Did the Hulk kill Jim Wilson?

[Leebenhouse]

Alright, here's my reasoning. In Peter David's run, specifically in the late 380s, we learn Jim Wilson, Hulk's former sidekick, got HIV, and he died from AIDS in Hulk #420. In that issue he asks Hulk for a blood transfusion, so he can be cured of AIDS. Hulk turns him down because he doesn't want his friend to turn into a monster like him. Last time he had given someone a blood transfusion he turned his cousin into She-Hulk.

Wouldn't basically the same thing have happened to Jim Wilson, that he would have become a Jim Wilson-Hulk, ala She-Hulk?? Jim Wilson never had a hidden traumatic childhood which led to a subverted personality, so wouldn't he have basically turned into a green strong person ala Jen Walters?

He wouldnt have been exposed to random Gamma rays like the survivors of Middletown who became the Leader's servants. Instead he would have gotten semi-controlled Banner-blood that contained Hulk DNA, likely making him strong like Banner after his "complete" transformation or Jen Walters and her She-Hulk transformation.

Instead he died.

Y'know it seems like in the Marvel Universe, gamma rays are easier to cure than HIV, so Jim could have gotten cured of his possible monster status as well as his AIDS. So in all likelyhood, Bruce Banner killed Jim Wilson.

Thoughts, anyone?

[CyberCoyote]

I forgot about Jim :(

I wouldn't say he killed him by NOT doing the blood transfusion thing. It was a good story with the recognition of the horrors of the AIDS virus and I thought the ultimate moral to the story was that it wasn't right to 'fix' something by changing it into something that might be even more dangerous.

What if the AIDS virus mutated too and became even deadlier and easier to transfer? I don't think they brought that up, but it's the first thing that comes to mind to me.

Now I've gotta go dig that issue outta the basement..

[dingo]

Genetic mutations and gamma radiation don't act as predictably that.

He may have ended up like She-Hulk or he may have ended up like Hulk, basically an uncontrolable monster.

Did he kill him? No.

He just refused to save his life at the possible risk of millions of others.

[Haunt]

did they even have the same blood type?

[kalorama]

There was no guarantee a transfusion would have saved his life.

[kalorama]

Thoughts, anyone?


Yeah. That's a pretty twisted piece of logic used to reach that conclusion.

If Gamma rays are so easy to "cure" why is Banner still the Hulk? Or Emil Blonsky still the Abomination?

[Leebenhouse]

Yeah. That's a pretty twisted piece of logic used to reach that conclusion.

If Gamma rays are so easy to "cure" why is Banner still the Hulk? Or Emil Blonsky still the Abomination?
A million different reasons, If you've read a lot of the long term stuff you'd know why. Hell the Leader lost his gamma based powers, Rick Jones was a hulk, and Banner even had built a machine to purposely turn himself from the hulk to human at will, leading to the creation of the Abomination, who subsequently smashed the machine so he couldnt be changed back.

Didn't She-Hulk have a device that would let her change from She-Hulk to Jen Walters at will in her latest series? Gamma rays are easy to cure on everyone but main characters.

[dingo]

A million different reasons, If you've read a lot of the long term stuff you'd know why. Hell the Leader lost his gamma based powers, Rick Jones was a hulk, and Banner even had built a machine to purposely turn himself from the hulk to human at will, leading to the creation of the Abomination, who subsequently smashed the machine so he couldnt be changed back.

Didn't She-Hulk have a device that would let her change from She-Hulk to Jen Walters at will in her latest series? Gamma rays are easy to cure on everyone but main characters.

The She-Hulk device was just an augment to her own changing abilities.

Seems to me that changing people back from gamma changes is a hit and miss affair. It is not even close to guaranteed. The logic just doesn't work I'm afraid.

[drwho]

So why doesn't Hulk cure everyone with his blood? Cus life would go into chaos. I don't think this is something that should be on the Hulk's conscience. I was a little pissed off when they gave patriot blood from another hero which just happend to give him super powers. Would have preferred if he had the transfusion, but didn't get powers from it.

[Leebenhouse]

Heck, everybody gets powers from superhero blood. Spitfire got her powers from Human Torch's blood, She-Hulk from Hulk's blood, Patriot from Josiah X's blood, etc... I'm sure there's about a half a dozen more.

[kalorama]

Banner even had built a machine to purposely turn himself from the hulk to human at will...

Controlling the symptoms isn't the same as curing the disease. He was (and still is) the Hulk.

[dingo]

Spitfire got her powers from Human Torch's blood

What was the deal with that?
He was an android :confused:

[Leebenhouse]

Well, as far as I can remember, he was using the machine to quite literally permantly change himself each time.

