Beth Banner

Basic Info

• Name: Bethany Danielle Banner
• Birthdate: March 7, 1978
• Birthplace: Trevorton, Colorado
• Education: PhD Graduate in Physics and Biology
• Personality: Distrustful, Sarcastic, Sullen, Uneasy, Withdrawn
• *Prime Motivator: Liberation (from the Hulk)
• *Emotional Disposition: Banner: Anxious / Hulk: Angry
• Eyes: Banner: Hazel / Hulk: Green
• Hair: Dark Brown
• Height: Banner: 5'7" - 170cm / Hulk: 8' 6" - 259cm
• Weight: Banner: 135 lbs - 61 kg / Hulk: 447 lbs - 202 kg
• Ethnicity: Caucasian
• Nationality: American
• Legal Status: Wanted Fugitive
• Origin: Beth Banner altered her
  genetic profile and irradiated herself with
  gamma radiation, in an attempt to discover
  how human beings are at times of stress
  able to tap into increased hidden strength.
• Played By: Rachel Weisz
• Imgur Links: Banner and Hulk

Core Traits

Inspired by Ash's Guide to RPG Personality and Background, these eight traits form the core of Beth Banner. They're not hard-and-fast, set, quantifiable numbers; real people don't work that way. Real people, at closest, work on sliders where the marker can move during the day, sometimes extremely. This, I thought, was an accurate enough middle ground between playability and believability. Ash's guide set them up as oppositional traits where one picked one or the other; having them oppositional made me realize how easily they could be turned into sliders so there isn't a set, numerical value to look for but a range, "somewhere in here-ish".

The eight Core Traits are:

Outlook One's basic worldview, interpreting the world as being essentially good or bad. Impulsiveness The ability to regulate one’s thoughts and actions. Agreeableness General attitude towards people and the ability to handle new situations, tough choices, and interpersonal conflicts. Conformity Basic relationship with cultural norms.

Integrity Basic values regarding work and social interactions. Boldness Willingness to face danger. Interactivity Style and degree to which one interacts with others. Emotive Expression How easily one shows or perhaps feels emotions.

Background

Lengthy Ramble Ahead

"I thought I understood what nightmares were. Even if not your own, burying a child sends you straight into Hell. I still remember it--I still have nightmares about it. True nightmares.

"We were driving just to drive. My sister and I hadn't seen each other for a while; I'd gotten so busy with college, with trying to find a lab that would take me, and everything else. I missed a few years of my niece's life; before that day, the last time I'd seen her she was an infant. Now she was trying to figure out if 'flatulence' was a funnier word than 'fart' for a joke. She heard that joke and had been turning it over and around in her head all day. She was a smart child.

"We were talking, my sister and I. A family reunion was coming up and I always hated those things. People we only see at reunions, who we don't even speak to the rest of the year--why would I want to go to these things? Why does anyone? I never understood it, but then she pointed out that our great-aunt was likely to get wine-drunk and start telling people what she really thought. Considering the woman was a surly old cuss to begin with, that promised to be worth going.

"She understood why I really didn't want to go. Our estranged uncle, our father's brother, might be there. I didn't care that his presence would likely start a riot; I cared that he was still breathing. He did things to me as a child that no adult should do, and yes I'm talking about exactly what you're thinking.

"I didn't tell anyone for years out of shame, but I think that's where I get my temper from. My therapist said I was acting out because I had no other release for the pain my uncle was causing. She was probably right, but I never liked calling it 'acting out'. That always seemed to undersell it. I didn't have words for it as a time, but looking back as an adult--it was rage. It began as anger, I'm sure. Fueled by confusion and shame it grew into something much, much more.

"I'd savagely beaten another child on the playground for some imagined slight or another; I don't even remember what it was. I remember the feeling I had as I knelt on him and pummeled him for all I was worth; I felt--free. I never told anyone that part, not even the therapist. Releasing all that rage, feeling his body go limp beneath me as I hit him again and again and again--for the first time in my life, I felt free. They always said they didn't know why I was so calm after that, even with all that happened. I couldn't tell them that beating that other child senseless felt good. They'd have sent me to a psychiatric hospital and I wouldn't have blamed them.

