[75], Captain America ordered Ross to track down Venom, who was fugitive. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Hulk 2004 issue officially indicates Ross to be a three-star lieutenant general in the U.S. Air Force. Red Hulk defeated Cutthroat and downed many of the Power Elite's aircrafts. At times over the years Ross succeeded in capturing the Hulk or Banner, but more often the Hulk thwarted the general's attempts to capture or kill him, or, even if captured, the Hulk soon managed to escape. Red Hulk was first officially seen by the public crossing the Canadian wilderness, where he was attacked by and ultimately killed a beastly Wendigo. Ross was assigned Machine Man as a partner and was allowed to infiltrate Sharzhad, Shah's domain. Hulkbuster Base was destroyed by the so-called Devastator, and General Ross and S.H.I.E.L.D. [citation needed], In 1947, Ross' Army commission was changed to an Air Force commission, as the Army Air Corps had been superseded by the U.S. Air Force. As Ross, he is as vulnerable as any human. Ross had regarded Captain Lee well as a leader, and his respect was cemented when he fell in love with and eventually married Karen Lee, his daughter. [3] He also appeared in the issues #1–3 of the 2011 series The Avenging Spider-Man (November 2008) by Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira as a team-up character for Spider-Man. Alexander Ross (father);[11]Elizabeth Ross (mother);[11]Betsy Ross (paternal aunt, deceased);Jeff Mace (uncle-by-marriage, deceased);[12]Karen Lee Ross (wife, deceased);Betty Ross (daughter);Glenn Talbot (former son-in-law);Bruce Banner (son-in-law); Daydream (granddaughter);Veda (cousin; deceased), General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross, the man who would become the most frequent nemesis of the superhuman monster known as the incredible Hulk, born to the Rosses, a New Hampshire family with a proud tradition of military service. He killed everyone and then went after Galactus. [26], Hulkbuster Base was reconstructed as Gamma Base, and Ross was again put in command of it. [42], But the strain of Ross's heroic act was too much for his aged body. Jeph Loeb (w), Ed McGuinness (p), Dexter Vines (i). Ross begged for Cutthroat to continue hurting him. [4], Ross is the Air Force general in charge of Bruce Banner's gamma bomb project. [25][26], After Steve Rogers recruits Red Hulk, Red Hulk manages to stop Intelligencia's failsafe plan "Scorched Earth". However, Red Hulk managed to gain the upper hand, and the two battled all the way to the moon, where Red Hulk finally defeated Thor, left his body on the other planet, and lept back to Earth in one jump. Although the details varied over the years, the Hulk usually possessed little of Banner's memories and intelligence, and was easily enraged. Though the heat is intense enough to melt desert sand into glass, it causes him to weaken when it becomes too intense,[40] as his physiology lacks a cooling mechanism to deal with the excess heat. Ross found himself sent through a wormhole, to the planets Tiran and Randaa.[63]. [citation needed], After Hulk takes away the powers of Rick Jones, Skaar and Betty Ross, Ross starts monitoring Hulk's movements. M.O.D.O.K. [24] However, the 2010 "World War Hulks" storyline reveals that Red Hulk is Thunderbolt Ross himself, the Red She-Hulk his daughter Betty, and that the Ross who was "killed" was a Life Model Decoy used to convince the world that he had died. The Arabian Knight revealed that the source of the weapons was the arms-dealer and separatist Dagan Shah. Suspicious of fellow Power Elite member Alexa Lukin, Ross began investigating her, leading to Lukin hiring the Foreigner to kill him. Talbot was determined to kill the Hulk, in part in revenge for the end of his marriage to Betty but then, due to the repeated failures to stop the Hulk, the U.S. Congress closed down operations at Gamma Base. The Sultan Magus taunted the Red Hulk before forcing him out of his country. The Red Hulk thinks back to his time on the planets. M.O.D.O.K. "Blood Red", Warren Ellis (w), Salvador Larroca (a). Embittered by these failures, Ross grew even more determined to put an end to the menace of the Hulk. Red Hulk (also known as Rulk[10] or The IncREDible Hulk) was introduced in 2008 in Hulk (vol. 3 #1 (January 2008), created by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness, but his identity as Ross was not revealed until later. [40], Controlled by Ross's mind, Zzzax tried unsuccessfully to kill both Bruce Banner and Rick Jones, who had recently become a Hulk-like monster himself. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. When the Secret Avengers arrived, Red Hulk convinced Cap to make him trust Flash to control the symbiote. [37] When infected with Cable's techno-organic virus during the "X-Sanction" storyline, he was able to control this heat to burn the virus out of his system. "[13] The character has abilities almost identical to those of the Hulk. [49] While onboard, Red Hulk erased all files on the original Hulk, using a sophisticated computer virus. [31], As part of the 2012 Marvel NOW! The Red Hulk first appeared in Hulk vol. retreated with Zzzax, and Annie was rescued unharmed. agent Clay Quartermain to merge with the electric creature Zzzax, a process that gives Ross superpowers but also makes him mentally unstable. Traveling back through the wormhole, he found the remains of his disintegrating, and the Watcher Uravo told him it had been an illusion designed to delay Omegex. [85], During Hydra's take-over of the American government, General Ross led a cell of resistors against Hydra. Talbot also became attracted to Betty Ross, and the general hoped that she would shift her affections from Banner to the major. At the same time, the Red Hulk had been sent into space to deal with a threat. At times, Ross has been portrayed as an Army general. Upon detecting the transformation, the nanites would administer a lethal shock to Ross, killing him. This forced Ross to stay awake, as he often reverted to his human form while asleep. A failed Rigellian colonization attempt left a great source of power dormant on Earth. General Ross, now in command of Desert Base, New Mexico, a missile base and nuclear research site, believed (appropriately) that it was not the right place to raise a young girl and had her enrolled in a boarding school far away. [100] However, this scale is only for comparing characters with each other, and not remotely to be taken literally.