"Who knows, you might LOVE me when I'm angry!"

The Incredible Hulk sure did Hulk out a lot. Which is fair enough, really. You don’t invent one of the worlds most iconic pop culture characters and then leave him out of the comic book. But it meant that the writers had to work pretty hard to get Bruce Banner good and angry. Not that hard, because Banner was the unluckiest, clumsiest fuck ever to grace the art form. He couldn’t go fifteen feet without nearly being run over by a truck or falling down a manhole (In the television show, these both happened in sequence. He was hit by a car and then knocked into a manhole). He was forever being accosted in bars and threatened with violence. Yes, the world fell over itself to make Bruce Banner angry. If you want to see an entire list of the things that made him Hulk out in the TV show you can find it here.

As the decades rolled on it clearly dawned on writers that they wouldn’t have to come up with plot devices to make Banner angry; not if they could just make him into a colossal weenie and let his neuroses do the work. Banner was now an unlucky, clumsy fuck with anger management issues and deep-set feelings of abandonment. He’d be batting below average even if he hadn’t contracted a gamma-activated disease that ruined all his clothes and caused several million dollars worth of damage every time he stubbed his toe. It definitely got difficult to listen to though:

Sidekick: Hey Bruce, we’ve run out of milk. I’m going to the shops. Be careful if you go outside, the army are still looking for you.

Bruce: Why won’t they just leave me alone? God, what have I done to deserve this curse?

Sidekick: Christ Bruce, I’m just going out for fucking milk. You will be FINE watching Sesame Street in your pyjamas till I get back.

Bruce: They’ll never stop looking for me, never. I can’t cope with this pressure! I can’t cope with this—huuurgh… gah!”

Sidekick: Oh for God’s sake, I swear this is-- *SMASH* Argh! My limited edition Dodi and Diana collectors plates!

I can’t remember the exact issue number but I’m pretty sure I’ve transcribed that scene with at least 95% accuracy.

Basically Banner had no need to get angry if going on a five-star whinge was enough to Hulk him out. And seeing as Banner made whinging into a hobby, comic book readers were safe in the knowledge that him making a sad face was guaranteed to lead to a tank being picked up by its barrel and swung through a petrol station.

This was all done in the name of character development, so that the people that read the book could successfully pretend that they weren’t only reading it to see the Hulk pick up two cars and wear them like boxing gloves. In the issues where Banner is the Hulk the entire time the plot can wear a little... thin. There’s an issues from the mid seventies where the Hulk fights his own shadow. For the entire issue. And it’s a draw. (The evil shadow monster is defeated by some automated floodlights. Really)

It was nice of them to bother, and completely unnecessary, because let me tell you this: if I had the Hulk serum pumping through my veins, I’d Hulk out at least four times a day. And I consider myself a relatively placid person. I like to think I have quite a long fuse, especially in my dealings with other people, but even I have a few seconds of incandescent rage a day. About a week ago I bought a copy of the video game Mass Effect. I’ve wanted to play it for ages and, as previously discussed, my Xbox normally just sits gloomily under the telly with nothing to do, so I was kittenish with excitement as I popped the game in and turned it on. I had got about as far as the ‘enter your name’ screen when I noticed the Xbox was making a loud noise, and that I had inadvertently covered the fan port by placing it too close to the wall. I didn’t want it to overheat, so I leant forward and slid the machine forwards. In doing so, I jogged the disc playing inside the machine, irreparably damaging it. Pure, distilled fury shot up through my torso. If my subsequent actions could have matched my anger, my parents would have come home to a house in ruins, with me sitting on the ruined stairs, wearing tattered jeans and a ‘what can you do?’ expression.

Examples today: accidentally deleting the wrong episode of a show I’d Sky+’sd. (That’s the correct way to write that, yeah?) Dropping my laptop charger on my foot on the way down the stairs. Discovering that the automatic address correction on Amazon has sent the new copy of Mass Effect I ordered to the wrong place. Hulk SMASH.

I’m lucky, therefore, that I’m not the Incredible Hulk. I’d be a nightmare to live with (and I’m a hassle even now). But the ease with which I mock Brucie Banner losing his rag means I should be able to see the funny side of my own rages. Which of course I can’t, because there’s NOTHING funny about the world being specifically out to get me. But it makes me wonder which is healthier, to try and suppress those occasional, flashing bouts of wrath or to just let them out quickly and forget about them. Who hasn’t felt better after a good, loud “Oh for FUCK’S SAKE!” Actually there’s an argument that angry behaviour can be self-reinforcing, but it’s my blog and I’ll ignore what I want to, all right?

Maybe the reason I can keep my temper in public is because I lose it so frequently in private. It seems silly to really enjoy losing your cool over a minor thing that can’t be fixed, but all that rage has got to come out somehow. If Bruce Banner had been a real guy, I’m sure he would have been pretty chillaxed in between rampages.

Admittedly I’d have less to get angry about if I wasn’t such a clumsy fuck myself, so I feel like a share a kinship with Dr. Banner. Every time I see him rage out over some minor obstacle I wonder to myself, “Would I have dealt with the same situation so smash stuff up-ingly?” The answer is invariably yes.

So I’m going to let my fury flag fly when I’m angry about small things, that don’t affect anyone but me; so the big problems come around, I hope I can keep my anger in check as much as is appropriate. And if you don’t agree… well then I’ll just have to smash YOU.