"That act did, however, open the flood gates. My parents, the police, they kept pressing me and pressing me; why did a quiet, smart child who hardly got anything below a B+ suddenly turn into a feral beast? I resisted telling them for a while, but I couldn't keep lying to my parents. I finally told them everything.

"The next months blur together in my memory. Hospital visits, therapists, police, 'concerned adults from the county'--I had to tell them all, over and over again. I didn't understand why they kept making me relive the years of abuse. Looking back, now, as an adult--I still don't understand.

"This was a very long time ago, remember. Back then, a man's reputation was not only worth more than a woman's body, but everyone knew it and talked about it openly. For the record, my parents never disbelieved me. It was everyone else who did. Well, I do remember getting a sympathetic look from the only female police officer I saw through the whole ordeal. Looking back, I still wonder if she really understood. I hope not. I wouldn't want anyone else to go through it.

"There was no evidence, and it was a child's word against an adult's. I was painted out to be a liar and miscreant, taking that incident at school as evidence of my 'issues', not of anything that man did. The judge agreed. The judge told me, almost apologetically, that making up stories wasn't going to help me with that case. If my mother hadn't grabbed me at the last moment, I would have crawled over the table and up to the judge, where I'd have made him eat that little mallet.

"The only good thing I had to focus on was that, by all accounts, he'd not actually gone through with anything with my sister. As near as anyone could tell, he was just 'preparing' her. Still horrific, but at least she didn't have to endure years of painful penetration. That was the worst part. That was what made my parents truly horrified. He liked it to be painful, so he made sure it was.

"I told them that, explained what I meant, and it wasn't until later in life that I understood what 'calm rage' was, and why it was potentially more destructive than even what I felt. I saw that in my father. At the time I wondered if he didn't believe me and just didn't want to say. He assured me, repeatedly, that he did, and my mother offered the only thing she could--giving me a bath. She didn't have to do that for a good while, but she remembered how much I liked it. I said yes.

"After the bath, I'd gotten into my pajamas and got ready for bed, but I couldn't sleep. I'd been having a hard time sleeping for a while, to no one's surprise. I had finally had enough; I got out of bed to go downstairs and beg my parents to let me stay up just a bit. I wasn't going to ask to watch television or anything; I just couldn't sleep and the memories were running around my head.

"I stopped when I heard the front door slam shut. Creeping down the stairs, I just saw my father's back as he stormed through the house, into the kitchen. As quietly as I could I made my way to the kitchen doorway, peeking around the edge. My father had his right hand in his jacket pocket, which was weird. I understood why when he brought his hand out and it was bloody; even then I knew the bones in the hand weren't supposed to be reconfigured like that, and the continuous dripping of blood surely wasn't any better. I didn't hear what happened. I never heard. I never asked. I didn't need to. I only need to remember what my father told my mother as he washed his broken hand in the sink and what she said to him:

"'That son of a bitch is never going to be able to hurt anyone ever again.'

"'Good. That asshole can suffer for the rest of his life, and if he ever tries to go to the police, I'll say the son of a bitch raped me.'

"My parents had never cursed before that I was aware of. Even then, I understood that whatever my father had done, it was permanent, and whatever my mother was offering, it would keep my father safe. Whatever he had done, whatever she would do, it was for me, in my name. No matter what, my parents were there, and they loved me; if they couldn't protect me, they'd avenge me. I became something of a daddy's-girl after that, and no one knew why. I was nicer to my mother, helping more around the house, doing chores without needing to be bribed with an allowance. No one knew why. I didn't tell them until I was an adult, celebrating my having gotten my first Ph.D.

"It was the first time I had wine with my parents, and apparently easily being wine-drunk runs in the family, as one minute we're talking about fishing and how I hated it, though kept trying because my father liked it, and from there we somehow got onto the topic of his brother and that I'd seen my father's hand that night and heard what they said. I said that was why I tried to be a better daughter for them. I knew how much my parents loved me right then, with my father doing whatever he did and my mother immediately accepting, agreeing, and still wanting to make sure I was further avenged. I didn't know what he'd done that night and I didn't want to know. All I needed to know was that my parents loved me that much. All I needed to know was that if there really is such a thing as 'healing', that was the night it started, seeing his bloody hand, hearing them talk about me.

