The Transformative Years
As an adult, Betty found love in someone her father despised, Dr. Bruce Banner. After Banner was transformed into the Hulk by a gamma bomb test, Betty found herself an object of his interest. When Banner gained control over the Hulk’s form, he believed his problems were over and he proposed to Betty, who accepted. With her father’s grudging permission, the wedding ceremony was held in the house in which she was born; however, the Leader used his technology to revert the Hulk to savagery during the wedding and hired Aleksei Sytsevich, AKA Rhino, to attack. General Ross was injured in the subsequent battle and Betty’s childhood home was destroyed.
Betty later suffered a mild nervous breakdown when it seemed Banner’s transformation into the Hulk was permanent. While recovering at a hospital, Betty received a forced blood transfusion by William Baker, AKA the Sandman, who sought to cure his destabilizing powers, which turned her into immobile glass. Her delicate form was preserved until Dr. Leonard Samson used his Cathexis-Ray to drain power from the Hulk to restore her to normal, curing Banner of being the Hulk in the process. Samson used the remaining power to gain superhuman abilities as Doc Samson. Banner turned himself back into the Hulk when he mistakenly believed Samson and Betty were having an affair.
Betty remained in love with Banner until learning of his attraction for the extra-dimensional Jarella. Believing she had lost Banner to another woman, Betty allowed herself to fall in love with Glenn Talbot, and they were married while the Hulk was briefly thought dead. While the Talbots were on their honeymoon, General Ross intensified his efforts to kill the Hulk to preserve his daughter’s newfound happiness; however, while pursuing the Hulk, General Ross was captured by Russian agent Kondrati Topolov, AKA Gremlin. Glenn Talbot and Colonel John Armbruster led a successful rescue mission, but Talbot was captured in Ross’ place, and presumed dead. Upon hearing news of her husband’s apparent death, Betty suffered a nervous breakdown. Taking advantage of Betty’s unstable condition, M.O.D.O.K. exposed her to gamma radiation, transforming her into the monstrous Harpy, and sent her against the Hulk. During their battle, the Harpy and the Hulk were abducted by the Bi-Beast, a creation of the Bird People, and brought to Sky Island. Banner used the island’s technology to return Betty to normal, and they escaped when the island was destroyed by M.O.D.O.K. and Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.).
Glenn Talbot was rescued through the efforts of Bruce Banner, General Ross and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Clay Quartermain, but was injured during the escape and rendered catatonic, adding to Betty’s distress. Though Banner soon revived Talbot, he was traumatized by the events, and he and Betty soon realized they were no longer in love. After they were divorced, Talbot died attacking the Hulk, while Betty eventually accepted that she still loved Banner and returned to his side. Along with Rick Jones, Betty accompanied Banner to the abandoned Gamma Base, hoping to find a way to cure Banner of the Hulk. During this endeavor, the trio came into conflict with Jackson Day, AKA Corruptor, and Herbert Wyndham, AKA High Evolutionary. They also encountered the reality-altering Glorian and his master, the Shaper of Worlds, as well as the ghost Pariah.
Banner subsequently again achieved a state in which his mind controlled the Hulk; however, Betty was upset because she wanted to be rid of the Hulk completely, and left Banner soon after. Meanwhile, her father still sought the Hulk’s death, going so far as to ally himself with M.O.D.O.K. and Abomination. Upon learning of this, Betty accused him of treason. General Ross was overcome with shame, and dishonorably discharged from the military. Soon after, the Hulk became nearly completely mindless, and was banished to the extradimensional Crossroads by Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme Dr. Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange. During the Hulk’s exile, Betty became the lover of Ramon Morales, but upon learning of the Hulk’s return, she left Ramon and returned to Bruce’s side, just after Bruce and the Hulk had been physically separated. Again thinking their problems over, Betty and Bruce finally married. General Ross tried to stop the wedding at gunpoint, but Betty accused her father of tyrannizing her throughout her life, and he allowed the wedding to proceed. During this time she became pregnant with Banner’s child, though she told no one.
