ANATHEMA
Real Name: April Booth
Identity/Class: Human mutate (gamma-powered), American citizen, no dual identity
Occupation: Engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, scientist
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Hulk (Bruce Banner), Jack of Hearts (Jonathan Hart), She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters)
Known Relatives: Mark Booth (husband)
Aliases: Hulk
Base of Operations: Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
First Appearance: (voice-only) She-Hulk V#2 (April,
2022);
(full appearance) She-Hulk V#5 (September, 2022);
(Anathema) Sensational She-Hulk II#3 (February, 2024)
Powers/Abilities: As Anathema, April possesses immense superhuman strength, durability and stamina. She can leap great distances, survive the collapse of a building and physically contend with both She-Hulk and Hulk. Her gamma mutation has left her cognition erratic and impaired, causing confusion, rage and apparent hallucinations. Following her original gamma treatment, April briefly assumed a muscular green form before reverting to a smaller body with gray hair, an enlarged head, accelerated intelligence and severe headaches. April is a brilliant scientist, engineer and inventor with expertise in cybernetics, neural networking, remote-control systems, gamma radiation and Zero Energy. She designed gamma-transfer equipment, superhuman restraints and Zero Energy weapons.
Height: Unrevealed (approximately 5'6" in her
original form; 7'0" as Anathema)
Weight: Unrevealed (approximately 125 lbs. in her original form;
650 lbs. as Anathema)
Eyes: Green (currently); blue (formerly)
Hair: Gray (currently); green and blonde (formerly)
History:
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - A gifted engineer and inventor, April Booth founded Booth Cybernetics and dedicated herself to developing affordable cybernetics, neural networking and remote-control technology.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - April met biological engineer Mark Booth online. Mark had difficulty expressing his thoughts, but April understood him intuitively, while he believed she could achieve anything. They quickly fell in love and got married.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - Mark joined Booth Cybernetics, where prospective clients repeatedly assumed that he was the company's genius and overlooked April. Mark corrected them and defended his wife, bbut the experience hardened April's determination to acquire power that could not be ignored.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - Convinced that superhuman powers were accidents wasted on careless recipients, April resolved to reproduce and improve them by design. She and Mark chose gamma mutation over other possible methods and selected She-Hulk as their ideal model. To the Booths, Jennifer Walters was the only known gamma-enhanced individuals who combined strength and invulnerability with intelligence and control.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb) - BTS) - Figuring Reed Richards' laboratory would be harder to infiltrate, April and Mark managed to make their way into Stark Industries and stole a sample of She-Hulk's blood, judging its security easier to defeat than that of Reed Richards' laboratory.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - Using Jennifer Walters' blood samples, April developed a gamma serum. She insisted on extensive testing before even entertaining the notion of trying it on a live subject. Mark, utterly convinced of his wife's brilliance, wanted to surprise her and secretly injected a laboratory rat. April was furious with him, until they noticed the rodent could consciously control its transformation into a powerful, green version of itself. Mark was ecstatic, but April warned that this single result proved nothing and that they would have to kill the animal.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - A news report showing Hulk's destructive rampage made April question their experiment. Mark reassured her that they would be more intelligent and disciplined than previous Hulks and that together they would become the best Hulks.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - Holding hands, April and Mark simultaneously infused themselves with the gamma serum. Both initially became green, muscular and lucid, and April believed they had succeeded.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - Mark abruptly enlarged and became
enraged that his skin was not green enough, destroying their laboratory
in his tantrum.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb) - April reverted to a smaller, gray-haired form with
an enlarged head, accelerated thought processes and intense headaches,
while Mark temporarily returned to normal.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - April accepted responsibility for their condition and concentrated on a cure. Her mind accelerated beyond Mark's ability to follow her, while each transformation left Mark less intelligent and less recognizably himself.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb)) - Mark eventually remained transformed
even when calm. April stepped up as his primary caregiver, being the
only one capable of restraining him when he grew frustrated. She found
he responded particularly well to simple, rhyming children's stories
while his speech and comprehension levels continued to deteriorate.
(She-Hulk V#8 (fb) - BTS) - April concluded that She-Hulk's balanced gamma signature could correct their mutations. They also realized they needed Jack of Hearts, who could absorb and transfer radiation. Se devised a plan to use him to move gamma energy between bodies.
(She-Hulk V#2 (fb) - BTS) - April and Mark imprisoned Jack of Hearts in a containment tank filled with Zero Fluid and experimented with his energy-manipulating abilities. Their work reduced Mark's green coloration without restoring his intellect, but Jack escaped before they could complete their plan.
(She-Hulk V#2) - From their hidden laboratory, April and Mark discovered Jack's empty containment tank. They reviewed their surveillance of She-Hulk and continued preparing to obtain the gamma energy April needed.
(She-Hulk V#5) - After Mark attacked Jack at an outdoor cafe and fought She-Hulk, April arrived and pleaded with Jennifer not to hurt him. She identified Mark as her husband, dismissed the assault as excitement and property damage, refused Jennifer's offer of help and took Mark away.
(She-Hulk V#7) - Jennifer visited the Booths' Brooklyn home to offer help with Mark's condition. April initially claimed that she had Mark under control and tried to send Jennifer away, then realized that Jennifer had delivered herself to them. April invited her inside, used the phrase "Green is gold" to direct Mark and ordered him to capture her.
