The Immortal Hulk Review: Horror Meets Superhero
Al Ewing and Joe Bennett's body-horror reinvention of the Hulk.
By Web Admin
For decades, the Hulk was a tragic hero: a good man cursed with a monster he couldn’t control. Al Ewing and Joe Bennett asked a scarier question — what if the monster was the point? The Immortal Hulk, launched by Marvel in 2018 and running roughly 50 issues to 2021, reinvented Marvel’s rage-monster as a body-horror nightmare that comes back from every death, walks the earth at night, and drags a truly cosmic mythology behind it. It’s one of the most acclaimed superhero runs of its era, and it is genuinely frightening. Content warning up front: this book is full of graphic body horror. Here’s our full review.
What is The Immortal Hulk?
The Immortal Hulk is a Marvel ongoing series written by Al Ewing and drawn primarily by Joe Bennett (inked by Ruy José and colored by Paul Mounts, with additional art from Lee Garbett, Joe Bennett’s collaborators, and others). It ran for 50 issues from 2018 to 2021. The premise reframes everything you thought you knew: Bruce Banner has been dying and coming back for years, and the Hulk isn’t just anger made flesh — he’s something older, angrier, and harder to kill than death itself.
The early issues adopt a monster-of-the-week horror structure: Banner drifts across America, dies during the day, and rises as the Hulk at night to punish the cruel and corrupt. But the book steadily expands outward into a sprawling mythology involving gamma radiation as a metaphysical force, a place beyond death, and a final threat that puts the entire universe at stake.
The premise: the Hulk as horror
The masterstroke is treating the Hulk as a horror-movie monster rather than a superhero. He’s slow, implacable, and terrifying. He heals from anything. He knows things Banner doesn’t. Ewing seeds the run with classic horror DNA — the vengeful revenant, the haunted family, the thing in the dark that cannot be reasoned with — and Bennett draws it with a relish for the grotesque that makes every transformation genuinely disturbing. Limbs regrow. Bones rearrange. Faces open where faces shouldn’t. This is a Hulk you’re afraid of, and that fear is the whole point.
The “green door” and the mythology
At the heart of the run is the “green door” — a threshold to a place below reality that Ewing calls the Below-Place, ruled by a malevolent force tied to gamma radiation. The book reframes gamma not as a science-fiction accident but as something closer to a curse, a doorway that keeps pulling Banner and others back from death. Over its 50 issues, the run builds this cosmology patiently, folding in decades of obscure Hulk history — Doc Samson, the Leader, the various “personalities” inside Banner — and making it all feel purposeful. It’s dense, mythic, and surprisingly moving.
Bruce Banner and the personalities
One of the run’s smartest choices is taking Banner’s dissociative identities seriously. The gentle “Devil Hulk,” the childlike “Savage Hulk,” the cold and cruel gamma-charged intellect — Ewing treats them as distinct facets of a traumatised mind, rooted in Banner’s abusive childhood. The result is a character study as much as a horror epic. Banner has rarely been written with this much psychological depth, and the supporting cast — Betty Ross, Rick Jones, Jackie McGee, General Fortean — all get real arcs of their own.
The art: Joe Bennett’s grotesque brilliance
Joe Bennett’s artwork, inked by Ruy José and colored by Paul Mounts, is the run’s beating (and bleeding) heart. Bennett draws the Hulk as a slab of muscle and menace, but it’s his body horror that sears itself into memory — the notorious transformations, the anatomical wrongness, the sheer physical dread of watching a body do things bodies shouldn’t. The colors shift from sickly green to deep shadow, and the layouts frequently break into disorienting, nightmarish structures. It is, page for page, some of the most memorably horrifying mainstream superhero art ever published.
Content warning
This one comes with a real warning. The Immortal Hulk is graphic. Expect extreme body horror, gore, dismemberment, disturbing imagery, and heavy themes including trauma, abuse, and suicide. It is a mature-readers book in every sense, and it is not for the squeamish or for younger readers. If gore genuinely upsets you, this is not your Hulk.
Pros and cons
Pros
- A bold, genuinely scary reinvention of a familiar character
- Ambitious cosmic mythology that pays off over 50 issues
- Career-best horror art from Joe Bennett
- Real psychological depth for Banner and the cast
Cons
- Extremely graphic body horror — not for everyone
- The dense mythology can be demanding late in the run
- Heavy, upsetting themes throughout
How the run breaks down
Fifty issues is a commitment, so here’s the shape of it if you’d rather collect in parts.
- Issues #1–10 — The horror-anthology opening. Banner, the green door, and the monster-of-the-night structure.
- Issues #11–25 — The mythology expands; Shadow Base and the government hunt escalate.
- Issues #26–40 — The Hulk goes public and cosmic; the stakes widen dramatically.
- Issues #41–50 — The universe-spanning endgame and a genuinely satisfying conclusion.
Which edition should you buy?
The run has been collected several ways, from cheap single trades to a pair of big omnibuses.
| Edition | Collects | Format | Approx. price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vol. 1: Or Is He Both? | Issues #1–5 | Paperback | ~US$16 | Trying it out |
| Trade paperbacks (10 vols) | The full run | Paperback | ~US$16–18 each | Reading in chunks |
| Immortal Hulk Omnibus (2 vols) | All 50 issues | Oversized HC | ~US$100 each | The definitive shelf copy |
Volume 1 is a perfect, cheap test — if the first five issues hook you (they will if the tone is for you), commit to the omnibuses, where Bennett’s art looks spectacular at scale.
AmazonCheck price on AmazonWhere it fits and what to read next
The Immortal Hulk is the modern high-water mark for the character and an easy inclusion on our list of the best comic book runs. If it makes you want to explore the Jade Giant’s history, our Hulk reading order traces the character from his 1962 debut through Peter David’s landmark run and up to Ewing — though this book stands almost entirely on its own. It also belongs on any serious shelf of best Marvel graphic novels, proof that Marvel’s biggest icons still have room for radical reinvention.
Fans of horror comics more broadly will find this a natural gateway — it takes the genre as seriously as any dedicated horror title while keeping one foot firmly in superhero spectacle.
The verdict
The Immortal Hulk is a triumph — a horror epic that made one of Marvel’s oldest characters feel dangerous and new again. It’s graphic, demanding, and occasionally upsetting, but it’s also ambitious, intelligent, and gorgeously (horribly) drawn, with an ending that actually sticks the landing across 50 issues. If you can stomach the gore, it’s one of the best Marvel comics of the last decade and a standout in our Marvel hub.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know the Hulk’s history to read this?
No. It reintroduces everything you need and works as a standalone horror epic. Longtime fans will catch more of the deep-cut references, but newcomers can dive straight in.
How graphic is The Immortal Hulk?
Very. It features extreme body horror, gore, and disturbing imagery, plus heavy themes of trauma and abuse. It’s a mature-readers book and not suitable for younger or squeamish readers.
Is the run complete?
Yes. It runs 50 issues from 2018 to 2021 and tells a complete story with a definitive ending, fully collected in trades and two omnibus volumes.
Is this the scariest superhero comic?
It’s certainly among them. Ewing and Bennett fully commit to horror, making it one of the most genuinely frightening mainstream superhero books ever published.
Dig into the character’s past with our Hulk reading order, or explore more essentials in the Marvel hub.
