#multplicity

Overdone

Existential dread

Results in abstract changes to development and perception of self

Asking my headmates “who am I?”

Underutilized resource

Straight answer

Somebody had to.

ALRIGHT SO THIS IS THE ISSUE WHERE I REALLY LOST MY SHIT

we actually get to see a flashback to bruce’s childhood, where he’s being abused by his father and can clearly see the “savage” or child hulk reacting to it afterwards -- this is many years before the hulk gets his own “body”, due to the radiation, but he already EXISTED. the hulk isn’t a monster, he’s just a manifestation of one of bruce’s alters; i can only assume that the stress of transformation is what brings them out, or rather, the stress of whatever caused the transformation gives them the ability to “take over”.

this is directly followed by a scene in present day where child hulk tearfully asks why he is upset and hurting all the time. which is kind of heartbreaking, because as an alter, his purpose was probably to box away those emotions for bruce as a child, almost certainly because if bruce reacted angrily to what was happening to him, he might have been hurt even worse by his father. but i digress.

then -- THEN -- we get devil hulk switching in again, and he divulges that the child hulk is more of a dormant alter nowadays, except for when he’s triggered in certain ways. and we finally get to hear someone describe bruce and the hulks as a SYSTEM (a multiple system!!!) and the hulks as “alters”, which has some medicalized baggage and not every multiple system likes it. devil hulk, clearly, does not like to call himself that.

and even further, it’s implied that he’s “taken charge” of the system, which is explored a little more in the next issue.