Bruce was soon re-merged with the Hulk when it became clear they could not survive apart. Bruce tried to keep secret that he was becoming the Hulk by night, but Betty quickly learned the truth. Soon after, General Ross sacrificed himself to save Betty from the mutant Nevermind, who had been terrorizing Gamma Base. The wounded General apologized to Betty for the pain he had caused before seemingly perishing in her arms. Distraught and feeling distant from Bruce, Betty considered returning to Ramon, who falsely claimed to be her true husband in his bitterness. She briefly reconciled with Bruce, but was injured when he transformed into the Hulk while holding her. She stayed with Ramon for a short time before leaving him as well, and was captured by the Leader, who then freed her to distract Banner from his plans. Returning to Bruce, Betty achieved a peaceful relationship with the now gray and more intelligent Hulk after revealing her pregnancy; however, the Hulk seemingly died when the Leader detonated a gamma bomb in Middletown, Arizona. Betty subsequently lost the baby and began training to become a nun, hoping to find peace and leave her past behind her.
After Bruce was revealed to be alive, tension existed between Betty and Bruce. In the meantime Tyrannus, a Super Villain that is cut off from the Fountain of Youth, kidnapped Betty and Rick Jones to manipulate the Hulk into getting the Fountain back. Betty tried to convince him to age gracefully, while the Hulk arrived with some of the Fountain’s water. Tyrannus used it to remain young while Betty remained unimpressed with her husband’s actions.
Betty was later happily reunited with Bruce shortly before his various personas apparently merged to form a single identity, the “Professor” Hulk, though she was initially uncomfortable with this new form in which Bruce was always physically the Hulk. During the Hulk’s time with the Pantheon group, Betty shared an apartment with Marlo Chandler and worked as an emergency hotline operator until Jacqueline Shorr, a psychotic woman claiming to be Rick Jones’ mother, seemingly murdered Marlo. Afterwards, Betty moved into the Mount, the Pantheon’s headquarters, with Bruce and was severely wounded when the Mount was destroyed during a battle between the Pantheon and the Endless Knights.
Relocating to Florida with Bruce to recover, Betty took the alias “Betty Danner,” working as a librarian. However, she was kidnapped by her ex-husband’s nephew Major Matt Talbot who used her to trap the Hulk. The Hulk became so enraged that a psychic failsafe was activated, which reverted his body to Banner while retaining the mind of the savage Hulk. Betty aided the cyborg Headshop in rescuing Bruce from his imprisonment, but he received shrapnel in his head during their escape, becoming mentally unstable, and was thought dead after the military detonated a nuclear weapon in his vicinity.
Betty wrote a book about her life with Bruce, and her father reentered her life on good terms after the Troyjans restored him to health. Betty was again reunited with Banner, but a vengeful Abomination injected Betty with a sample of his own blood, giving her radiation poisoning, and she seemingly died. Her father placed her body in stasis in Area 102/Hulkbuster Base in hopes of reviving her someday.
An enigmatic organization called the Team secretly revived Betty, modified her appearance and manipulated her into infiltrating the clandestine Home Base helping them monitor Banner. She learned that the radiation in her system had granted her superhuman physical powers, but the chemicals used to revive her had caused ovarian cancer. Infiltrating Home Base, she quickly climbed the ranks of power and contacted Banner as “Mr. Blue,” but was later discovered to be a spy and Home Base arranged for her to be killed, though she escaped to the house of Nadia Dornova in the nearby desert.
Hulk and Betty were reunited during a subsequent battle with the Home Base’s Krill, cyborg reptiles designed to obtain the Hulk’s blood, and a Hulk clone, but Betty failed to trust that Banner was the original and not the clone. Dejected, Banner left, leaving behind a supply of the Hulk’s blood that might be used to cure Betty’s cancer. Soon after, the Leader revealed himself as the head of Home Base and took mental control of the Hulk, intending to erase the Hulk’s mind and usurp his body. Betty and Nadia followed the mind-controlled Hulk to the Leader’s underground lair. Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, and Samson arrived to assist them, and though the Leader was defeated, Nadia perished saving Betty from a piece of shrapnel. Enraged, the Hulk unmercifully beat Samson until Betty condemned him as a destructive monster, causing him to flee in shame.
