk redirects to a rock formation. Red Hulk appears in "Nightmare in Red", under the service of Dell Rusk.
• General Thunderbolt Ross appears in the Iron Man: Armored Adventures episode "Heavy Mettle". He buys the vibranium/adamantium alloy-coated Iron Monger robot from Stark International as "part of the biggest military contract in history".
• Red Hulk will appear in Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.^[49]

Film [link]

• Actor Sam Elliott played the role of General Ross in the 2003 movie Hulk, directed by Ang Lee. In the film, it is revealed that Ross was responsible for locking away Bruce's father David Banner when Bruce was 4 years old, after learning of David's dangerous experiments. Thunderbolt Ross sees Bruce as a threat because he fears that Bruce might follow in his father's footsteps.
• William Hurt portrayed General Ross in director Louis Leterrier's 2008 feature film, The Incredible Hulk released on June 13, 2008.^[50] In this version, he was in charge of Banner's research into creating potential 'super soldiers' using gamma radiation, though he had led Banner to believe that the experiments were intended to develop resistance and treatment for radiation poisoning.

Video games [link]

• General Ross made a cameo in the Hulk video game (based on Ang Lee's Hulk film). General John Ryker called Ross on a cell phone confirming Betty's safety after Hulk "kidnapped" her.
• Thunderbolt Ross appears in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction video game voiced by Dave Thomas. In the game, he teams up with Division Director Emil Blonsky to get rid of the Hulk by sending armed forces. In the Proving Grounds section, Ross creates the Hulkbuster Destroyer prototype to battle the Hulk but destroyed it. In Turning Point, Ross creates a Hulkbuster Titan for him to control that can shoot missiles, gatling guns, and laser beams. After the Hulk's capture, Ross opens his mind and Samson reminds him to treat Banner fairly. After Hulk and Abomination destroy his base, Ross orders his enforcers to destroy the two. By the end of the game, Abomination attempts to flood the city, but is stopped by the Hulk. It is presumed that General Ross begins his hunt for the Hulk once again.
• General Thunderbolt Ross appears in The Incredible Hulk video game voiced by William Hurt. Thunderbolt Ross' Red Hulk form is a playable character in GameStop's Xbox 360 exclusive version of the game.^[51]
• Thunderbolt Ross' Red Hulk form is available as an alternate costume of The Hulk in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2,^[52] the Marvel Super Hero Squad video game, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, and Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet.
• Red Hulk is a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online.

Other merchandise [link]

Red Hulk has been merchandised in the form of toy action figures^[53][54][55] and miniature statues.^[56]

Collected editions [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

• Red Hulk (Thunderbolt Ross) at Marvel.com
• Red Hulk at Marvel Wikia
• Red Hulk at the Comic Book DB
• Jeph Loeb's Red Hulk Interview, IGN, November 27, 2007