Red Hulk, Red Smash!
He’s coming…! He’s bigger! He’s badder! He’s the angriest irradiated monster that isn’t green this side of the Marvel Universe circa 2008!
Make way for the terrible Red Hulk!
“Who is the Red Hulk?” you might ask. And it’s a valid question— one that the Marvel Universe initially asked when a mystery man cosplaying our favorite green rage monster in hot-rod red started plowing through powerhouses. It’s like if you crossed an episode of Scooby-Doo with superpowered professional wrestling, with Red Hulk as the new heel on the block.
Hulk (2008) #7, writer Jeph Loeb, artist Frank Cho, colors Jason Keith
And yeah, it turns out to be General ‘Thunderbolt Ross,’ whose magnificent mustache burns away and then regrows every time Ross turns into Big Red. There’s a lot of comic baggage to wade through, but Ross gets Hulk powers via the machinations of villainous super science and goes on a tear as the biggest, baddest Hulk until the actual Hulk comes back around and reclaims the title. After that, Ross goes on for a while to join the Avengers and found his own team of (wonderfully color-matched) Thunderbolts, with the goal of some redemption.
Thunderbolts (2012) #19, cover artist Julian Totino Tedesco
As Red Hulk, Ross gets all the classics— Hulk strength, Hulk healing factor, and so on. But in place of a strained relationship with multiple dissociative identities, Ross instead has a much more straightforward (if nebulous) energy absorption power, which initially makes him such a threat and later comes and goes as the plot demands. This manifests perfectly in Snap, where Red Hulk siphons excess energy from the opponent’s turn to power himself— at twice the rate of the Hulk! Red Hulk has great design flavor as a mirror and counter to the green giant, including the same “in hand or in play” clause, making Red Hulk a similarly unpredictable threat.
Of course, beyond his gamma-powered nemesis, Red Hulk also preys on a large portion of High Evolutionary’s arsenal— cards like Cyclops, Misty Knight, and Sunspot thrive on ‘multiplying’ the power of a single unspent energy, and Red Hulk quickly converts that into an advantage for you. Each trigger grows Red Hulk at an obscene rate: even just two procs lets him outstrip nearly every 6-drop in the game.
It’s no surprise that Red Hulk is a potent deterrent to High-Evolutionary decks, but I suspect his usefulness goes beyond niche tech.
More than anything, Red Hulk is big. Joining the illustrious ranks of The Big Dumb 6-Drops, a single trigger on Red Hulk immediately dwarfs Magneto and matches Giganto— plus 1. Already competing with Blob and Destroyer, a second trigger puts him in Infinaut range!
Of course, your opponent is in the driver’s seat: if they play on curve each turn, your Red Hulk will stay neutered at a mere 6/11. But Big is Big, and, importantly, Red Hulk is markedly more splashable than his more niche competitors. His conditionality makes your opponent walk a tightrope— and doesn’t require any deckbuilding demands himself. Common top-end cards like Infinaut and Blob require a player to build and plan carefully around their drawbacks/conditions; cards like Destroyer and Knull outright demand a deck built around them for their power to make a difference at all. Hulk himself is locked behind the High Evolutionary package.
Which is all to say, the question this time around isn’t at all about building around Red Hulk— it’s just, “which deck could use a Hulk?”
Avenging Spider-Man (2011) #3, writer Zeb Wells, artist Joe Madureira, colors Ferran Daniel
Red Dead Redemption
Of course, the first place to look will be a deck that runs as many Big Dumb 6-Drops as humanly possible. Hela! The more things change. There are two trains of thought: the Hela Tribunal deck that’s swarming the ladder right now often uses Giganto as a bit of pure muscle, and as aforementioned, Red Hulk will pretty often be an upgrade. Red Hulk will also come with the marginal benefit of giving one more hit with actual text to Iron Lad— and he can synergize with Magik’s extra turn for another potential proc. It’s still very much the Hela-Tribunal Show— but Ross is a welcome new guest star.