"I ended up saying I'd go to the reunion, though mostly because my niece asked. She had me wrapped around her finger and everyone knew it, including me. She'd call me her favorite aunt, I'd point out I was her only aunt, and she said that didn't automatically mean I was her favorite. The first time we had that conversation I loved that kid like my own. No one else understood what she meant, but I did.

"Seeing her, there, happy--I thought about my uncle. I don't exactly know what happened after that night, but I know no one talked about him much anymore and I never saw my paternal grandparents again. I picked up enough to surmise; word of the beating had gotten around, and quite likely my mother's readiness and willingness to go to any lengths at all to get him locked in prison if he so much as breathed a word about what happened. He never did.

"The last family reunion I'd gone to, the first one after that night, he showed up. No one talked to him. The only person to look at him for longer than two seconds was my father, and I'd never before or since seen such anger and hatred on his face. I still believe that if my uncle had so much as looked in my direction, it would have been the last thing he ever did. I was tempted to get his attention on purpose, but I didn't want to risk my parents getting into trouble.

"We had a long, honest talk after that, and I almost didn't want to leave again. Almost.

"I don't remember what I was talking about with my sister. I do remember seeing a car stalled in the road ahead, steam or smoke billowing from beneath its hood. My sister only had a second to react; less, really. Gasoline tanker trucks were in the opposite lane, so she could only try to dodge to the right. The last things I heard were screeching tires, exploding glass, and my niece's painful screaming. Those are my last memories until they start again a bit later.

"When I woke up the rain was pouring down; I remember thinking I should have brought an umbrella. Then I remembered. I scrambled to turn over, and something warm immediately flowed into my eyes. Half-blind I crawled back to the car; it was on its roof, crumpled like a tin can.

"My sister was unconscious and lay half out of the car, so I managed to get her away.

"My niece--I stumbled back to the car, but the doors wouldn't open. I couldn't get to the passenger side, where my niece was sitting. I tried. I tried getting to that door, and I tried opening the driver's-side doors. Nothing I did mattered. I couldn't even make any part of the car budge an inch. I could hear her, moving around--then I heard those sounds less and less. I remember screaming and trying to do something, anything, to move the car, but I couldn't. Nothing I did mattered. She died as I was scrambling to do something--anything--to get to her.

"It shattered the family, as the death of a child always does. My sister and her wife divorced a year later, though I kept in touch. I liked her. My sister became withdrawn, saying very little to anyone. She died a few years later; she was young, so they had an investigation. The coroner said she died of natural causes, but I knew that wasn't true. She died in that crash. Her body just hadn't caught up.

"We buried her next to her daughter. Our parents and I just held on to one another throughout the service.

"Just over a year after, as I was working as a professor's assistant, I noticed that one of the papers he had his students write was on inspiring moments. I was grading the papers, skimming them as I just didn't have the time to fully read and consider each one. At least--not until one. The writer, a young man, related a story of how he'd been trapped in a car that crashed when he was younger, but his mother somehow pushed the car off him. An entire car--she pushed off him.

"That got me started. I began hunting for any story of a display of strength, and found story after story after story. I became obsessed. Why were they able to save their loved ones, but not me? What made them so different? I managed to get a grant to find out, and after two years of research and testing, I discovered two interesting things.

"Every single time, every single instance of such strength, gamma radiation was unusually high. Like most forms of background radiation, it doesn't come in a steady stream; some days there are more of it than others.

"I also discovered that in every single instance of such strength, the participants whose blood I could test, all had certain genetic traits. Irrespective of sex or race, those same traits were present in every single person. It was enough to get my grant continued.

"Years went by. I was focused. I worked on this to the exclusion of all else. I had to know; I had to know. From what I was able to discern, the gamma radiation on those days were just enough to make those traits react, which seemed to affect the thyroid and adrenal gland, making them work harder than they should have. Most of the people studied mentioned being inordinately tired and hungry later, which made this make sense.

"Then I heard the news--my grant was being pulled. I wasn't making enough progress, they said. I wasn't close enough to being able to test on rabbits or monkeys yet, and they just didn't have the money to keep me going indefinitely.

"Nothing I said changed their minds. Since I was two weeks out from having to renew anyway, they said I could finish the time. It would give me time to decide what I was going to do.

