You Wouldn't Like Me

The Hulk, who constantly professes to “hate puny Banner,” is both Banner and not-Banner.  But if he is a part of Banner, he is not merely Bruce Banner’s secret identity, initially unknown to those who would hunt him; he is the part of Bruce Banner that Bruce refuses to recognize as himself.  This is one of the reasons that the Hulk contrasts so well with the Thing. The tensions between Ben Grimm and the Thing nearly always resolve in the recognition of common identity: Ben and the Thing are one persona, occasionally alternating external form.  The case of the Hulk is the opposite; no matter how many times we see points of commonality between the two, Banner and Hulk are fundamentally antithetical identities, nearly always in conflict with each other.  

In some ways, the characters are closer to Spider-Man:  Peter Parker is always more or less the same person, even when masked (though he does become more extroverted when is face is concealed); most of his woes arise from the very fact of being one self maintaining two identities.  Bruce and the Hulk are two different people whose troubles at least in part stem from the fact that they are forced into a dissociative time-share. To the extent that Banner and the Hulk are distinct, they are at least consistent in their self-presentation:  the Hulk’s body is an appropriate form for reflecting his inner rage, while Banner is every inch the wimpy, repressed egghead.  

This status quo remained basically unchanged throughout the 1970s, but Eighties' Marvel's infatuation with (temporary) shake-ups helped make the Hulk's comic much more interesting.  Instead of turning new characters into a Hulk,  a series of writers exploited the premise's potential by redefining the personas involved. [1] Chief among them were the two who crafted most of the Hulks' adventures during this decade: Bill Mantlo and Peter David.  Mantlo started his six-year run on The Incredible Hulk just as the decade began (Incredible Hulk 245, March 1980, but published in the last weeks of 1979), continuing until the end of 1985 (Incredible Hulk 313, November 1985). This was the longest run by a writer on this book to date, a record that would be beaten by David (331-445, from 1988-1995).[2] 

But not in a MAGA way

As writers, Mantlo and David had little in common, sharing only an indefatigable work ethic.  Mantlo was a reliable, unsensational scripter who had gained a reputation as the "fill-in king": give him a deadline, and he would meet it.  Unhappy at Marvel, Mantlo attended law school while still writing comics, leaving the company not long after his tenure on the Hulk  in order to work as a public defender.[3] David, who started his career in the marketing department at Marvel, wrote fan-favorite comics for both Marvel and DC,  as well as a great deal of best-selling prose fiction (including numerous contributions to the Star Trek expanded universe).   But they each did more to develop the Hulk's character than anyone had since the character's initial conception. 

Mantlo began this process first by giving Banner control over the Hulk; this was not the first time Banner's personality was dominant over the green monster's superhuman body (Bruce's mind came to the surface every time he visited the subatomic world of his beloved Jarella in the 1970s), but it was the first time this arrangement served as the status quo. [4] Mantlo was also the first to posit that the Hulk was as much a psychological problem as he was the product of mad science, forever redefining both Banner and Hulk as reactions to trauma. 

The first inklings that Banner might have a gamma-powered case of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) come when he is losing to a virtually unstoppable foe.  The narration tells us that Banner realizes that the Hulk, powered by rage, is untiring and unbeatable, where Banner is merely mortal, even when occupying the Hulk's body.  A dark shadowy outline of the Hulk grows in the background of the battle, until Banner relents and lets the Hulk take over ("To Kill or Cure!"). Over the next few issues, the Hulk is more savage than ever, unable even to use rudimentary language, while inside the recesses of his mind, a psychodrama unfolds pitting Dr. Robert Bruce Banner against his demons (at the behest of Dr. Strange's nemesis, Nightmare). After Dr. Strange exiles the Hulk to the Crossroad dimension ("Days of Rage!" Incredible Hulk 300, by Mantlo, Buscema, and Talaoc, October 1984),  the Hulk and Banner spend the next year in real time fighting a series of external enemies while renegotiating their psychic balance  Along the way, he is assisted by a mysterious set of creatures collectively referred to as the "Triad," all of whom are eventually revealed to be manifestations of Bruce's childhood trauma, like alters can in cases of DID: Guardian, as the name suggests, was his instinct for self preservation; Glow was his reason, the force that guided his life and yet also invented the Gamma Bomb that released the Hulk; and Goblin, Banner's rage. They took shape when Bruce was still a child, the victim of his father's ongoing abuse as well as the object of his self-fulfilling prophecy (the elder Banner was convinced Bruce was a "monster").

Soon after, Mantlo was replaced by John Byrne, who, uncharacteristically, did not try to return the Hulk to a Silver Age status quo: he divides Hulk and Banner into two separate bodies and has Bruce finally marry Betty Ross.  Instead, it is Byrne's replacement, Al Milgrom, who restores a status quo almost no one remembered:  the Hulk comes out only at night, and is gray rather than green. All of this sets the stage for the longest extended treatment of Bruce Banner and his multiple identities, written by Peter David.  Towards the end of 1988, David gives the Gray Hulk a new, smart and cynical persona (Mr. Fixit), with ramifications that will only find their full development in the 1990s.

Next: Mid-life, with Loin Cloth 

Notes

[1] Eventually, other characters would, in fact, become Hulks. In the 2000s, virtually the entire supporting cast hulked out:  Rick Jones, Betty Ross, Thunderbolt Ross, Amadeus Cho, and the Hulk's half-alien son, Skaar. And that's not even counting a thankfully brief, uninspired event from the same time period, "Hulked-Out Heroes," in which virtually every Avengers characters becomes a Hulk.

[2] David's work on The Incredible Hulk warrants a chapter of its own, but the bulk of his Hulk output belongs to the 1990s.

[3] In 1992, Mantlo was the victim of a hit-and-run, leaving him with irreparable brain damage.  He has required constant medical care ever since.  A 2014 settlement with Marvel following their use of a character he co-created (Rocket Raccoon) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe put him on slightly better financial footing.

[4] Banner was in control for two years in real time, from Incredible Hulk 272 ("Weirdsong of the Wen-Di-Go" by Mantlo and Sal Buscema, June 1982) to issue 296 ("To Kill or Cure!" by Mantlo, Buscema and Talaoc, June 1984).