5 Underrated Hulk Villains Who Are Better Than the Leader (& Who Deserve More Credit)

When fans talk about the greatest Hulk villains, the name that usually rises to the top of most conversations is the Leader. This rings true in many ways because of the differences between them. It is the same reason that Lex Luthor is Superman’s greatest foe, because while he will never match Superman’s strength, he has an intellect that far surpasses Superman in every way. It is the same with the Hulk and the Leader, although there is one more twist to their rivalry. The Leader’s heightened intelligence is caused by gamma radiation, the same as Hulk’s strength, so they are connected in that way, while differing in what makes them powerful.

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However, while the Leader is the perfect antithesis of Hulk, there are other villains who should get a lot more praise than they do. Characters like the Leader and the Abomination will always be connected with Hulk thanks to their sharing the gamma connection, but there are so many villains with other origins who matched up so well with the big green guy. Some of these should have been A-list villains for Hulk but, for one reason or another, were mostly passed off as B-list villains.

5) The U-Foes

The U-Foes debuted in The Incredible Hulk #254 (1980) by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema. They are the dark mirror image of the Fantastic Four, and their origin saw the four of them trying to duplicate the exact events that gave the Fantastic Four their powers. Simon Utrecht was a multimillionaire who funded the space flight to copy the cosmic-ray origin of the FF and brought his crew with him. They ended up worse off when their mission was interrupted early by Bruce Banner, who thought they had mistakenly flown into the cosmic rays and brought them back to Earth.

The four soaked up too many cosmic rays, and they had no control over their powers. Blaming Hulk for their misfortunes, they took it upon themselves to kill him. They have since even worked for the government task force put together to bring down the Hulk, although their actions were always villainous. Of the four members, Vapor (Ann Darnell) proved to be the most powerful. In the Maestro series, the Vapor of that world actually killed Hercules.

4) Zzzax

Zzzax is the most famous of these underrated Hulk villains because it actually appeared in the animated movie Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United (2013). However, in the comics, he has never gotten the respect that it really deserves. Zzzax isn’t even a real person, and it was never human to start with. He debuted in The Incredible Hulk #166 (1973) by Steve Englehart and Herb Trimpe. He was created thanks to sabotage at a Consolidated Edison nuclear power plant in New York City. The explosion and chain reaction created an electromagnetic field that incinerated people, absorbed their brain energy, and took on a humanoid, sentient form.

Zzzax absorbs and discharges massive currents, and its size and strength grow with the electricity it takes in. This means that, unlike most of Hulk’s enemies, Hulk can’t touch Zzzax, making it a villain that Hulk has to figure out a way to stop without relying on his brute strength. That alone makes him one of the most distinctive villains for Hulk, since in most of his stories, Hulk’s brain isn’t capable of formulating a plan. Zzzax also gets smarter by draining human brainwaves, sometimes taking on their personalities, delivering an almost horror-style danger for the Hulk to contend with.

3) Xemnu

Xemnu is a very comparable villain for the Hulk to fight because Xemnu was a Hulk before Bruce Banner became one. Xemnu first appeared in Journey into Mystery #62 (1960) by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Larry Lieber. While he wasn’t the first Hulk (that title belongs to a character who debuted in Strange Tales #75 (1960)), Xemnu is the only pre-Banner Hulk that is actually considered part of the main Marvel continuity. Xemnu is an alien who crashed on Earth after running out of fuel, telepathically possessed a young man named Joe Harper, and then took over the whole planet to rebuild his ship.

Xemnu has hypnotic eye-rays, teleportation, disintegration, possession, and telekinesis, and he has proven powerful enough to mind-control entire populations. His first fight with the Banner’s Hulk came in Marvel Feature #3 (1972), and it was a fun moment for older fans who knew Xemnu from his earlier appearances in which he was called the Hulk. His best modern showing came in The Immortal Hulk #32, where he worked with Roxxon and rewrote the world’s memories so people knew him as Xemnu the Incredible Hulk and believed that Banner was a monster called the Devil.

2) Bi-Beast

Bi-Beast debuted in The Incredible Hulk #169 (1973) by Steve Englehart and Herb Trimpe. The idea was to bring in a villain who was just as powerful as the Hulk for a giant one-on-one battle. Bi-Beast is a two-headed android built by an avian subspecies of the Inhumans that later died out, leaving it alone in their city. The top head holds knowledge of warfare, and the bottom head holds knowledge of culture. It is that bottom head that often causes Bi-Beast’s defeats because it is also the one that shows compassion and love.

Bi-Beast first fought Hulk when it saw the Harpy (Betty Ross) with Bruce Banner, captured both, and ordered Banner to repair its city’s machines. Banner cured the Harpy instead, and when the Bi-Beast learned it had been tricked, it fought the Hulk. That Bi-Beast died protecting its city from MODOK and AIM. A second Bi-Beast later arrived and blamed humanity for its city’s destruction and fought the Hulk again. Bi-Beast rivals the Hulk in physical power, and it has proven to be almost unkillable, returning again and again from seeming destruction.

1) Brian Banner

Brian Banner is Hulk’s deadliest villain because he attacks the hero from inside his mind. Brian was Bruce Banner’s father, and he tormented his son as a child because Bruce was gifted and smart, and Brian believed that was a defect and a direct result of the gamma radiation that Brian had been working with. He later killed Bruce’s mother, something that Bruce blocked out of his memory for years. It was Brian’s torment and abuse that helped create the second persona that became the Hulk, which is why Bruce struggled to control Hulk while other gamma-mutates like She-Hulk and Brawn didn’t have the same problems.

Brian Banner first appeared as a cameo in The Incredible Hulk #267 (1981), and made his full debut in #312 (1985), created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, with Mike Mignola drawing #312. He returned during Chaos War, in which he came back as a hybrid of Guilt Hulk and Devil Hulk whose power grew with how powerful Bruce saw him. In The Immortal Hulk, his ghost possessed Sasquatch, was revealed to be taking orders from the One Below All, and was later absorbed, body and mind, by the Leader. No one hurt the Hulk more than Brian Banner.

Who are your favorite underrated Hulk villains? Let us know why you like some of the lesser-known villains in the comments below.

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