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[isotopic]

Player Information

Name: Charlie
Personal Journal: rohirrim
IM Service: AIM @ pinkelephantsonparade
Plurk Name: N/A
Current Characters: N/A

Character Information

Character Name: Bruce Banner
Canon: Marvel Cinematic Universe ( The Incredible Hulk | The Avengers )
Canon-Point: Post-Avengers.
Age: 45ish.
History: The Incredible Hulk & The Avengers
Personality:

For a guy with a distinct "condition", Bruce Banner works extremely hard to make sure said issues never flare up. Prior to the incident that resulted in him transforming into the Hulk, Bruce Banner held a pHD in Physics, with expertise in biology, chemistry, engineering, and nuclear physics, determined to help save the world through cutting edge research, when he was approached by General Ross to engineer the same serum that created Steve Rogers. Blindly believing that it would contribute to his name in the legacy books, Bruce went ahead with it. However, because just about every scientist in superhero comics tend to be idiots despite their education, Bruce went ahead and injected himself full of the same serum, hoping to end up much like Captain America. Things did not go as well as planned.

He formed a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality, where the Hulk was driven by pure anger and relentlessness, capable of destruction a mile wide without giving much thought as to fine tuned control. Frightened by this incident, and the sheer awareness of his results, Bruce flees. Now from this alone, we can suggest a few things about Bruce's personality that are similar to his traits in the comics. Bruce is a genius driven to do good in the universe, motivated to simply help others, as the experiment that turned him into the Hulk was designed to make humans resistant to gamma radiation (and of course, the ulterior motives described above). Bruce also shares the same shallow trait of scientists around the world: to discover something that will land them on the pages alongside of Darwin, Watson & Crick, Pasteur, and many more.

The particular dual personality that Bruce exemplifies however, has caused him to start seeking an alternative path of coping, eventually resulting in Bruce taking a slower, much more casual approach to handling life around him. Because Bruce transforms into the Hulk whenever his heart rate rises or he becomes excessively angry, his personality as Dr. Banner requires him to take a calmer approach to things. Norton's version of the movie suggests that Bruce takes on meditative breathing techniques and also martial arts strategies to help keep control, resulting in no incident for several days. It is also suggested in the Avengers (though as a sidejoke) that Bruce takes weed and does yoga to keep himself under wraps. Regardless, it's evident across the board that he does his best to employ several tactics, presenting a calm, affable personality to the rest.

Bruce in the Avengers, however, is several years later, and we can see that instead of taking drastic approaches and several fights to do the right thing, the scientist is now hiding out somewhere in India, using his talents to help the sick there. It is here we can see that Bruce prefers being out of the limelight, afraid that his past, particularly after breaking Harlem and revealing that his alter ego is a threat to people everywhere. Gone is the man determined to make a public difference to the world, revealing a Bruce that has himself under tight control as he almost jokes around with Natasha before a slight comment about SHIELD keeping track of him makes him angry. Though he doesn't loose control, we see that Natasha is absolutely terrified, holding a gun on him until Bruce finally retreats, apologizing. Bruce is the kind of guy who knows what he's done, and he's absolutely terrified of being put back into a position where he's lost all of his capabilities, retaliating at the suggestion that he may be put into a cage.

Despite the awareness that SHIELD has been keeping track of him, Bruce is reluctant to even come along and join the Avengers, and only comes when promised that he would be left alone. Given that the Avengers, and by association, Nick Fury, are there to look for Loki and the threat he entails, Bruce comes along because of his strength in gamma radiation, and the belief that he would be able to isolate a signal from the particular weapon that Loki is using, the Tessaract. He comes off as reluctant, shy almost in the way that Bruce keeps glancing around awkwardly despite the men interested in speaking to him.

It is only really when Tony Stark openly harasses him with jokes and one liners ("You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?") that Bruce starts to open up, doing what he does best: science. As the two genius nerds eventually bond, Tony suggests to Bruce that just maybe, the Hulk saved his life, due to the fact that the amount of gamma radiation that he was exposed to should have killed him. This same particular sentiment comes into play later on, when the Avengers are fighting, and its revealed that Bruce had suffered some form of mental distress:

In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!... I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth... and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!

In this little outburst on Bruce's part, we see the man exposed for what he is: where other superheroes are fine with their alternate identities, he isn't. He believed, to an extent, he would never be able to function normally with the Hulk on his side and sought a way out. But rather than succumbing and being driven mad, Bruce opted to turn his passion towards other things: saving the world. What is interesting however, despite all the complexities that Bruce shows, is that he truly does have the Hulk under control. "You wanna know my secret Cap? I'm always angry." By finally accepting his own anger and focusing it internally, devoting an external outlook to simply helping others and keeping himself stress free, Bruce is able to keep his alternate self under wraps. Affable on the outside, finetuned rage on the inside.