Later, Betty apparently washed onto the shores of the demon Nightmare’s island, looking as she had prior to her modified appearance and similar to Nightmare’s daughter Gwen, AKA Daydream. Betty was discovered by her father, General Ross, who sought out the Intelligencia, a group of intelligent Super Villains intent on world dominance, to help cure her cancer. The Intelligencia used Samson’s Cathexis-ray and cosmic radiation to turn Betty into the Red She-Hulk. As Red She-Hulk, Betty helped the Intelligencia carry out their plans.
However, prior to becoming Red She-Hulk, it is unclear whether Betty was recovered from Nightmare Island and placed back in stasis, or whether Mr. Blue (Betty) was actually a clone (as Home Base utilized clones and had a Betty clone in stasis). Additionally, Nightmare once alleged he had manipulated the Hulk for years, hinting that the Home Base adventures may have been at least partially illusory.
Working under Intelligencia, her fragile psyche was constantly conditioned, making her an obedient servant, but she ultimately rejected the Leader’s influence and helped defeat her former masters alongside Bruce’s cousin She-Hulk and his daughter, Lyra. Freed from servitude, Betty was undecided about her future, and when Bruce tried to rekindle their relationship, she ran.
She later allied herself with the Banner Hulk’s forces. She fought at his side when defending Earth from his insane son, Hiro-Kala, and again saving reality as Amatsu-Mikaboshi, AKA Chaos King, attempted to extinguish all life in the universe. She continued to spurn Hulk’s advances and became romantically involved with his nemesis, Tyrannus, but discovered she still loved Bruce. Upon seeing Bruce severely beaten while fighting the villain, however, she refused to relive their hurtful past, let her Red She-Hulk persona take control and left with Tyrannus.
Though Betty and Bruce eventually reconcile until the Hammer of Nul turned Hulk into Nul: Breaker of Worlds. Betty tried to stop him and united with Jessica Drew, AKA Spider-Woman, Carol Danvers, AKA Ms. Marvel and Noh-Varr, AKA Protector, to do so. She is later given an enchanted Asgardian Uru-forged sword from Iron Man to fight the Serpent and his forces, and when the battle concluded she refused to return it.
When Betty worked for the Order of the Shield to preemptively stop extinction-level events, she was paid a visit by Rick Jones who warned her that Doc Green was coming to cure gamma mutates including her–Doc Green was the Hulk transformed into a more intelligent version of Bruce/Hulk and became that way by an unidentified gunman, later revealed to be Betty enlisting Melinda Leucenstern within the Order of the Shield to kill him. Though Jones slipped the gamma radiation cure into Betty’s food and while battling Doc Green as Red She-Hulk, she reverted to her human self, cured and Doc Green revealed to her that Bruce was gone. Betty later asked Doc Green for forgiveness and as a response, he chose to be Bruce. She apologized and they kissed.
Betty attended Bruce’s funeral after he was killed by Hawkeye and planned to avenge his death until she listened to a recording left by Bruce prior to his demise. He later returned asking Betty for her help after she returned from her father’s funeral but was followed by one of the United States Hulk Operations’ agents, Bushwacker, who had orders to kill him–U.S. Hulk Operations was formed after the Hulk seemingly killed Betty’s father, Ross. Despite his orders changing, he ignored them and shot his weapon, accidentally shooting Betty in the head. Her body went missing and she later turned up as the Harpy but red in color this time, mimicking her Red She-Hulk appearance. Unable to transform back into her human self, Betty hid but reached out to the reporter Jackie McGee to find Bruce. While doing so, she saw Hulk Operations mercenaries kill an innocent civilian and she retaliated by killing them. She found the Hulk whose eyes and limbs had been burned off by the new Abomination and in begging for Betty’s help, she instead ripped his heart out and killed him. Abomination attacked her and Hulk’s death led to his resurrection thanks to his healing factor and together, Harpy and Hulk fought and defeated him. They discovered Rick Jones inside Abomination and all of them went into hiding from the Hulk Operations. They then confronted the Hulk Operations together.
