DC Comics May Have Its Own Hulk, But They’ve Been Done So Dirty

The Hulk has always been one of Marvel’s most popular characters, and it’s no surprise that DC tried to cash in on some of that popularity by creating their own version with the character Damage. Unfortunately, while the Hulk has had decades to grow and gain a fan base, Damage hasn’t been so lucky. Damage only had a handful of appearances before simply being forgotten by DC, but the character definitely deserved more.

Ethan Avery, also known as Damage, was a man who completely idolized Superman and other superheroes. He wanted to help people as best he could, and without powers, he felt the best way to do that was by joining the army, which he did at the first chance he got, as shown in his self-titled series, beginning with Damage #1 by Robert Venditti, Tony S. Daniel, Danny Miki, Tomeu Morey, and Tom Napolitano.

Ethan was deployed to Afghanistan and was recognized for his excellence. This exemplary service got him recommended for the Damage program, but then things started to take a dark turn in Ethan’s life. While he wanted nothing more than to be a superhero, he ended up becoming something much darker.

DC Comics Needs to Bring Back Its Version of the Hulk: Damage

First Appearance: Dark Days: The Casting #1 by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jim Lee, John Romita Jr., Andy Kubert, Scott Williams, Danny Miki, Klaus Janson, Alex Sinclair, Jeremiah Skipper, and Steve Wands

As with most military experiments, the Damage program didn’t go as smoothly as some would have hoped. Ethan got superpowers, but they weren’t the same as Superman’s or the Flash’s. Instead, for one hour every day, Ethan could transform into Damage, a giant hulking monster who did its best to destroy everything around him.

The problem was that Ethan and Damage were two separate beings. While Ethan could communicate with Damage, he didn’t have any direct control over what Damage did, meaning that the US Military would often drop him on top of an enemy base and simply let him go crazy. Then, after an hour, they’d pick him up again.

This devastating personality split wasn’t what Ethan signed up for, as slaughtering tons of foreigners wasn’t exactly his definition of being a hero, and Ethan eventually escaped from the military. In the following issues, countless characters tried to take Damage down, including the government, who employed Task Force XL, a division of the Suicide Squad, to hunt down Ethan. Damage’s power proved too great, though, and Ethan quickly defeated Task Force XL and even fought Wonder Woman to a standstill. Damage’s strength was incredible, and surprisingly, DC hasn’t followed up on his story since.

Damage Is So Powerful, He Once Took on Superman

Damage Co-Created by Tony S. Daniel and Robert Venditti

Damage’s last appearance in 2021’s Generations: Shattered #1 by Dan Jurgens, Robert Venditti, Andy Schmidt, and more was a single-panel cameo as part of a vision. DC doesn’t seem to see any potential in Damage and has no intention of bringing him back, which is a shame, because DC doesn’t really have any character comparable to the Hulk. While there are some similar characters, like Solomon Grundy, they aren’t really the same as the Hulk. They’re only superficially similar: being large and having intense strength. Solomon Grundy isn’t even fueled by rage nor does he have an alternate personality.

What makes the Hulk work so well as a character is his duality. The Hulk and Bruce Banner are two separate entities existing in the same body. Depending on how deep a story goes, it gets even more complicated, as there are tons of different Hulk personalities inside of Bruce Banner. This duality has always made for a compelling story hook, as Bruce Banner and the Hulk aren’t always on the same side, which was taken in a fascinating direction when one multiversal version of the Hulk was a hero with the Bruce Banner personality being evil.

Much like Ethan and Damage, Bruce Banner very rarely has any control over what the Hulk does. It should’ve been easy to make Damage into a successful character, as all DC would need to do is immitate Marvel’s already winning formula. It’s honestly baffling that DC decided not to follow up with Damage in any real way, especially with how many opportunities there have been for the character to shine. DC has messed with its continuity several times since Damage’s introduction, such as DC’s Infinite Frontier initiative, which promised that everything in DC was canon – except for Damage, apparently.

DC Needs Its Own Version of the Hulk, One of Marvel’s Most Successful Characters

The Hulk Co-Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

It’s a shame because, with everything being canon, there is so much that DC could do with Damage, especially with the Justice League Unlimited title by Mark Waid and Dan Mora uniting every hero in the DC Universe. DC has shown that bringing back old characters can work. Waid and Mora have brought back Air Wave, for example, who hadn’t been in comics for almost a decade and wasn’t used seriously for even longer. Air Wave now has a central position in Justice League Unlimited, making him one of the most important characters in the comic and perfectly showing that forgotten characters still have uses.

There are so many potential uses for Damage. He was a former military officer, and with DC just finishing up Absolute Power by Waid and Mora, Amanda Waller could bring in Damage as a major powerhouse. If DC wanted to go the opposite way, Absolute Power could have been Damage’s perfect chance to stand up against a corrupt government. There are so many uses for the character, and DC also could have placed Damage and Ethan on opposite sides of the Absolute Power war, with one supporting the superhero community and the other supporting Waller’s forces.

There is an entire roster of characters that DC hasn’t been able to find a use for. Sideways was another popular character who was described as DC’s version of Spider-Man, but he too eventually fell out of use. Introducing new characters is always a fun idea, but it loses its luster when fans aren’t sure if that new character is actually going to get to stick around. Instead of just introducing new characters over and over, DC should really start looking at the stockpile of old characters in its historic continuity.

DC Needs to Invest in Its New Characters

DC and Marvel both have so many characters; sometimes, some of those characters simply get lost in the shuffle. Both Marvel and DC have tried several initiatives to introduce new characters or have new characters introduced during a comic run. Like the beloved Batman villain Bedbug, sometimes characters show up and then just vanish. It’s an unfortunate fact about superhero comic books, but not every character gets their chance to shine. There are plenty of characters who deserve more than what they got, and hopefully, both Marvel and DC will be looking back at characters who deserve a second chance.

It’s unlikely that DC will ever revisit Damage, as the publisher has shown little interest in the character. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. If a character like Air Wave, who hasn’t been seriously used in over a decade, can show up again in a major role, Damage may too. The Hulk is one of Marvel’s greatest characters, and DC should really try to offer its own twist on that idea, with the forgotten character of Damage who deserved so much more attention than he got.

Damage #1 is available now from DC Comics!