The first Hulk/Iron Man battle occurred in the very first Avengers comic. This wasn’t the most lengthy or vicious brawl the two would ever share, but it deserves credit for setting the stage for all their future battles.

This debut issue used Hulk as a means of bringing the Avengers together for the first time. After Loki manipulated events to make Hulk the scapegoat for a near-disastrous train accident, Giant-Man, Wasp, Thor and Iron Man all united in the manhunt for Hulk. The first time the Armored Avenger clashed with the Jade Giant, Hulk tricked Stark into flying past him and then crippled his armor’s power supply (this being at a time when the Iron Man armor was still in its crudest form and Hulk wasn’t dumb so much as thuggish and crafty). The second time, Iron Man used his strength to intercept a flying pipe and reshape it into a large grappling hook to subdue Hulk.

That was pretty much the end of their hostilities, as the five heroes joined forces to beat up Loki instead. But it wouldn’t be long before Hulk broke away from the fledgling team and went solo again.

It’s also worth noting that this classic origin tale has been revisited multiple times, including in the Avengers: Season One graphic novel and the mini-series Avengers: The Origin.

This epic clash came at a time when the Hulk had been separated from Bruce Banner. While Banner himself lay in a coma, the mindless, savage Hulk set about reducing New Mexico to a smoldering pile of rubble. That caused a bi-coastal force of Avengers (including Iron Man, Wonder Man, Hercules and Namor) to team up and take the Hulk down.

Not that this team-up did much good. Iron Man confidently charged into battle under the assumption that his shiny new Silver Centurion Armor would get the job done. Unfortunately, his repulsors barely singed the crazed monster. After a hard fight, it seemed the Avengers finally had Hulk subdued. That is, until Doc Samson intervened and convinced them that science, not fists, was the answer to this problem.

It wasn’t Iron Man’s strongest showing against Hulk, but you could argue this fight inspired some of his more dramatic anti-Hulk weaponry to come.

This alternate universe one-shot explored what might have happened if Bruce Banner was a little too slow in saving Rick Jones from the gamma bomb. Here, Rick’s mind wound up becoming linked with Hulk’s, so that each could feel the other’s pain, Tomax and Xamot-style. General Ross used this to his advantage as he tortured Rick to learn Hulk’s whereabouts. Unfortunately for Ross (and the world at large), Rick died and the resulting mental trauma caused Hulk to go off the deep end.

What followed was a massive, gamma-powered warpath as Hulk tore his way through the military and every hero that existed in this early-era Marvel Universe. Iron Man joined in the fight. But as you might expect, his crude gold armor couldn’t accomplish what the entire Fantastic Four failed to do. Hulk pummeled Iron Man so badly that Tony’s heart stopped. Good thing Thor showed up to save the day.

In 1996, Marvel followed up their extended Onslaught crossover by temporarily rebooting the Avengers and Fantastic Four franchises. One of the more interesting changes to the mythology in this “Heroes Reborn” universe was the fact that Iron Man and Hulk’s origins were more closely intertwined. The same series of events caused Hulk’s creation and compelled Tony Stark to don his Promethium Armor to save his injured heart. So it’s only natural that the first thing these two rookie heroes would do is fight one another.

That fight unfolded over most of Iron Man #2. Both heroes got some good blows in. Hulk knocked Iron Man through a wall with nothing but the power of his scream, while Iron Man retaliated with a repulsor blast strong enough to leave Hulk stunned for several seconds. The fight continued as Hulk pushed Tony’s new armor to its limits. Ultimately, the battle reached a draw when Iron Man blasted Hulk with a massive dose of electricity, blacking out the entire state of New York and causing both heroes to tumble unconscious into the waters of Niagara Falls.

The most recent stand-off between Iron Man and Hulk occurred as part of last year’s Original Sin crossover. In Original Sin, the death of the Watcher resulted in many of his carefully-guarded secrets being revealed to the world. One of those secrets was the fact that Tony Stark apparently tampered with the gamma bomb that created the Hulk. In effect, the Hulk was all Tony’s fault. The full truth was much less dramatic, but the two heroes discovered it only after spending several issues clobbering each other.

This fight stands out because it came at a time when Hulk was unusually in control of his faculties. In fact, Tony had just helped Banner recover from a brain injury using the Extremis Process. This surgery resulted in a Hulk that’s as smart as he is strong. Not the sort of opponent any rational person would want to contend with, in other words.