Venom (2011) #13, writer Rick Remender, artist Tony Moore, colors Val Staples
The Red Scare
In this second deck, the plan’s quite literally the same— discard big cards and then bring them back from the land of the dead for an enormous swing. But cards like Jubilee and Lockjaw help the deck beyond its Hela swing and also use Black Knight to leverage all the naturally large cards you’ll already be discarding. Ross’s ability to gain power in hand synergizes with both Black Knight and Dracula, and his ability to gain power on board means he’s a great hit off Jubilee and Lockjaw.
The ceiling is markedly lower than the Tribunal variant, but it might offer more flexibility for players who enjoy more play lines in their decks.
In both variations (and in general), Red Hulk simply replaces the Giganto or Magneto slot. Magneto’s ability is disruptive enough that I think his power to steal cubes is worth more than the extra 2 power— either way, Red Hulk is likely a step up in power.
Thunderbolts (2012) #21, writer Charles Souoe, artist Carlo Barberi, colors Israel Silva, James Campbell, Thomas Mason
Red Rum Ramp
There’s similar Red Hulk ‘synergy’ in the current Corvus Glaive Ramp shell (also featuring Hela). If you’re getting deja vu, good! Once again, the Red Hulk is just a Large Red Man. But there are some neat extra bits of synergy here— Sandman’s lockdown functionality can force your opponent to waste even more energy, helping Red Hulk’s expected number of triggers go way up. And suppose Giganto and Magneto were the toss-up replacements in Hela. In that case, I think Magneto solidly has the edge here— his ability to disrupt multiple lanes under the Sandman lock is potent. Sorry, Giganto!
Amusingly, Red Hulk functions as a bit of a tool against other ramp decks as well. Should your opponent find themselves with a smidgen more energy than they know what to do, Thunderbolt Ross gets that much bigger! Be aware of that running into any mirror matches.
Hulk 2008 #6, writer Jeph Loeb, pencils Ed McGuinness, inks Dexter Vines, colors Jason Keith, GURU eFX
Threat Level: Red!
Now, if these decks don’t seem like they’re reinventing the wheel, they, uh, aren’t. At all! Red Hulk isn’t that sort of payoff. Instead, he offers a frightening new generic 6-drop payoff that we haven’t seen since Magneto.
Maybe you want an alternate viable option for your Pixie deck—maybe you want to test whether the Big Red Meanie is a smidgen larger than Magneto in Thanos or if another 10+ power card helps bring back Skaar.
Maybe you run him in any deck that you might have run Magneto in instead. Red Hulk is a straightforward finisher whose effect will likely curtail High Evolutionary prominence and force players to evaluate their own off-curve plays very carefully. Assuming he hits 1 proc with any level of regularity (and how many decks do you know curve out perfectly every turn?), it’s a safe bet that Thunderbolt Ross will make a splash.
You can Shang-Chi him, but if you’ve considered all of these other decks that already run a density of 6-drops… who cares?
Thunderbolts (2012) #7, writer Daniel Way, artist Phil Noto, colors GURU eFX
Painting The Town Red!
Red Hulk is coming to Snap with two truly terrific variants. His spotlight variant is a Snap-commissioned original by superstar artist Viktor Farro, who’s rendered all of the Thunderbolts this season in his incredibly cinematic and painterly style.
His other variant at launch is from an iconic panel from an event called Circle of Four, where Red Hulk is empowered by the Venom symbiote and the Spirit of Vengeance in a bid to overpower the encroaching son of Marvel Satan in Hell itself.
No, context isn’t necessary.
Venom (2011) #13.4, writer Rick Remender, pencils Lan Medina, inks Nelson DeCastro, Terry Pallot, colors Marte Gracia, Antonio Fabela
In Red Conclusion
I’m running out of puns. Sue me. And let’s be honest— sometimes you have to give a straightforward card it's straightforward due. Red Hulk is likely going to be a new go-to top-end finisher that can be run in any deck looking for some firepower. Just by Ross existing, it’s going to be a dicey season for High Evolutionary— and every deck is going to have to carefully evaluate their vulnerability to playing off-curve and fueling the good general.
From here on out, the threat of the Red Hulk will loom large over Snap!
Hulk (2008) #2, writer Jeph Loeb, pencils Ed McGuinness, inks Dexter Vines, colors Jason Keith