(She-Hulk V#7) - While Mark subdued and handcuffed Jennifer, April directed him to knock her unconscious and carry her into the basement laboratory before the neighbors heard the struggle. April admitted that she had been trying to devise a discreet public abduction until Jennifer made one unnecessary.
(She-Hulk V#9) - April placed the captive Jennifer beside
a tank of Zero Energy and prepared to drain her gamma radiation.
Resenting Jennifer as an effortlessly beautiful, intelligent and stable
Hulk, April rejected her offer to contact other gamma experts and
insisted that she was her own expert.
(She-Hulk V#9 - BTS) - Jack of Hearts tracked She-Hulk down to Brooklyn
thanks to his gamma tracer. He joined the fight.
(She-Hulk V#9) - Jack tracked Jennifer to the laboratory. April used Zero Energy equipment to attack him while Mark fought the escaping She-Hulk, then activated her gamma-transfer apparatus. The machine drew Mark's gamma energy into April instead of taking Jennifer's, restoring Mark's human form and transforming April into a massive gamma mutate with Mark's impaired cognition.
(She-Hulk V#9) - Disoriented by her transformation, April raged at Jennifer and appeared to hear or see things no one else perceived. Jack released a burst of Zero Energy that ended the fight and rendered him unconscious, after which April carried the frightened Mark out of the laboratory.
(Sensational She-Hulk II#2 (fb) - BTS) - Mark now tried
his best to care for the increasingly irrational April, whose every
thought was consumed by getting vengeance on She-Hulk. They concocted a
new plan that involved getting genetic material from the Hulk.
(Sensational She-Hulk II#2 - BTS) - Mark and April began to track the
Hulk, shadowing his movements. They believed the simple-minded brute was
not aware, but he sensed April's gamma signature. Mistaking it for the
She-Hulk's, the green goliath went to New York to ask his cousin to
leave him alone.
(Sensational She-Hulk II#2) - Mark couldn't stop April from directly confronting Hulk and She-Hulk. April got into a tussle with She-Hulk and got even more furious when the Hulk wanted to walk off. April called him the worst Hulk and claimed she was the real Hulk. This angered him enough to join the fight, April even rejected Mark's attempts to calm her down. April managed to bury the Hulk beneath a collapsing building, seemingly knocking him out.
(Sensational She-Hulk II#3) - April got ready to beat the unconscious Hulk to death, fighting off She-Hulk who she felt was weak, soft and unworthy of being considered the best Hulk. Mark used the confusion to extract a tissue sample from the Hulk in hopes of developing a cure. She-Hulk stopped the fight with April to confront Booth for his latest violation of personal space. She read him the riot act and had no sympathy for their plight: the Booths actively pursued getting gamma-powers. Mark wanted to keep the tissue sample safe and tossed it to 'his honey' April. She smashed the vial, enraged that he kept calling her 'honey'. She violently shouted that her real name was Anathema before storming off, leaving her heartbroken husband behind.
Comments: Created by Rainbow Rowell, Luca Maresca.
'Anathema' means 'something or someone that is strongly
disliked, loathed, or considered completely unacceptable and opposed to
one's core principles'. It's a bit cryptic as codenames go, but it sort
of fits April Booth who was convinced she was vastly superior to other
Hulks. It's rather amazing that the Hulks and the authorities simply
allow her to walk away at the end of Sensational She-Hulk II#3. Anathema
stomps off and that's all she wrote?
And just how did Mark and April Booth manage to lure Jack of Hearts from
space into their Brooklyn basement? It's never explained, nor do we
learn where they got their hands on the Zero Fluid necessary to keep him
contained. Then again, if they're inventive enough to gain access to
Tony Stark's supply of Jennifer Walters' blood, anything is possible.
Profile by Norvo
CLARIFICATIONS:
Anathema should not be confused with
Images: (without ads)
Sensational She-Hulk II#3, p10, pan1 (main)
She-Hulk V#8, p3, pan4 (original form)
She-Hulk V#8, p18, pan5 (secondary mutation)
She-Hulk V#9, p11, pan4 (absorbing gamma radiation)
Sensational She-Hulk II#3, p11, pan2 (leave me alone)
Appearances:
She-Hulk V#2 (April, 2022) - Rainbow Rowell (writer), Rogê Antônio
(pencils & inks), Lindsey Cohick & Nick Lowe (editors)
She-Hulk V#5 (September, 2022) - Rainbow Rowell (writer), Luca Maresca
(pencils & inks), Lindsey Cohick & Nick Lowe (editors)
She-Hulk V#7 (January, 2023) - Rainbow Rowell (writer), Luca Maresca
(pencils & inks), Lindsey Cohick & Nick Lowe (editors)
She-Hulk V#8 (January, 2023) - Rainbow Rowell (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa
(pencils & inks), Lindsey Cohick & Nick Lowe (editors)
She-Hulk V#9 (February, 2023) - Rainbow Rowell (writer), Takeshi
Miyazawa (pencils & inks), Lindsey Cohick & Nick Lowe (editors)
Sensational She-Hulk II#2 (January, 2024) - Rainbow Rowell (writer),
Andrés Genolet (pencils & inks), Kaeden McGahey & Nick Lowe
(editors)
Sensational She-Hulk II#3 (February, 2024) - Rainbow Rowell (writer),
Andrés Genolet (pencils & inks), Kaeden McGahey & Nick Lowe
(editors)
First Posted: 10/17/2026
Last Updated: 10/17/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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