Rick Jones.

For those who don't know, this is the comic book origin of the Hulk:

Bruce Banner is a scientist working for the government, and he's built them a weapon called a "Gamma Bomb." (Pacifist Bruce Banner is an invention of the modern age. In the early 60s, every red-blooded American was still dreaming up new ways to blow up the Commies.)

Rick Jones is a teenage hoodlum who sneaks onto Bruce's military base on a dare, not realize that this is the day that the Gamma Bomb is being tested.

Bruce spots Rick on the monitors, so he tells a member of his team to stop the countdown, and rushes out to save him. Unfortunately, the team member he tells is secretly a stinkin' Commie spy (Oops!), and the countdown continues.

Once Bruce realizes the countdown is still on, he only has enough time to catch up with Rick and fling him into a ditch, using his own body as a shield.

Miraculously, they both live, but the gamma radiation that Bruce absorbs from the blast transforms him into the...

Okay, you can probably figure out the rest of it on your own.

Thing is, "big monster man" wasn't a new idea. We'd had Frankenstein already. "Man who turns into a big monster man" wasn't a new idea either. We'd had Jeckyl and Hyde. Nor was "Man who turns into a big monster man, but he loves a woman very much (aww)." We'd had Beauty and the Beast for ages, though they hadn't worked out all the musical number just yet.

The original Hulk comics were about Bruce and Rick. Yes, it was a play on the traditional superhero and sidekick relationship, but there was more to it than that.

Bruce was a man struggling to contain the monster inside him. Rick was a boy who'd started down the wrong path and needed to grow up fast.

For the story of the Hulk to matter, the Hulk has to be more than the product of a science experiment gone wrong -- it has to be something that's been lurking inside Bruce all along, looking for a way out.

As the comics later explore, Bruce had issues as a child. His father was abusive, and Bruce learned to repress all of his anger and his fear. That's the Hulk.

So Bruce is the scarred adult trying to come to terms with the raging child within him. And Rick is the wayward teen, learning to take responsibility for his actions and for other people. The man becomes the boy so that the boy can become the man.

The story of the Hulk, the proper story, is as much about Rick Jones as it is about Bruce Banner. And that's what's missing from the Hulk movies.

That, and the Hulk fighting bug-eyed space aliens while yelling over his shoulder to the military, "Puny humans, why you no leave Hulk alone? Hulk smash aliens! Then Hulk smash you! Hulk is strongest there is!"

But mostly that first thing I said.