Hulk confesses that the armor isn't for him, but for Puny Banner

Fans have been wondering why armor on indestructible heroes are coming into fashion nowadays, for example The New 52's Superman. When you saw this you may have thought that they were promoting body armor (with some sort of cheesy slogan attached), but when Marvel's biggest and baddest hero popped up with body armor, we thought that that was a step too far.
Yes, The INCREDIBLE/INDESTRUCTIBLE Hulk wears armor, but there is a rather sensible reason to it.

Writer Mark Waid and artist Yu, both talked about this on a Marvel chat board and explained all about it:

“Bruce Banner has decided to take a bit of a sabbatical from worrying about trying to control the Hulk,” Waid said. Also, ”If you ever want to get into character for writing the Hulk, go to the DMV for half an hour. That’ll do it.”

The reasons why he is–and exactly the deal he cut to become–an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a mystery that will build out as the story goes.

The Hulk destroys and Banner builds. Banner will be spending his time and energy making up for what the Hulk does.

The reasons why he is an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a mystery that will build out as the story goes on.

Banner realized that the Hulk is not something he can stop. It’s something he can control to a degree, but ‘Hulk happens,’ as he puts it. So when he comes out, S.H.I.E.L.D. points him where they want him to go. Think of him as a cannon, not a bomb.

S.H.I.E.L.D. has what they believe is a fairly tight leash on the Hulk, but they’re mistaken. That’s part of the fun of writing Maria Hill and Bruce Banner, they both have different perspectives on the situation.

From the beginning they wanted to give Hulk some villains to punch that he hasn’t punched before. We’ve got Attuma, Frost Giants, the all-new, all-different Quintronic Man, an old Hulk villain from the ’70s.

There is a Big Bad behind the first year, but Waid doesn’t want to give away who it is.

What other supporting cast will we be seeing? He needs support staff, interns, lab assistants. Now, imagine how difficult it is to hire people for a position where you have to work with Bruce Banner in a closed space all day long.

The lab assistants each have a specialty. They’re introduced in issue 3 and developed more in issue 4. And each of them has a secret–a hidden self inside of them that may or may not need to be explored.

Will there be a Hulk/Daredevil meet up? They haven’t scheduled it yet, but yep. No question.

The floating robot head on the cover of #1 ties into the leash S.H.I.E.L.D. thinks they have on Hulk.

In preview art, we see Maria Hill and Coulson. Maria is a great foil for Banner because she’s a control freak. She’s not a terribly relaxed human being. It is not above Banner to purposefully drop a box on his foot in front of Maria just to see her heart stop for a beat.