Abilities/Powers:
Dr. Bruce Banner
» PhD in Physics, with a background in biology, chemistry, engineering, and nuclear physics. Aka Bruce is the standard Marvel caliber genius intellect stereotype.

The Hulk
» Limitless physical strength and endurance.
» Enhanced regeneration and speed.
» (-) Limited verbal capacity.
» Motivated desire to survive.

( note: i am okay with nerfs along the line of not being able to provide extensive damage, as well as time in between transformations, or whatever else is feasible for the mods should they require limitations on Hulk's capabilities. )

Items:
» Clothes on his back, plus one set of spare clothes.
» One backpack.
» Several notebooks of research and memoirs.
» His laptop.
» Glasses case and cleaner.

Samples

prose & brackets/prose & post.

Comments

[isotopic]

"Just tell me if I saw what I think I saw." - Betty Ross
"I don't know what to tell you." - Stan the Pizza Dude

Betty Ross is the girl Bruce never thought he'd be capable of landing. From their early days at Harvard volunteering for LSD based experiements to being full fledged research professors at Culver, conducting experiments sponsored by General Ross and the army, they've been nearly inseperable since then. It's not what one would call a super cutesy, overly romantic love, but Bruce and his past, consisting of enough Marvel-heaped parental traumatic drama, would make it impossible for him to truly end up falling for someone, except Betty managed to do that. They're both intellectuals, at the peak of their research, Bruce in gamma radiation and Betty in cellular biology, which allowed them to end up coming together for Ross' goals in recreating the Super Serum from back in the 40s.

Betty has allowed Bruce to essentially feel more like himself, in the sense that there's no concern over his usual paranoia, feeling that he can't trust anyone. We see that in Norton's run as Bruce Banner, Betty is hands down the only person he can trust, short of a completely anonymous source interested in helping Bruce work on curing gamma poisoning. When Bruce first becomes the Hulk, purely out of bravado and an overexertion of confidence, he flees out of concern for Betty (falsely placed concern, but concern regardless). His rapport with Betty likely triggered the overconfidence in the first place, putting Bruce in the hot seat and transforming him into the Hulk, that because of their research combined, there was no way this could possibly go wrong.

However, when Bruce's attempts at fixing his situation fails in the middle of Brazil, he returns back to her, knowing that if anyone was as brilliant of a scientist as he is, it would be Betty, and she'd keep all of their notes. Expectations however, never quite meet up with reality, because upon returning to Culver, Bruce catches sight of Betty, who has apparently moved on, dating someone else entirely. The Bruce we see at this point is clearly heartbroken, in love, but convinced that because of everything that's happened, she's moved on.

Heartbroken as Bruce is by the sight, we see that their relationship is still secondary to Bruce's goals in returning human, because he still does his best to avoid her, even disappearing behind dumpsters and closed doors whenever she crosses his path. The pair eventually reunite kind of like in Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook where there's lots of dramatic hugging in the rain, and they act as if absolutely nothing is wrong with the universe.

Until of course, Bruce gets caught by the army.

Even as the Hulk, with Bruce's conscience is stable enough that Betty deserves his utmost protection against any and all danger. The Hulk willingly protects her from several attacks while she foolishly gets in the way (aka deciding to try and verbally reason with the hulk in the middle of a firefight). This would suggest that despite the transformation effectively demolishing Bruce's intelligence, his subconscious has held onto enough basics that love and overcome even slight technical difficulties.

Betty, in contrast, is fully capable of looking past the Hulk, going so far as to help Bruce return to civilization, buy clothing, and help him process the data he needs and finally speak with the man who can supposedly help him become normal. There's a lack of judgement on her part, except towards her father for driving Bruce to this point. She reciprocates everything offered, without any hesitation about what Bruce can become, because she's capable of looking past that and focusing on the man who she fell in love with at first sight.

Despite their obvious feelings towards each other, Bruce remains reluctant about the Hulk around Betty, convinced that he'll always come in between them. While Betty pays this no mind, it's evident that this haunts Bruce, particularly during a highly intimate scene between them. Even after everything's been done, Bruce once again leaves Betty, this time supposedly permanently, as he's last seen in British Columbia before the events of the Avengers. It's also interesting to note that in the Avengers there's no mention of Betty in the slightest, completely opposite of the way Bruce felt about Betty before. While it doesn't suggest he's completely forgotten about her, there are implications that he's 'removed' himself from her, avoiding any threat that might still be lurking, despite what SHIELD has said.