The machine had variable settings, so that the hulk/Banner could control the exposure, Abomination set it to the max turned himself into a monster, and smashed the machine so he couldn't go back.

Edit, Torch was an artificial man, quite literally, he once used Rogaine(minoxodil) to grow a beard.

[drwho]

Well, as far as I can remember, he was using the machine to quite literally permantly change himself each time.

The machine had variable settings, so that the hulk/Banner could control the exposure, Abomination set it to the max turned himself into a monster, and smashed the machine so he couldn't go back.

Edit, Torch was an artificial man, quite literally, he once used Rogaine(minoxodil) to grow a beard.

What was the reason for bruce not building a new machine?

[kalorama]

Well, as far as I can remember, he was using the machine to quite literally permantly change himself each time.

If he was changing back and forth then, by definition, the change was not permanent, was it? (And don't even get me started about the careless way people misuse the word "literally." Adding "quite" in front of it makes ait a felony.)

Not that any of that actually addresses my point. The machine did not "cure" Banner, thus putting the lie to your contention that gamma exposure is so easily cured. All it did was help him controll the effects of his condition, namely his transformation into the Hulk.

[Haunt]

Edit, Torch was an artificial man, quite literally, he once used Rogaine(minoxodil) to grow a beard.

i thought that was a clip-on.

[Leebenhouse]

i thought that was a clip-on.
Nope, Namor asked him after the Heroes Return, "How'd you grow the beard?"

Hammond replied "Minoxodil." I used to wonder what it was, so I looked it up, found out it was the active ingriedient in Rogaine and it's knockoffs.

[Cthulhudrew]

Wouldn't basically the same thing have happened to Jim Wilson, that he would have become a Jim Wilson-Hulk, ala She-Hulk?? Jim Wilson never had a hidden traumatic childhood which led to a subverted personality, so wouldn't he have basically turned into a green strong person ala Jen Walters?

You seem to be suggesting that She-Hulk has lived a trauma free life, and that her gamma radiation powers have never been a problem for her or anyone else, ergo Jim Wilson would have been in the same boat. Unfortunately, I think the residents of Bone, Idaho (at least) would disagree with that assessment.

[Leebenhouse]

You seem to be suggesting that She-Hulk has lived a trauma free life, and that her gamma radiation powers have never been a problem for her or anyone else, ergo Jim Wilson would have been in the same boat. Unfortunately, I think the residents of Bone, Idaho (at least) would disagree with that assessment.

...*sigh*

Since when did Jim Wilson's father beat him and his mother because he was a paranoid lunatic that thought his kid was a mutant because the kid was a prodigy, then Jim Wilson's dad ended up murdering his wife in front of Jim Wilson? Because of this did Jim Wilson turned into an emotionally stunted adult?

Wilson was an entirely different person from Bruce Banner, more like his cousin Sam, the Falcon, Rick Jones, or Jen Walters, than like Bruce.

Jen Walters' powers have generally been a blessing for her, all around improving her life. She frankly likes being She-Hulk more than being Jen Walters. She acted like her cousin once and you think that's anything near comperable to Bruce Banner? You act like one nasty event after her becoming a superhero is comperable to a lifetime of hardship that Bruce experienced.

[Cthulhudrew]

Since when did Jim Wilson's father beat him and his mother because he was a paranoid lunatic that thought his kid was a mutant because the kid was a prodigy, then Jim Wilson's dad ended up murdering his wife in front of Jim Wilson? Because of this did Jim Wilson turned into an emotionally stunted adult?

When did I compare Jim Wilson to the Hulk?

Jen Walters' powers have generally been a blessing for her, all around improving her life. She frankly likes being She-Hulk more than being Jen Walters.

Yes, and as Dan Slott demonstrated (and has been demonstrating) in She-Hulk, that her liking being She-Hulk isn't quite that good for her (mental health wise).

And Geoff Johns demonstrated that She-Hulk isn't quite as free of the possibility of having savage "Hulk-out" moments as we once thought. Heck, her original book was titled the "Savage" She-Hulk, and she was generally quite a bit less carefree in that series than she tends to be currently.

She acted like her cousin once and you think that's anything near comperable to Bruce Banner? You act like one nasty event after her becoming a superhero is comperable to a lifetime of hardship that Bruce experienced.

Not at all. At no point did I compare either the She-Hulk or Jim Wilson to Banner/the Hulk.

You were implying that if Jim Wilson had been given the gamma irradiated blood transfusion that everything would have been hunky dory for Jim- he would have lived and been a great superhero like the She-Hulk. I pointed out that the She-Hulk's life hasn't been all light and roses, and that people have suffered as a result of her gamma-powers, and made a comparison between her and what might possibly have become of Jim Wilson.

