The only daughter of the renowned General Thaddeus E. Thunderbolt Ross, Elizabeth 'Betty' Ross spent her formative years firmly under her father's strict supervision. Thunderbolt Ross had wanted a son, and his disappointment at having a daughter was reflected in the way he raised her. After her mother died during Betty's teenage years, she was sent away to boarding school. After graduating, the introverted young woman returned to her father's side. Thunderbolt Ross was then in charge of a top-secret project to create a new type of weapon involving gamma radiation. The head scientist on the project was Robert Bruce Banner, whom her father detested both he believed that Banner was both a physical and emotional weakling. Ross' hatred of him intensified when Betty admitted that she was falling in love with the handsome young scientist.But their relationship was forever changed when, during the test of his gamma radiation bomb, Banner, rushing out to the restricted area to rescue a teenager named Rick Jones, was struck by the full force of the detonation and became the brutal green-skinned monster called The Incredible Hulk. With the exception of Jones, who had witnessed his first transformation into the Hulk, Banner managed for many years to keep his condition from both the rest of the world, and from Betty, which only succeeded to alienate her from him. Betty was then romantically 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 Betty continued to remain loyal to Banner there after. But his transformations and rampages eventually continued to drive Betty and Banner apart. Thinking Banner was forever lost to her as a potential husband, and to the delight of her father, Betty eventually married Talbot, but it was only out of desperation when she believed that Banner instead loved Jarella, the green-skinned princess of a sub-atomic world. But the Talbots' union later ended in divorce, however, as Betty realized that she had never stopped loving Banner. As for Talbot, he blamed the failure of his marriage on Banner and died in Japan while 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 villainous MODOK into a gamma-empowered flying menace known as the Harpy. In this form, she was an insane green creature with a woman's head and arms, but the wings and body of a giant bird of prey. She could fly and fire energy blasts.Despite all that she had been through in regards to her connection to both Banner and the Hulk, and the continued protestations of her father, she finally married Banner. The two later conceived a child, but after being tormented with terrible nightmares by the demons Nightmare and D'Spayre, Betty loses her unborn baby.Believing that Banner and the Hulk had perished in an explosion, Betty spent some months in a monastery to recover from the ordeal, but eventually she reunites with Bruce. They spent years living together as fugitives until the Hulk's enemy Abomination used his own blood to poison Betty, which would appear to be the work of the Hulk himself (due to the high levels of gamma radiation present in both of their bodies). Betty was placed in cryogenic suspension by her father.In a later retconned storyarc Betty was seemingly revived by the Leader; underwent surgery which considerably altered her appearance; was granted superhuman strength; and for a time aided her fugitive husband as his shadowy contact, Mr. Blue.The Tempest Fugit story arc explains her resurrection as a reality-distorting hallucination created by Nightmare, and also introduces Betty's daughter Daydream, supposedly magically conceived when the entity raped her in her sleep. This version of events was confirmed in stories by later writers.As the Red She-Hulk - Betty Ross as Red She-Hulk. Art by Ian Churchill.During the Fall of the Hulks storyline, Betty is revealed to (this time truly) have been resurrected by the Leader and MODOK, due to the urgings of their new ally, her father Thunderbolt Ross, who had previously kept her body in cryonic stasis. She also undergoes the same process that turned her father into the Red Hulk, which grants her vast superhuman physical power. The now villainous Doc Samson also helps Leader to brainwash Betty into an extremely confused and aggressive state.Ross' allies are aware of his intentions to betray them and send Betty, as the Red She-Hulk , to help assassinate her father, who was hunting the mercenary Domino, after she witnessed him transform from his human form. Their encounter ended with Red She-Hulk kicking Red Hulk off the Empire State Building.[8]After Ross fakes his own death, Betty also appears as herself at the funeral , accompanied by a Life Model Decoy of Glenn Talbot to constantly monitor and control her, and expresses distrust of Bruce due to his recent marriage to Caiera on Sakaar and his subsequent attack on Manhattan.In her She-Hulk identity Betty captures Hank Pym for the Intelligencia.During the World War Hulks storyline, after Skaar stabs her with his sword, the new She-Hulk reverts back to her human form, officially revealing her true identity. Betty explains how she was brought back to life, and asks that Bruce allow her to die. However, when Samson arrives, Betty's anger at his betrayal transforms her back into the Red She-Hulk, thus healing her injuries. Now once again in control of her own mind Betty (as Red She-Hulk) helps Bruce/Hulk to reconcile with his son Skaar. When Bruce gains the upper hand in the ensuing final battle against Ross, Betty turns worried for her father, which, combined with her heightened aggression when transformed, leads into conflict with the original She-Hulk, who prevails. After Ross is defeated and imprisoned, Betty nonetheless convinces Bruce to grant her father an opportunity for rehabilitation and redemption.In the aftermath of the Leader's attempted takeover, Betty is having a hard time to cope with being brainwashed and turned into a Red She-Hulk. During one conversation with Bruce, Betty states that they are no longer married, since she was declared legally dead and everyone else knows that Bruce had married Caiera. He tries telling her that everything will be alright, only to get her worked up and transform into Red She-Hulk.During the Chaos War storyline, Betty as Red She-Hulk joined Hulk, Skaar, A-Bomb, and Korg in their fight against Abomination, a Zom-possessed Doctor Strange, and the forces of Amatsu-Mikaboshi.Following