Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Characters Case File #428: Robert Maverick

I know what you’re thinking, faithful theoretical reader.  I did three entries in a row about memorable JLI characters.  So, I got another one of those for today, right?  Um, nope.  I used them all already over the course of this series.  But then I remembered something thanks to Jimmy in an Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes chat about a second Red Hulk.

Point is, if you don’t like this entry, blame Jimmy.

The second Red Hulk started off as General Robert Maverick of some branch of the United States Military.  I couldn’t find out which one.  Regardless, he’s an older white guy with a thick mustache that sounds a lot like a knock-off of Thunderbolt Ross.  First appearing in New Avengers #9 in June of 2016, he was in charge of something called Project: Troubleshooter, one of those secretive government programs that was making superhumans.  In this case, their big success was the American Kaiju, an ordinary guy who was mutated into a giant Godzilla-like monster who was sent to stop Roberto DaCosta’s New Avengers team.

OK, if you think the American Kaiju sounds like a cool potential entry for this series…as near as I can make out, I have already said everything there is to say about the guy, so I’ll just stop that idea right here.

Oh, and as for how the onetime Sunspot was leading his own Avengers team, that one I can cover.  Roberto was a member of the Jonathan Hickman-era Avenegrs team, and he realized that A.I.M. was run like a corporation.  That meant that he, as a super-rich guy, could buy A.I.M., purge all the questionable elements, and then use A.I.M. as his own Avengers-sort of team with a field group that included Young Avengers Wiccan and Hulkling, Squirrel Girl, and sometimes his old buddy Cannonball.

Regardless, when Sunspot sent his team on a mission to bust Rick Jones out of government custody, they took on and took out the American Kaiju, and Maverick…well, he proposed Roberto and his squad work with the American government instead.  And, surprisingly,  Roberto accepted, and the U.S.Avengers were born despite a team that seemed to lack a lot of actual Americans.  But then there was Maverick himself as a new Red Hulk, one who could wear shades and keep his facial hair.  However, his powers were a bit different.  He had implanted in his arm a Bannerman Gene-Enhancement Package, AKA the Hulk Plug-In.  Basically, Maverick could control when he transformed into his version of the Hulk, and it was entirely independent on his mood.  There was just one trick:  the transformation would only last one hour and would need 36 more to recharge.  He had to use the powers sparingly.

Oh, he tried to get around that once with a device that would allow him to do that sort of thing more often, but that was a Hydra trap and he lost control of the device until it was fixed.

So, what happened to this guy?  Well, Maverick’s entire run, from New to U.S.Avengers, came from writer Al Ewing, and he was part of an Avengers era that came to a close with a storyline called No Surrender in which members of the at-the-time three different Avengers teams were tasked with saving the world as a result of something involving Earth’s other heroes being frozen, a couple Elders of the Universe, and a mystery woman who no one had met before but somehow everyone believed was one of the original Avengers.  It was to mark the end of an Avengers era, and  it was only so-so in my humble opinion.  However, it did feature Maverick’s last ride as a Hulk, even donning make-shift Iron Man armor as an Iron Hulk to take on, well, one of Al Ewing’s most memorable turns on an existing character when the Immortal Hulk awoke and attacked the Avengers on behalf of the series’s villains.  Maverick didn’t last all that long largely because the Hulk drained all the gamma power out of his Plug-In, reducing him to a normal human in need to rescue.

Then again, that storyline also showed the most effective hero to stand up against that Hulk was Wonder Man, a pacifist who refused to fight back and just got the snot pounded out of him until the Hulk got tired or switched sides or something.

Regardless, Maverick hasn’t been a Hulk since.

But Ewing’s Immortal Hulk was really cool, so he knows his way around a gamma monster.  Maybe Maverick was just a warm-up.