Hulk Shouts with Clenched Fists

About this drawing

Hulk yelling started with a science accident. In the Marvel comics, Dr. Bruce Banner was working on a gamma bomb, a weapon that gives off a powerful kind of radiation. During a test, he spotted a teenager in the danger zone and raced out to save him.

Banner got the young man to safety, but he took the full blast of gamma rays himself. That radiation changed his body forever. From then on, at certain moments, he turned into a huge and incredibly strong creature: Hulk.

Creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby borrowed ideas from classic horror stories, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which a man transforms into someone completely different. They also thought of Frankenstein's monster, a powerful creature everyone fears even though he is not truly evil.

Gamma rays are real. They are invisible radiation, and in real life they do not give anyone superpowers. They can be very dangerous, but doctors use them carefully to treat some illnesses and to sterilize medical equipment. Luckily, real science is mostly used to help people rather than to create giant green heroes, and scientists take great care when they work with radiation.

• hulk
• marvel
• gamma rays
• bruce banner