(As an aside, that "one nasty event" you mention cost countless people their livelihoods and homes and injured 72 people among other things. A pretty severe event, I'd say.)

[rZi]

my question is what ever happend to rick jones? Hulks sidekick? With me only recently getting back into comics i haven't encountered an episode with him in yet , and he isn't mentioned?

[Majinlex]

Latest thing he's doing is bankrolling the Loners. Only thing I know before that was that he was bonded to Genis-Vell (Captain Marvel) for a while.

[Roquefort Raider]

Jim was dying and asking for help; Bruce should have given him a blood transfusion if there were no obvious problems with compatibility. Best case scenario: the Hulk's blood helps Jim with his viral infection. Worst case scenario: Jim turns into the Abomination or something, and then has to be taken down. Which would not be much worse than dying of AIDS anyway.

Was Bruce afraid that a Hulked-up Jim Wilson would hurt civilians? That's a genuine concern... but why not give Jim the benefit of the doubt and take steps to protect the population during the experiment, instead of just washing his hands of his friend's fate?

I wouldn't go as far as to say Hulk murdered his friend, but he did abandon him. That's a pretty crappy thing to do.

[Darrell D.]

Jim was dying and asking for help; Bruce should have given him a blood transfusion if there were no obvious problems with compatibility. Best case scenario: the Hulk's blood helps Jim with his viral infection. Worst case scenario: Jim turns into the Abomination or something, and then has to be taken down. Which would not be much worse than dying of AIDS anyway.

Was Bruce afraid that a Hulked-up Jim Wilson would hurt civilians? That's a genuine concern... but why not give Jim the benefit of the doubt and take steps to protect the population during the experiment, instead of just washing his hands of his friend's fate?

I wouldn't go as far as to say Hulk murdered his friend, but he did abandon him. That's a pretty crappy thing to do.

So, if Jim Wilson happened to go on a murderous rampage due to becoming a monster, that's only a worst case scenario?
Come on. Let's be fair. Irradiated blood is still irradiated blood. Remember when the Leader set off the gamma bomb in that desert town? There were newscasters asking scientists "Do we see any new Hulks on the horizon?" The answer to that was, "This people are looking at a painful, suffering death."

In any case, you're missing the point of the story. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. I thought it was very well done.

[kalorama]

Jim was dying and asking for help; Bruce should have given him a blood transfusion if there were no obvious problems with compatibility.

There was an obvious problem. The obvious problem being him turning into a gamma-irradiated monster. Doesn't get much more obvious than that.

Best case scenario: the Hulk's blood helps Jim with his viral infection. Worst case scenario: Jim turns into the Abomination or something, and then has to be taken down. Which would not be much worse than dying of AIDS anyway.

Unless you happen to be one of the potentially hundreds or thousands of people who get hurt, maimed, or killed by "Gamma-Jim", or gets caught in the crossfire of the struggle to take him down (see Civil War for reference).

Was Bruce afraid that a Hulked-up Jim Wilson would hurt civilians? That's a genuine concern... but why not give Jim the benefit of the doubt and take steps to protect the population during the experiment, instead of just washing his hands of his friend's fate?

Because Banner knows better than anyone that the results of gamma exposure are unpredictable and all the "benefit of the doubt" in the world wouldn't help if Wilson was turned into some kind of subhuman killing machine.

I wouldn't go as far as to say Hulk murdered his friend, but he did abandon him. That's a pretty crappy thing to do.

Only if you completely ignore (A) the lessons of history and (B) the greater good.

[Kirk G]

did they even have the same blood type?
Excellent point, Haunt.:cool:

Also, it was the disease that killed Jim.
Not the hulk, nor Banner. It was a long term illness that had taken root.

We can ask the same question of family members who withhold treatment from dying elderly parents at the end of their live. You let life take it's course... not killing them, but letting their life end naturally.... if that's what happens.:(

[Kirk G]

:confused: my question is what ever happend to rick jones? Hulks sidekick? With me only recently getting back into comics i haven't encountered an episode with him in yet , and he isn't mentioned?
My 12 year old daughter has asked where Rick Jones fits into all this Civil War story.
I haven't seen or heard from him since, say, Dissembled, when he knelt and felt the Kree space craft metal, saying "Gee, this stuff is like paper..."

Has he been sighted since then? How about Captain Marvel?:confused:

[Expletive Deleted]

Rick was last seen out in L.A., acting as the financial backer for Excelsior.

Captain Marvel is dead.