"It was a kindness, of a sort. I just didn't have anything else to do. My education, my time--my entire life had been devoted to this and this alone. I needed that grant, but I didn't know how I was going to get it. They wanted something concrete, something they could hold and look at, even if it wouldn't be realized for years.

"I remembered something, and raced to my office to dig through the test results from a few months back. I was beginning to test controlled exposure of blood samples to gamma radiation and noting the results. As a baseline I used my own blood, and I discovered I missed only two of the genetic traits. That had been annoying, even depressing, but it had just been a footnote to the work. Now, it had become the only thing that may save the work.

"I found the test results, noting which two specific traits I lacked. With the right supplements, I could make up for their lack. If I had all the right traits, I could show them a human test subject. I could be that test subject.

"I didn't think on it very long. I didn't have to. I knew the lab next door had machinery that emitted certain kinds of radiation, gamma being one of them. I knew that as I'd had to borrow the use of their equipment when my own proved inadequate.

"A week of a carefully controlled diet and monitoring, and I was ready. I just needed to wait for the others to leave. Waiting was hellish, so I contented myself to figuring out how I'd phrase my paper. Refer to myself at the start, or keep it neutral until later? If I started out with it, there was a much greater chance my grant wouldn't be renewed. If I waited, people would accuse me of lying, then they'd wonder if I'd made up my findings.

"I still hadn't decided when I finally saw the others leaving. I knew I had about forty minutes until the cleaning crew arrived, so I hurried. Technically I shouldn't have been able to get in there, but it was an old building, with older doors, so the key that worked for one usually also worked for most of the others. So, a bit of wiggling my key in their lock and I got in.

"As I headed to the back where the equipment was, I paused next to a work table. It was heavy but it wasn't bolted down. As a reference point I tried to lift one end and couldn't get it to budge. Confident, I moved on.

"I remembered how to operate it all and got to work immediately, going through the start-up process and adjusting settings. When I was done, I looked at the clock, then powered up the emitter. The sample pedestal was just large enough to let me sit on it, so I could keep myself as still as possible. It wasn't going to last but a moment, but I didn't want to risk anything.

"I didn't know what to expect, what I would feel. It turned out I didn't feel much of anything, even with as high a dose as I'd given myself. It would probably take time, I knew.

"By the time I'd powered everything back down and got everything back to how I found it, I knew I didn't have much time left. I hurried out--then paused next to the work table. I wasn't surprised when I still couldn't lift it, though I was disappointed. Still, I didn't have time to worry about it.

"I'd gotten back to my own lab just a few moments before I heard the cleaning crew. While they were cleaning the lab next door I slipped out, so there'd be no record of my having been anywhere near there.

"I was driving home when something under the hood of my car blew. Smoke or steam started billowing out, forcing me to pull over and open the hood. I should have stopped there. I was still anxious, still feeling like I'd gotten away with something, still thinking I was close to finding my answers. The problem is that I was.

"I opened the hood and looked at the engine, as if staring at it was going to make it magically fix itself. I was pretty sure there was still enough coolant, but I checked the radiator anyway--I'd forgotten that you're supposed to let the engine cool first, and for a reason. I was too busy trying to hurry to think straight, and it cost me.

"I'd grabbed onto the cap--and screamed as my hand was scalded. I could see a negative of the radiator cap. Later I'd have thought about that scene from that Indiana Jones movie. Right then, though, I just--felt angry. My hand hurt, I was probably going to lose my grant after all, for all I know I hadn't done anything useful when irradiating myself. I just--started punching the car door, and somewhere in there I blacked out.

"I never remember those times that she is out. I think that's mostly a blessing. I don't think I'd want to remember, though that first time--I would have given anything. I came to sometime later, in the woods, all but naked save for a few tattered scraps of clothing that did about as much for my modesty as a fig leaf. I went back to where I'd parked the car, but I couldn't find it. I did, at least, find my purse, so--small favor, really. I managed to make it home, stumbling in to my apartment and just collapsing on the couch, tired from--everything.

"Hours later my phone started chiming and didn't stop; only one person I knew texted me that many times in a row. I pulled my phone out read. My mother sounded worried. Some sort of report about an accident near my lab, and isn't that my car that looks like an oversized modern art project?

