Ebony Wrote:Because the Hulk is one of the original Woobies. To say nothing of Bruce Banner being Marvel's Whipping Boy (a position that he shares with Reed Richards and used to share with Tony Stark). Neither the Hulk nor Banner have had anything resembling a happy ending for any period longer than about six months.'No happy ending' is kinda par for the course for mainstream comic book characters. The continuing nature of the medium means even the happiest married superhero is gonna have some sort of curveball in their life eventually. There can't be a happy ending when stuff keeps happening.
And the superhero genre is rooted in constant retellings and reboots of the characters. Even if the 'prime' version of the superhero has a happily-ever-after, you can be damn sure there's gonna be another comic, movie, cartoon...where they're back to square one.
This is especially true for the Hulk, since the core narrative theme is a tragic one. Banner always struggles and fails to come to terms with the raging beast within. And the Hulk? The Hulk is angry and lashing out at the world. So Banner can never accept the Hulk, and the Hulk can never be at peace.
The Eyrie folks, as fanfiction writers, are not under such constraints. And as such the latest story is satisfying. It's pleasing because it's everything a canon Hulk story cannot afford to be.
-- Acyl