The greater sons of ambitious doctors

The Hulk and Frankenstein's monster have many similarities between them, in character, plot, and moral. In the broadest sense, both are tragic stories, at least in some part, and reflect some of the most persistent fallacies of the human condition. Both tales involve the commission of errors deliberately but with partial knowledge of their consequences. Both tales involve the tragedy of inheritance and the rejection of uniqueness that each of the two beasts seeks to come to terms with. Both tales involve a death that is incomplete in both form and thought.

Victor Frankenstein is born into a wealthy family in Geneva and is encouraged as a child to temper his spirit of inquiry and to excel as a scientist. Just before he departs to study in Germany, his mother dies and the whole family is stricken with grief. At the university, he excels in chemistry especially and after studying galvanism, he discovers the technique to imbue inanimate bodies with life. As his ambition drives him to achieve more and more, he succumbs to the indecencies of scientific conduct and begins to piece together a body from corpses both human and animal. Finally, when he considers his work done, he finds something before his eyes that is not at all the way he imagined it would be: "I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." Hoping to forget what he'd created he abandons the creature, leaving it afraid and angry.

Bruce Banner (according to the film version) was the son of a man consumed by his ambitions, and could no longer see where he was going except that he went that far. Brian, the father, worked at a military research facility where his desire to "improve" the human DNA leads to a radiological infection after he experiments on himself with gamma rays. After his finds out that his wife's having a baby, he sets about trying to find a cure before his son inherits an inner "monstrosity". However, his military supervisors have been having other ideas since they found traces of human blood in the lab and realized Banner was experimenting with himself. In a fit of rage after he's fired one day, he destroys the lab by detonating a gamma-ray device and goes home to kill his few-years old son. However, his wife gets in the way and gets killed instead. Soon, officials arrive at his residence and take him away, leaving little Bruce afraid and angry.

This deviation from The Hulk comics is justified, at least for the purpose of this discussion, because it retains the same emotional tension and impetus for the plot-line to continue.

So, after the fathers are out of the picture, temporarily, the beasts are let loose into the world, trying desperately but in vain to fit in, and to find compassion and companionship. The Hulk's life is interfered by the turmoil of his emotional sensitivity, rage and deformity - just as Frankenstein's monster's is - and finds the people around him both beautiful and harmful. As the Hulk sets about trying to disown his heritage and ancestry, F's monster begins to loathe his creator for the ugliness he's birthed and vows to have his revenge on both Victor as well as all of humanity. At the same time, Hulk's father returns as The Absorbing Man who needs his son's strength to be control his own "powers" and Victor Frankenstein explores the wilderness his monster has escaped into after supposed killing Victor's brother William. As the plots progress,

• F's monster orders Victor to make a mate for himself so he doesn't have to suffer anymore loneliness; Victor journeys back to England to commence his project accompanied by his friend Clerval, who is separated from him in Scotland; after the realization that mating together, the monsters could sire a whole race to torment humankind, Victor destroys all of his attempts; the monster, witnessing this, confronts him and assures him of revenge; the creator soon weds Elizabeth, his cousin, but after the wedding, he leaves her presence so the monster doesn't harm her (as part of his "revenge"); however, Elizabeth is killed instead just as Victor killed the monster's mate; each set out then to kill the other, leading to a tumultuous journey that concludes near the North Pole


• The Hulk is captured by Gen. Ross, his lover's (Elizabeth Ross) father even as Brian Banner pays a visit at Betty's home and convinces her to let him speak to his son one last time in exchange for his otherwise-unconditional surrender; as father and son speak, Brian becomes vehement in his demands for his son's monstrous strength even as Bruce refuses to comply; eventually, Brian bites into an electric cable and transforms himself into a massive energetic cloud, enraging Bruce to transform into the Hulk and give chase as they battle in the skies; at one point during the battle, the Hulk lets loose all his "energies" as his father absorbs them, only to find that he's barely able to contain it; as the two rage in the air as formless powers, the USAF drops a gamma-ray explosive device on them, disintegrating their presence altogether and rendering them extinct
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The stories don't end there, but this much discussion suffices to establish that The Hulk and Frankenstein were both inspired by and implied the same morals. Although they were two very different beings in construction, it can easily be understood that the two stories couldn't have gone any different way else, and in a sense, were predestined to be self-deleterious, sacrificial, and the summa of a comprehensive reconciliation between the eye that seeks and the fingers that reach. Perhaps the greatest tragedies of humankind cannot happen any way else.

(How wretched now that I visit Wikipedia for a fact-check and find out Stan Lee was indeed inspired by Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)