the resolution of the Chaos War, Betty again goes on the run, with Banner - who has discovered that her gamma levels are unstable and that if she transforms just a few more times, she may be permanently stuck in her Red She-Hulk form - finally catching up with her in Rome, only to find out that she has teamed up with his old nemesis Tyrannus to steal Pandora's box, subsequently framing the Hulk for its theft. Subsequently, when Banner confronts Betty and Tyrannus with the help of the museum curator, Dr. Sofia Di Cosmo (an expert on artefacts of antiquity) - who plans to use Pandora's box to form a new Roman empire - they are attacked by a pair of men in armour claiming to be the Knights of Rome , who disappear with Tyrannus, Dr. Di Cosmo and Pandora's box, forcing Betty to team up with the Hulk.The Hulk and Betty are able to track down and defeat the Knights of Rome but Tyrannus uses the opportunity to transform their magical floating fortress into a giant impregnable stone golem while keeping Dr. Di Cosmo his captive. He immediately flings Hulk away, with Betty following - to Tyrannus' obvious dismay. She arrives to find the Hulk unhurt and both revert to their human forms and Betty confesses she is struggling to keep the Red She-Hulk at bay.They return to the Colosseum, with Banner having reverted to the Hulk but Betty still human. Tyrannus has gathered thousands of locals to witness the opening of Pandora's Box. With Amadeus Cho having disabled the mystical defenses of the fortress, Hulk is able to rescue Dr. Di Cosmo and Pandora's Box. Tyrannus and Hulk fight with Tyrannus having the upper hand, prompting Dr. Di Cosmo to ask Betty to become Red She-Hulk to help the Hulk. Both Amadeus and the Hulk tell her not to - because of the risk of her being unable to become human again. Instead, the Hulk throws Pandora's Box to her so that she can keep it away from Tyrannus.Tyrannus exits the golem and shoots Pandora's Box, unleashing the corrupted spirit of hope which was contained inside - possessing Betty. The Hulk is able to absorb and overcome it, freeing Betty from its hold but momentarily returning to human form. Betty realizes that she and Bruce will never be able to have a normal life together and gives in to her Red She-Hulk persona, who tells Hulk she doesn't care - before fleeing with Tyrannus.Betty, still in R-Hulk form, is shown in Tyrannus's underground lair being shown around after they had slept together. When he shows her his fountain of youth they are attacked by A.I.M lead by Monica Rappaccini and are momentarily immobilized while she runs tests on the fountain to create a wishing well.As the Red She-Hulk, Betty has enormous superhuman strength, stamina, durability, and a healing factor that allows her to easily survive what would normally be fatal injuries to humans, such as stab wounds to the leg and abdomen by Wolverine's claws. Similarly to her ex-husband, Betty's strength level is so vast that it warps the laws of physics even further than standard for other characters in the same fictional continuity, for example allowing her to punch her way through dimensional barriers between different universes.[10] She shares the Red Hulk's ability to absorb energy, such as the gamma radiation from other Hulks, thereby reverting those beings to human form, and at least temporarily boosting herself. According to Banner, there were plans to remove this ability through the same process that removed the Red Hulk's based on the fact that this ability would kill her in the end. Also like her father, Red She-Hulk has yellow blood, and produces yellow energy from her eyes when angry. It is known that she can also discharge energy by touch as he can.In the Heroes Reborn Universe created by Franklin Richards in the aftermath of the Onslaught crisis, Betty was known as Liz Ross, and served as the head of security for Stark International. As a result, she took Iron Man's apparent appointment as Tony Stark's personal bodyguard as a personal insult, and was also present when Bruce Banner was exposed to the gamma radiation that would turn him into the Hulk (The same accident that resulted in Stark donning the Iron Man armor in the first place). Shortly before the heroes returned to their world, it was revealed that Liz was dying of cancer as a result of the gamma exposure, Banner being particularly affected by news of the disease to the extent that he turned back from the Hulk to embrace her as Banner after learning about her condition.In the House of M universe, Betty Ross is married to Major Glenn Talbot.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 Captain America's recently rediscovered blood, combine it with his Hulk formula and inject it into himself- publicly defending his actions as giving the team a monster to fight to justify their existence while also admitting that he just 'missed being big'-, resulting in his transformation into the grey-skinned Hulk, who 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 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. Though she coldly went along with the government's plan to execute Bruce, 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 him 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 had 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 when Bruce Banner returned. Betty was seen tending to an exhausted Bruce after the battle with the Liberators and Loki in Washington DC.She becomes She-Hulk in Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #3, interrupting the fight between Hulk and Wolverine.In issue #4, it is revealed that Ross gives herself a dose of the Hulk serum and becomes She-Hulk. Later in the series, Nick Fury reveals that S.H.I.E.L.D. is working to keep her transformations under control.In the two films in the 2000's she has been portrayed first by Jennifer Connelly (The Hulk -2003) and then by Liv Tyler (The Incredible Hulk - 2008). Each story line in which Betty appears contains familiar themes - the tug of war in her heart between helping Bruce try to find a cure for radiation poisoning and helping her father capture him for the good of society. Betty's depiction in the 1966 animated Hulk series which was part of the Marvel Superheroes mirrored the comics: she was shown as just a hanger on/damsel-in-distress. In both the 1982 & 1996 animated series she is portrayed as a scientist and colleague of Banner's. Show less «