The Incredible Hulk is the ultimate survivor. Ever since the gamma bomb mutated Bruce Banner’s body, the scientist has been unable to keep himself from becoming the Hulk. By now, Banner has accepted that the fact that he’s uncurable and is more interested in managing his condition than getting rid of it.
Moreover, the Hulk has been getting increasingly more powerful. Already incalculably strong, the World Breaker Hulk is capable of actually splitting planets, while the Devil Hulk featured in The Immortal Hulk can literally come back from nearly any form of death. Even before Hulk attained immortality, however, he possessed unique powers that allowed him to thrive in conditions no living being should be able to survive, as seen in Peter David and Dale Keown’s one-shot comic, Hulk: The End. Taking place in a post-apocalyptic future where virtually all life on the planet had been eradicated, the story reveals that Hulk’s greatest power isn’t his strength – it’s his ability to eat anything.
Narrated by a 200-year-old Bruce Banner, the comic establishes that at some point in the near future, humanity destroyed itself in a nuclear war. While the warheads obliterated billions of people and left the survivors sickened from radiation poisoning, the Hulk managed to survive thanks to his body’s unique ability to process radiation. Although humanity was no longer a threat to the Green Goliath, the faces of the sick and injured disturbed him so much that he eventually retreated from the world and locked himself (and Banner) inside a cave. Several years later, an alien machine contacted Banner and revealed that all human life on Earth was now dead. Leaving behind a recording device to document Banner’s existence, the alien left the scientist to make his own way in the dead world.
Surprisingly, Banner found he could move freely in the irradiated world thanks to his body’s resistance to radiation. However, he realized he would still die of starvation were it not for one of the Hulk’s weirdest powers – the ability to eat anything. The comic showed Hulk literally chowing down on the giant roaches that now roamed the planet and even devouring a cactus — spines and all — showing he could gain sustenance from the scarce organic life that remained on the planet.
Hulk’s powers have been an endless source of fascination for his fans, with most people focusing on his massive strength and indestructibility. However, as this story shows, sometimes it’s the subtler superpowers that prove most useful and allow the Jade Giant to survive in virtually any environment. Even if Banner doesn’t want to.