"I pulled up the page of a local news station, streamed the last few minutes of their special report. My car looked like an entire herd of rhinocerouses had taken personal offense to its existence. The reporter said she didn't know what happened, but police were trying to locate information on the car and find out who owned it.

"I missed that part, and later I'd pay for that, but that wasn't what got my attention, though. I assume they covered it earlier in the broadcast, but I could see, almost framed by the way the car crumpled, an imprint of a left fist in the passenger door. I looked at my hands; the knuckles on my left hand were scratched, scuffed, like I'd had a particularly annoying case of dry skin or something; my right palm? Unblemished.

"That was the beginning. It wasn't much longer until authorities got involved--the real authorities. People from alphabet-blending acronyms, more forms of the government than anyone had heard of. I was forced to run, and I haven't stopped since.

"Oh--I do want to mention two last things. General Thaddeus E. 'Thunderbolt' Ross. A man who made me his personal green whale. I'd broken up with his daughter, after he didn't think I was good enough for her to begin with. I didn't find all that out until later. Her father being an Army general just didn't come up. I learned that only after he started chasing me with all the power his rank could get him.

"The other thing I wanted to mention--a few years in, I had been literally backed into a corner. They had me surrounded, and I wasn't getting away from there in one piece, if even alive. I was scared--and then I wasn't. No matter what, I knew that she would never let them touch us. I was right.

"I came to later to find carnage and destruction. It was the first time I had strong evidence that she could kill. I realized something--it was because I could kill. I'd been hunted so much, harried and chased every moment of every day--I'd had enough. You know--the last thing I felt, as she came out--freedom. Like the little girl pummeling a bully into needing stitches, I felt--free.

"That's my biggest secret, even bigger than her. It's not that she exists that I'm worried about; it's that I'm beginning to like it--that I'm beginning to like her. Since that time, it hasn't hurt nearly so much. Since that time, I've found myself almost daring someone to try and hurt me. I realize that isn't the best reaction in the world; I'm a walking time bomb and I'm almost threatening to speed up the clock.

"So--do you think you can help?"

The therapist just stared at her. She sat in a chair, with him in another. Somewhere along the way he dropped his pen and his notebook, though he didn't notice. His hand was still poised as if to write something down. It wasn't the first time that happened to her. Based on past experience, he'd come out of it sooner or later, then quite likely panic and call the authorities. Well, no one could say she didn't try to get help.

Hopefully, sooner or later she'd find a therapist who could actually help. Until then, she had to keep moving.

Physiological Enhancements

Banner transforms into the Hulk as a result of the chemical catalyst of adrenaline and gamma radiation. As in normal human beings, Banner's adrenal medulla secretes large amounts of adrenaline in time of fear, rage, or stress, which hormonally stimulates the heart rate, increases blood-sugar levels, and inhibits sensations of fatigue. Whereas the secretion heightens normal physical abilities in normal human beings, in Banner's case it triggers the complex chemical-extra-physical process that metamorphises her into the Hulk. The total time of transformation is somewhere around thirty seconds or so, depending on the initial adrenaline surge, which itself is determined by the original stimulus.

• Superhuman Strength: The Hulk possesses the capacity for vast levels of physical strength, and has been witnessed to move objects that weighed tons, if with difficulty.
  
• Superhuman Speed: Regardless of her size, Hulk's superhumanly strong legs allow her to run at speeds that are far beyond the natural physical limits of even the finest human athlete. However this speed does not grant her much enhanced reflexes or agility; smaller foes can exploit her size and use it to their advantage.
  
• Superhuman Stamina: The Hulk's body counteracts fatigue poisons that build up in her muscles during physical activity. In an enraged state, the Hulk is capable of exerting herself at peak capacity for several hours before fatigue begins to affect her.
  
• Superhuman Durability: In addition to great strength, the Hulk's body possesses a high degree of resistance to injury, though without being completely impervious to conventional weapons and explosives, or falls from great heights, but combined with her quick healing, she isn't far from being invulnerable.
  
• Regenerative Healing Factor: Hulk is capable of regenerating damaged or destroyed areas of her body with far greater speed and efficiency than an ordinary human.

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