Everyone knows that comic-book death doesn't mean much, and that's especially true for the Immortal Hulk. Following uncountable deaths and resurrections, Bruce Banner finally came to the realization that while he can die, the Hulk cannot, with Al Ewing and Joe Bennett's awe-inspiring The Immortal Hulk exploring the fallout of that discovery. But "Hulk" isn't a name, it's an identifier, and as the Devil Hulk has risen and exposed the myriad differences between all the personalities who share the Green Goliath's body, one thing has become clear: it's time for Marvel to ditch the Bruce Banner persona.
Bruce and the Hulk first appeared in 1962's The Incredible Hulk, and they've been in a constant state of change ever since. They've been separated, merged, and joined by many different personalities, from the ganster-wannabe Joe Fixit to environmental terrorist Devil Hulk. Picking up threads from all these stories, Ewing's narrative has finally clarified that each aspect of Bruce Banner has a role, with Devil Hulk being the one who loves (but doesn't like) him, and Savage Hulk being the childlike intellect wheeled out whenever Bruce needs to take a beating.
The problem is that unlike his other personae, Bruce Banner has never been a strong enough character to truly carry a story. A well-meaning dork who could never muster up the courage to follow his buried desires, gamma radiation gave new shape to Bruce's repressed self, but it didn't change the original. Jason Aaron's The Incredible Hulk separated the two, depicting Banner as a maniacal villain who needs the Hulk for balance, while Mark Waid's Indestructible Hulk imagined him as a tortured hero who wants to build just as much as Hulk needs to destroy. Banner has been a sad-sack coward, a cunning strategist, and an intimidating genius, but in all these compelling depictions, any sense of consistency has been lost. Bruce no longer brings any inherent value to stories about the Hulk except for giving the monster a human opposite, and as of Ewing's run, there's a way better candidate for that role.
With Devil Hulk adopting his own progressive agenda and not trusting Banner in the early days, the former Gray Hulk Joe Fixit became Sunshine Joe - the same personality but in a human body. An antihero inspired by old gangster movies, Joe is more along the lines of Deadpool or Wolverine than a cut-rate Tony Stark. What's more, the masterful King in Black: Immortal Hulk #1 showed that Sunshine Joe actually cares about the Savage Hulk persona, refusing to transform when this Hulk was afraid of being hurt. Instead, Joe tackled vicious symbiotes with cunning and guile, risking his own pain rather than torture his massive, childlike alter-ego. Likewise, Hulk #41 saw Joe take two broken arms just to stop the Thing from beating on his other self.
Not only is this protective dynamic a new way of understanding a hero's reluctance to turn into the Hulk, but Joe is a far better fit for the road-worn life Bruce Banner is forced to live. A resourceful, morally dubious antihero, Sunshine Joe is a strong personality who fights on the side of the angels without being one himself, and who has an actual relationship with "the Hulk" that allows both to have emotional complexity and even a deeper relationship than the decades-stagnant bitterness between Bruce and the Jade Giant. He may be the name fans know, but it's long past time for Marvel to ditch Bruce Banner for good and let the Hulk begin a new life as a character who isn't only interesting when he's smashing things to pieces.