Hulk has been one of the biggest threats and most popular characters seen on the MCP scene since his release, so if you were getting a bit green at the sight of him, then I’m afraid things will seem like they’re getting out of hand, as now there are two of them!
Who Is The Immortal Hulk?
The Immortal Hulk is based on the comic series of the same name which debuted in 2018, with a reincarnated Bruce Banner developing a new aspect to his personality, and a new manifestation of the Hulk’s powers. This Hulk emerges during the night, and its connections to mysterious and sinister forces give the series a very different atmosphere to other Hulk incarnations.
In MCP terms, Immortal Hulk weighs in at 7 Threat, making him the most powerful Hulk, and putting him alongside Malekith as MCP’s second-priciest characters. So what do you get for all that investment?
Character Card
Compared to the original, this Hulk has upgraded Mystic defenses, going from 3 to 5, but otherwise an identical base stat line, with one exception. Immortal Hulk has the same one-card-side as the original (and his sister), but where they had 20 Stamina, the Immortal comes in at a ‘mere’ 15; so how does he live up to his name? This comes through a unique mechanic, Immortality.
This Hulk can be dazed, but after this occurs, a bunch of things happen in the Cleanup Phase.
So Hulk will be back, and it will quite probably have a fair amount of health, but little power.
With The Green Door power, while Hulk has an Immortality Token it can continue to heal 1 damage each turn, and if it ever returns to 15 Stamina by any means it removes the Immortality Token. The upshot of all this is that it will normally mean Immortal Hulk packs much more than his 15 Stamina over the course of a game, and it puts your opponent on something of a timer to re-daze and KO it after the Immortality Token has been applied. This is a very cool mechanic and provides a lot of food for thought for opponents looking to take him down.
In terms of his damage output, Immortal Hulk ups the ante by exchanging a push on his builder for a size 4 throw; and going from a 4-power, Range 2, 8-dice spender to a 5-power, Range 3, 10-Dice Gamma Blast. The only downside of this insanely powerful attack is that it cannot inflict the Stagger of the old Hulk Smash, but given that it probably straight out deletes many foes, that may be less of a concern.
Other than the above, Immortal Hulk has the same power gain, throw, and amazing Gamma Leap as original Hulk, but loses the superpower to modify his defense dice against physical and energy attacks. He does gain immunity to Hex, which could previously limit his damage output.
Affiliations
Immortal Hulk has Defenders Affiliation, just like the original, but trades his Avengers affiliation for Midnight Sons. That not only gives the Sons an enormously powerful affiliated model to boost their ranks, it also gives Immortal Hulk access to some strong Team Tactics Cards like Banishment, Bats The Ghost Hound, and Siege of Darkness. Siege in particular looks extremely good value by letting Hulk pay two power to throw out his 7-dice builder (with Throw) as an additional attack.
Tactics Cards
Immortal Hulk comes with two new Tactics Cards of his own, Gamma Drain, and One Below All. Gamma Drain is an interesting card that allows Hulk to place a token on a specific superpower of an enemy character within Range 2. Whenever the enemy character uses this superpower, Hulk gains power equal to the amount that was spent to use it. This power lasts until the opposing character is KO’ed, and can potentially give a nice stream of power to Hulk, or discourage your opponent from using that superpower.
One Below All is a versatile card that allows Immortal Hulk to either remove special conditions on itself, or place itself within Range 2, based on whether it has an Immortality token or not. The first is great for shaking off popular Hulk-inhibiting conditions like Stagger and Incinerate, while the second gives some useful general mobility. I think this is the best of the two cards and will almost always see play when IH does.
The Price Of Immortality
So overall, Immortal Hulk is a mighty damage powerhouse, and immediately becomes one of the top potential threats that players will need to have answers for, as well as understanding how to play around his Immortality mechanic. For players looking to make the call on fielding this new Hulk, the increased Threat value will be key. Does the Immortal bring a significant enough increase to what regular Hulk does in order to justify that cost? For Midnight Sons it’s probably a no-brainer, but for other affiliations he might be a little too pricy to make him quite as ubiquitous as his predecessor. Nevertheless, between his extreme smashing potential and awesome model, you can certainly expect Immortal Hulk to make a suitably-sized impact on the MCP scene.
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