Hunk is the Boba Fett of Resident Evil

Resident Evil Requiem is finally here, reintroducing audiences to Leon Kennedy for the first time in, technically, about fourteen years. But Leon isn’t making his triumphant return alone as, while not every classic Resident Evil character returns in Requiem, there are some surprising cameos here and there, including Sherry Birkin and HUNK, the Grim Reaper himself.

Hunk appears in several pieces of Resident Evil media, sometimes as a playable character, making him something of a series icon. He’s also a foil to most of the games’ protagonists: whereas even Leon Kennedy has to employ stealthy or conservative methods at times, Hunk is almost always guns-blazing, achieving a mythical status both in and out of the RE universe. His nickname, the Grim Reaper, was given to him for his tendency to always be the last man standing when sent out on an operation. His legendary reputation, mysterious background, and stoic, ruthless demeanor just so happen to put him in conversation with another pop culture badass, a renowned Mandalorian by the name of Boba Fett.

Who Is HUNK, Resident Evil’s Unstoppable Umbrella Agent, and How Is He Similar to Boba Fett?

HUNK is closely tied to the origin of the T-Virus and the Raccoon City Incident, making him a long-standing staple of Resident Evil’s lore. As an elite Umbrella operative, he was sent with a small team in 1998 to infiltrate William Birkin’s laboratory and secure the T-Virus, which obviously did not go as planned, considering Raccoon City’s ultimate fate. At any rate, this mission, which you can actually experience via the 4th Survivor game mode in Resident Evil 2, established HUNK as a cold, hardened soldier willing to do anything to get the job done. Living up to the Grim Reaper title, he was the only one of his team to survive the Raccoon City deployment.

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And while his appearances in mainline, canon Resident Evil have been sparse since then, his specter has loomed large over the franchise. It could be because of his cool, tactical outfit, or perhaps his serious disposition and killer proficiency, but just about every RE fan is familiar with HUNK. More than this, he is often considered something of a series mascot, beloved in spite of his relative unimportance in the core RE saga.

If you’re familiar with Star Wars, then the Boba Fett comparisons should be starting to make sense: Boba Fett is a masked, stoic mercenary, ultimately little more than a tool of the Empire, but still unbelievably iconic and culturally significant. The character was so appealing (not to mention profitable—Boba Fett toys dominated the 80s and 90s) that George Lucas, and later Disney, went on to flesh out his backstory in subsequent media.

Capcom, Please Don’t Flesh Out HUNK’s Backstory

This is neither the time nor the place to whinge about The Book of Boba Fett, but one common criticism of the show is that it strips away the enigma of Boba Fett and, in doing so, deflates his appeal. A man who was once up for interpretation, a symbol of cool competence, became just another hero, and not a particularly interesting one at that. Boba Fett was never supposed to be a protagonist, and making him one undermined what made him interesting in the first place.

I feel that it’s important to raise this point, as I’ve seen a number of Resident Evil fans lament HUNK’s absence from the modern RE canon. And with him reappearing in Requiem and probably surviving that game’s events, calls to increase his visibility seem greater than ever. I’ve even seen some posts declaring that he should get his own game. I trust Capcom at this point, but taking this route would feel like scraping the bottom of the barrel when it doesn’t have to. HUNK and Boba Fett have a lot of similarities, but a stripping away of allure shouldn’t be among them.