Betty Ross Banner
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Betty Ross (later Betty Talbot and then Betty Banner) is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics universe.
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[edit] Character history
The only daughter of renowned military general Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, Betty spent her formative years firmly under her fathers thumb. Thunderbolt Ross had wanted a son, and had no use for his unfortunate daughter: after her mother died during Betty's teenage years, she was sent away to boarding school. After graduating, she returned to her father's side, a repressed wallflower. Thunderbolt Ross was then in charge of a top-secret project to create a new type of weapon, emploing the limitless power of gamma radiation. The head scientist on the project was quiet, bookish Bruce Banner, and an attraction between Betty and Banner soon developed.
Their relationship was forever changed when, during the gamma-bomb test, Banner was struck by the full force of the detonation, and its radiation transformed him into the Hulk whenever he grew andry. Banner tried to keep his condition secret from Betty, which only served to alienate them. Betty was then ardently pursued by Major Glenn Talbot, the new aide attached to her father's Hulkbuster task force. Eventually, the secret of Banner's dual identity became public knowledge, and his transformations and rampages created a rift between Betty and himself. With no one else to turn to, Betty married Major Talbot. Their union soon ended in divorce, however, and Talbot died trying to destroy the Hulk.
Betty continued to find herself entangled in the lives of Bruce Banner and the Hulk. At one point she was transformed by the villianous Modok into a gamma-empowered flying menace known as the Harpy. But even those trials could not destroy her love for the hapless Bruce Banner, and eventually, despite her father's objections, she married him. However, lasting happiness was not to be theirs. After spending years living together as fugitives, Betty was poisoned by the Hulk's long-time enemy the Abomination, who used his own gamma-irradiated blood to do the deed hoping to incriminate Banner. Placed in cryonic suspension, Betty was thereafter revived by the Leader, and for a time aided her fugitive husband as his shadowy contact, Mr. Blue. Her present whereabouts are unknown, but it is a virtual certainty that she will re-enter the life of the Hulk before too long.
[edit] Ultimate Betty Ross
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In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, Betty is the daughter of General "Thunderbolt" Ross. She was the roommate of fellow "army brat" Janet van Dyne during her college years when Jan started seeing Hank Pym at NYU. She earned a degree in communications at Berkeley and started dating the Super-Soldier Program's head scientist, Bruce Banner. Her relationship with Bruce soured after Bruce's failed attempts at cracking the super soldier problem turned him into the Hulk. After the Hulk was captured by her father, she ended her relationship with Bruce and temporarily moved to SOHO.
When the Ultimates were assembled, she became their Director of Communications/Public Relations Officer. During this time, Bruce attempted to rekindle their relationship but was spurned and belittled by Betty who boasted of having dinner with Freddie Prinze, Jr. This caused Banner to take some of the recently rediscovered Captain America's blood, combined it with his Hulk formula, and inject it into himself resulting in his transformation into the grey-skinned Hulk and went after Betty stating that she was the only person that he had left. Bruce was eventually brought down by the Ultimates, but not before killing more than 800 civilians. Ironically, seeing Bruce's desperate devotion to her and being perversely attracted to his savage Hulk persona, she took a new romantic interest in Bruce.
When her good friend, Janet was almost killed by her husband Hank during a domestic violence dispute, she revealed that she knew of the Hank and Jan's past personal problems but decided to keep silent about it. She described how sometimes Jan would appear to have chunks of her hair pulled out and that Hank had once slammed her head through a door.
When it was leaked to the public that Bruce Banner was in fact the Hulk, she was devastated knowing that no jury would acquit him of his crime and it was a certain death sentence. However she coldly went along with the government's plan to execute Bruce, but she broke down during the trial. She declared her love for Bruce, offering to have sex with him while she still had the chance and asked him for forgiveness. Bruce granted neither wish [partly because the dialogue was being broadcast live, making Bruce feel inhibited].
When S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered that Bruce was still alive, Nick Fury asked Wolverine to find and kill the Hulk. Betty didn't approve of this but it was beyond her control. She has recently shown interest in Nick Fury but they both, along with almost all the Ultimates, were captured during the Liberators attack on U.S. soil. They were later freed as Bruce Banner came back, so this might complicate things a bit.
[edit] Other media
The original animated series depicted Betty as a civilian hanger on with no apparent function in the Gamma Bomb as in the comics, other than the fact that she was General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross's daughter and only child. However, later adaptations have Betty as a professional scientific colleague to Banner who devotes much of her time trying to address and treat her love's bizarre medical condition.
In the 2003 Hulk film, Betty Ross is played by Jennifer Connelly, and is Bruce's ex-girlfriend and scientific colleague. She is the second person to learn about the Hulk, when Banner saves her from his father's gamma-enhanced dogs, and is the only person capable of calming the Hulk down. At the conclusion of the film, when Banner has been declared dead, she is contacted by her father, asking if she has heard from Banner, but she coldly informs him that, even if Bruce was alive, she hopes he wouldn't contact her (Her phone lines are all being tapped), and that she loves him.
She appears in the animated films Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Avengers 2.
