Who Is TOBA Hulk & How Strong Is He? Origins & Powers Explained
Hulk is among the most popular and powerful Marvel superheroes, and over the course of his long comic history, many versions of the Jade Giant have been created. One mysterious version of Hulk that always stirs up a lot of questions is The One Below All Hulk which debuted in Immortal Hulk #24. Having said that, we’ve decided to put together this article and explain exactly who is TOBA Hulk and how strong is he?
TOBA Hulk is not actually Hulk, it’s just The One Below All inhabiting Hulk’s empty body. There are no traces of Bruce Banner or Hulk in the body as it’s been taken over by The One Below All. When it comes to powers, TOBA Hulk, as an abstract being has nearly unlimited powers and it’s hard to draw the line where its powers end. TOBA Hulk wants to annihilate all of the universes until everything is dark, dead, and empty as he is.
Now that we’ve given you a brief insight into who or what exactly TOBA Hulk is, it’s time to analyze this in a bit more detail. If you’re interested in more detail and how TOBA Hulk came to be, stay with us and keep reading!
What is TOBA Hulk’s origin?
Before we explain what TOBA Hulk is we need to touch upon briefly the entity The One Below All itself. Like the name insinuates, The One Below All is the opposite aspect of The One Above All which is a creator of all things in the Marvel Universe and the strongest entity in the Marvel Universe.
The One Below All is trapped in the place called “Bellow Place” lest the entity would try to take devour everything living in the Multiverse, leaving nothing but death, decay, and emptiness behind. Bellow Place is sealed away behind the Green Doors, but just because The One Below All has no direct dealings with the rest of the Multiverse it doesn’t mean that it can’t manifest as other abstract entities do.
The One Below All manifests through extreme gamma radiation, the type of gamma radiation transformed him into gamma mutate – The Hulk. The One Below All is a separate alter ego of The One Above All and has desires that are the complete opposite of the desires that The Above All Has. Where TOAA wishes to nurture and create, TOBA wishes to drain and demolish until nothing is left in the universe but it. TOAA and TOBA exist in the balance, TOBA destroys so that TOAA can create something anew. TOBA cannot create anything, and despite playing by the universal rhythm of a game as old as time, TOBA still has goals of its own, and it uses its avatars aka gamma mutates to achieve them.
The Hulk had dealings with the Green Door in the past, and the rest will be a summarization of the events that led to the creation of TOBA Hulk aka Hulk’s body possessed by The One Below All.
The story of TOBA Hulk begins with Brian Banner, Bruce’s father. Brian Banner was aware that something exists beyond the limits of his comprehension since he had dealt with it.
He knew that the strange entity he sighted in the deepest reaches of his mind was something that was made powerful and drawn to gamma radiation. For a time, Brian stopped his experiments with gamma radiation and years would pass before Bruce himself developed a gamma bomb that would be used to tear down the metaphysical barrier known as the Green Gate.
Years would pass before Bruce will be forced to destroy his own father during the Chaos War storyline. Upon dying, Brian was pulled down into the Below Place where TOBA took control of his personality and body to achieve its nefarious goals. TOBA likewise took control of other mutates such as Sasquatch and Jailbait.
Brian managed to talk Bruce into visiting Los Alamos military base where the first accident with the gamma bomb happened, Absorbing Man met him on the scene and absorbed all of his gamma energy. Gamma Flight arrived at the scene and further complicated things, as the Absorbing Man used the commotion to distract everybody at the scene so he can absorb all of the gamma radiation on the scene and use it to power up the portal that will be able to open the Green Door.
This is exactly what happened and everything (and everybody) on the scene at that time was pulled down to the Below Place, to face TOBA. Bruce Banner was separated from the Hulk and Brian Banner started working right away at preparing Hulk’s body for TOBA. It took TOBA a very very long time to gain the ultimate control of Hulk and to destroy Bruce’s soul completely – so we can say with 100 % certainty that TOBA Hulk version is no Hulk at all, it contains no traces of Hulk or Bruce Banner for that matter, it’s simply an empty shell being used by TOBA as its vessel. In the far future, TOBA Hulk managed to defeat Franklin Richards, Galactus, and even Mister Immortal who was considered to be unkillable.
TOBA Hulk devoured many abstract entities, he devoured Eternity itself and by its power he transformed The Hulk into Breaker of Worlds, a being much like Galactus. Breaker of Worlds hungered for the worlds and proceeded to devour them one by one. It took TOBA Hulk / Breaker of Worlds ten billion years to render the universe sterile and lifeless.
Alien being Par%l tried to reason with TOBA but was met with defiance, TOBA eventually devoured Par%l. TOBA’s parting words were
Make all hollow as I, dark and dead as I.
After ten billion years of death, destruction, and slaughter the universe was sterile, empty, cold, and void of all life. TOBA finally achieved its goal and silenced the Multiverse forever.
The gamma-mutated villain Leader found out about the future where TOBA Hulk demolishes all by accident through a message sent by the very same Par%l that met its end at the hands of the TOBA Hulk.
Leader tried to fasten the future in which TOBA Hulk wins but the opposite happened. His very meddling in the affair caused the future never to happen.
Leader wanted to allow TOBA to possess Hulk’s body as soon as possible but accidentally got possessed by TOBA himself. After the Leader became possessed by TOBA he tried to assimilate Bruce Banner and Devil Hulk into himself and through this, achieve the ultimate TOBA form. Hulk and Joe Fixit arrived at the Below Place and put a stop to it.
Joe Fixit became the dominant personality and managed to talk Fantastic Four to enter the Below Place through the Forever Gate along with Jackie McGee. The final confrontation between Joe Fixit and TOBA allowed him to gain a unique insight into the mysterious workings of TOBA. The future in which Breaker of Worlds managed to destroy all life in the Universe never happened, all because of the meddling of Leader.
How powerful is the TOBA Hulk?
TOBA Hulk is extremely powerful primarily due to being a manifestation of TOBA. TOBA himself does not have powers to create, but he does have the power to destroy, annihilate devour and twist the creations others have put forth.
As an abstract entity, and the one that acts as a counterweight for TOAA, it’s hard to exactly define what the powers and abilities of TOBA are since they are most likely limitless and go far beyond the scope of our comprehension.
We know that TOBA has the ability to manipulate extreme gamma radiation and to take possession of gamma mutates. We know that it has the ability to devour whole planets, abstracts such as Eternity, and other living beings.
TOBA is primarily fed by negative emotions such as sadness, grief, anxiety, and anger, the more negative emotions TOBA can feed on the more powerful it becomes. TOBA can never interact with the physical world directly but it can use Qlippoth, gamma mutates, and subtle changes to influence the events and change the odds in its favor.
Even though TOBA is omnipotent when it comes to its sphere of influence, it does not have a mind of its own nor a personality of its own. The entity is marked with extreme mindlessness serving only as a negative aspect of The One Above All.
And that would be all, as you can see TOBA Hulk is technically not a real Hulk in a sense because no trace of Hulk or Bruce Banner were left in the body after TOBA made it its home. Luckily for the Multiverse, the future in which TOBA Hulk devours the universe never came to pass so we’re still quite in the dark on what exactly TOBA can do when it comes to its powers and abilities. We do know that the entity is quite powerful, with abilities rivaling the ones that TOAA has as an ultimate creator.
