Marvel Reveals the True Identity of Hulk’s New Sidekick, As the Gamma-Powered TITAN Unveils His True Form

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Spider-Woman #10! A team of Marvel Comics’ ‘sidekicks’ has recently been revealed as secret agents of Hydra, brainwashed super-powered children who formed the superhero team, the Assembly – and one of the members is Hulk’s ‘sidekick’, Titan. However, Titan isn’t just an unwitting member of Hydra like the rest of the Assembly, he was the one who did the brainwashing, and was monitoring the rest of them under the guise of being the team’s resident ‘Hulk’. And now, fans know exactly who this undercover villain really is.

In Spider-Woman #10 by Steve Foxe and Ig Guara, Spider-Woman is looking for her son, Gerry, who she knows was kidnapped and brainwashed by Hydra. She is fighting alongside the newly reformed members of the Assembly, including Moon Squire, Hellrune, and Cadet Marvel (who are the unofficial sidekicks of Moon Knight, Thor, and Captain Marvel, respectively). Together, they’re all fighting to take down another former member of the Assembly, their one-time ally Titan aka Gremlin.

Gremlin wasn’t just the one who brainwashed the rest of the Assembly and then pretended to be a member just to spy on them on behalf of Hydra as the ‘heroic Hulk sidekick’ Titan, but he also kidnapped Jessica Drew’s son, Gerry. That’s how Spider-Woman got involved in this sinister plot, and why she’s fighting Gremlin in this preview. And only time will tell if she can beat this long-time Hulk/Iron Man villain, or if Gremlin will prove as formidable as the hero he pretended to be the sidekick to.

Who Is Gremlin? The Super-Genius Hulk Villain, Explained

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk #163 by Steve Englehart and Herb Trimpe

While Titan is a giant, Hulk-sized ‘hero’ with nearly impenetrable armor and a similar appearance as the Hulk, the real person piloting the fake hero, Gremlin, is a small, super-genius mutant child of the human mutate, Gargoyle. Gargoyle was mutated through radiation exposure, giving him a disproportionately large, malformed head, and genius-level intellect – and he passed those traits down to his son, Gremlin.

Since the start of his Marvel Comics career, Gremlin has focused on upgrading his physical form to match his intelligence through exosuits and android minions. He did this by engineering highly-advanced mechanical suits generally dubbed his ‘Titan Armor’. Gremlin used his armor to battle the likes of Hulk and Iron Man on numerous occasions, and was seemingly killed by Iron Man during the first Armor Wars event. And now, Gremlin is back in an all-new ‘Titan Armor’, with the addition of a fake connection to the Hulk to make him seem trustworthy – making him infinitely more dangerous.

Gremlin is on His Way to Becoming an A-List Marvel Comics Villain

While fighting Spider-Woman, Gremlin says that he now has to add her to his list of arch enemies alongside Hulk and Iron Man. Plus, the other members of the Assembly are well aware that nothing they could do would have any kind of effect on Gremlin, further proving how powerful he is. That means, in this preview alone, it’s confirmed that Gremlin only fights A-list heroes and has the power level to do it. While he’s still firmly a B-list villain at the moment, he’s quickly on his way to gaining A-list status (which he clearly deserves).

Aligning with Hydra is another great way for Gremlin to get the recognition he deserves as an up-and-coming A-list villain, as that notoriously evil organization could help elevate him to an Avengers-level threat in no time (indeed, three of his arch enemies are prominent Avengers themselves). However, even as it stands, Gremlin is proving to be a major threat to Spider-Woman and the Assembly alone, especially now after it was revealed that he was just pretending to be the Hulk’s ‘sidekick’, Titan, all along.

Spider-Woman #10 by Marvel Comics is available August 21, 2024.