3 Ways the Incredible Hulk Could Defeat Superman

When it comes to pure, unadulterated strength in the comic book arena, Superman and the Incredible Hulk embody this attribute more than any other characters. Basically, they are the respective titans and strength-standards in their respective Comic Book Universes – as long as you’re not considering ethereal cosmic entities that are so large they can’t even viably fit on a planet.

Superman gets his tremendous strength by way of his Kryptonian heritage; a yellow sun (or brighter) unlocks his absurdly-powerful biology and gives rise to a host of powers and abilities far above even those of other super-humans. Kal-El, as he is also known, is basically a god in human form. Indeed; there’s an especially-telling comic book favorite of ours where Kal went toe-to-toe with an enraged Apollo – the Greek/Roman god of the sun – and sent him tumbling into defeat like so many spent photons traveling from distant stars.

The Incredible Hulk is also a virtually incomparable beast. Whereas Superman gets his abilities as a result of his alien biology, Hulk gets his from a gamma bomb event. Dr. Bruce Banner was just a normal (inasmuch as a genius nuclear physicist can be called normal) human involved in a freak scientific accident that endowed him with an unbelievably-powerful physique.

When Bruce gets angry, he gains mass and becomes a huge, gamma energy-infused green humanoid possessing mountainous strength. The angrier he becomes, the greater his strength also becomes. He is very durable, too, with a healing factor that is ultra-efficient. It has been shown that many of Hulk’s other attributes continue to scale upward as his wrath grows.

By general consensus, it is often argued that Superman would probably win a fight with the Hulk. In this short article, however, we will analyze each of Hulk’s prodigious powers, and see just how well they might stack up in a bout with the Last Son of Krypton.

The Hulk is very, very, strong, and can slam the palms of his hands together to create a pressure sonic wave that decimates buildings and knocks the crap out of superheroes and supervillains alike.

As he gets angrier, this thunderclap becomes even more powerful, and may be capable of sending even Superman careening backwards. Of course, it cannot kill Superman by itself – the Man of Steel is too durable for that – but it just might take him aback enough for Hulk to start pummeling him.

Furthermore, once Hulk’s wrath passes a certain threshold, the thunderclap gives him redirection abilities: if Supes tries to punch him into space, Hulk’s thunderclap can send him in any other direction at superspeed. The clap is attended by a brilliant green flash, as though to intimate chemical reactions reaching deep into the valence shells of the air molecules.

It is not certain whether the thunderclap would work quite as well in airless space, however. Truly, as the Green Scar powers up, his thunderclap can become a formidable force to be reckoned with – rendering entire mountains into cascading armies of pebbles

In World War Hulk, the Hulk became angry-enough to emit powerful radiation in all directions. This radiation was of a gamma-level, meaning it was the most powerful spectrum possible. It was certainly very dangerous for other super-humans to be around in the massive World War Hulk series, and was threatening to destroy the planet Earth. Superman has not only punched a planet to pieces using his infinite mass punch, he’s also survived being crushed by two colliding planets.

It’s important to note, however, that the collision knocked him cold out – which means that Hulk does have a chance of knocking Superman unconscious with such a blow. He has to level up to this extreme level, however; and merely fighting Superman doesn’t seem like it would be enough to cause the amount of anger required. In the Planet Hulk/World War Hulk run, the worst things you can do to a man to incite his fury had been done to get Hulk to this level; can Superman even conceivably do the same? Doubtful.

Everyone knows that the Hulk is brutally strong. How strong? Well, at his base, perhaps only Wonder Man, the Thing and a motivated Thor can match his strength in the Marvel Universe. When Hulk unleashes his anger, he then surpasses everyone except maybe an unleashed Thor Odinson; and, eventually, even the god of thunder.

Hulk once held up a 150 billion ton mountain in Secret Wars! Although it’s doubtful whether Hulk could hurt Superman by punching him at his albeit monstrous baseline strength, he can certainly pummel the Man of Steel if he gets angry enough.

All I’m saying is that it’s possible; in “reality,” we cannot expect Superman to take all this without firing back. In the Death of Superman, the Man of Tomorrow took a tremendous punch from Doomsday without even breaking a sweat – it was a punch that could very well have killed other durable superheroes outright.

So; keep that in mind when considering whether or not a baseline Hulk could even harm the Man of Steel. The primary problem, as we see it, is the extreme amount of leveling up that the Incredible Hulk would have to do before putting Superman in the danger level.