Tony gave Hulk a good chase as he struggled to keep the angry (righteously angry, admittedly) Hulk off his tail long enough to dig the full truth of their shared past out of his addled memory. He even donned a new variant of the Hulkbuster Armor and unleashed the full firepower of his artificial city Tory on Hulk, to little avail. Luckily, cooler heads eventually prevailed.

Iron Man already went through one major upgrade when he unveiled the sleek, multi-functional Modular Armor in Iron Man #300. It was only a few issues before a new clash with Hulk forced Tony to roll out a huge add-on to that armor. This issue marked the full debut of the now-iconic Hulkbuster Armor. This massive suit fits over Tony’s regular armor and gives him a sizable boost in strength and durability. Not necessarily enough to defeat Hulk, but enough to keep him busy for a while.

Like the previous Original Sin pick, this story also stands out because it features an unusually intelligent Hulk (coming in an era where Hulk’s various personalities were merged into one unified whole). Hulk’s role in this story wasn’t that of a mindless brute smashing his way along, but a concerned scientist who only wanted to ensure that a nuclear plant was shut down before it could start producing new gamma bombs. So after testing out his new armor, Tony found himself on the same page as his sometimes ally, sometimes enemy.

The first arc of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s The Ultimates took a much more in-depth look at the formation of Marvel’s premier superhero team. It quickly became clear that the Ultimate Universe versions of Cap, Thor, Iron Man and Hulk were far more dysfunctional than the traditional versions. Case in point, this issue kicked off with a dejected Bruce Banner injecting himself with the Super-Soldier Serum and transforming into a bigger and meaner Hulk than ever. As Hulk tore through Manhattan, terrorizing Freddie Prinze, Jr. and eating innocent bystanders, the rest of the Ultimates were called upon to bring the beast down.

Iron Man certainly did his part in this fight, unloading every weapon in his new, largely untested Iron Man suit. A blast of sound waves briefly brought Hulk under control, but soon he turned the armor into so much scrap metal. In the end, it wasn’t Cap, Thor, or even Giant Man who managed to subdue Hulk. It was the Wasp, who used her shrinking ability to travel up Hulk’s ear canal and sting his brain.

With as much influence as the already cinematically-inclined Ultimates series has had on the Marvel movies, we wouldn’t be surprised if this comic influences the big Iron Man vs. Hulk battle in the Age of Ultron movie.

You have to give Tony Stark credit for trying to use his considerable wealth and resources to bring the Hulk problem under control. This issue saw Tony and his friends struggling to chemically suppress Banner’s Hulk side. Inevitably, though, the beast won out over the man, and an extra-crazy Hulk escaped to cause a new wave of destruction.

Apparently Tony woke up on the Batman side of the bed that morning, because he responded to the threat facing his facility and employees with surprising efficiency. First, he dragged Hulk away from civilians and plunged him underwater. He then proceeded to choke Hulk with a chain and attempt to make the monster black out. The two even resorted to throwing trucks and planes at one another. When that didn’t work, Tony marshaled every last bit of power remaining in his suit and unleashed it all in the form of one colossal punch. When the dust settled, Hulk lay unconscious in a massive crater.

It’s rare for Iron Man to actually emerge the victor in these fights. Even when wearing his Hulkbuster armor, it’s usually a simple matter of surviving Hulk’s rage long enough for some sort of non-physical solution to resent itself. This was the one case where Iron Man proved himself to be the stronger foe.

Iron Man has made some questionable decisions since helping to form the Illuminati with his fellow super-genius heroes. Among those was the plan to trick Hulk into entering a spaceship programmed to blast him away to a remote world where he could live a peaceful, quiet existence for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, the ship didn’t land on a peaceful world. That development led into the Planet Hulk storyline, where Hulk rose from lowly gladiator to king of a freed people and husband of a warrior wife. That was all wiped away in a freak explosion, leaving Hulk with a dead wife, an army of fanatical followers, and a hatred of earth’s heroes like never before.

Cue World War Hulk. In this mini-series, Hulk and his “Warbound” traveled to Earth to exact vengeance. As the newly christened leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. and defender of the free world, it was Iron Man’s job to stop this invasion. And he certainly put up a good fight. He confronted his foe with a newer and bigger version of the Hulkbuster Armor and a slate of projectile darts designed to sap Hulk’s strength. The two titans clashed in the streets of New York. Windows shattered with every punch thrown. Entire buildings toppled over. But when the dust finally settled, only Hulk was left standing.

No comic has done such a great job of conveying the sheer brutality and spectacle of the Hulk/Iron Man match-up. And never has the rivalry been quite so personal or the stakes quite so high.“