Why the MCU shouldn’t have discarded Edward Norton’s take on Hulk

2008’s The Incredible Hulk was under no circumstances a failure. It greater than made again its price range, and it scored a Metacritic ranking that lands it comfortably in the “not great, but not bad” class. It was, nevertheless, shortly discarded from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Edward Norton’s take on Marvel’s Green Mean Machine was retconned away, with Mark Ruffalo changing him and doing a really totally different take on Hulk. Most of The Incredible Hulk was decreased to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in 2012’s The Avengers.

But round 2021, the Norton film grew to become related once more as Disney began incorporating parts from the movie again into the MCU continuity, beginning with Tim Roth returning as Emil Blonsky, aka Abomination, in a cameo in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and later as a visitor star on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Establishing stronger ties between earlier and later takes on the MCU Hulk felt particularly important with She-Hulk, a sequence that appeared to deliver Bruce Banner’s story to an finish so he may cross the torch on to his cousin. After a bunch of films the place Ruffalo’s character rampaged as simply Banner, simply Hulk, and a mixture of the two in the type of Professor Hulk (Bruce’s thoughts in Hulk’s physique, a hybrid who debuted in Avengers: Endgame), it actually felt like that character’s potential had been totally tapped. So it made sense to clear the stage for an entire new Hulk. Not only a feminine take on the character, but additionally a extra comedic one: The comedian e book She-Hulk was mainly the unique Deadpool, full with fourth-wall-breaking jokes.

But the potential for the MCU Hulk is way from depleted. There are nonetheless so many issues the writers of Marvel blockbusters haven’t accomplished with him. And the foundations had been already laid down in The Incredible Hulk.

Photo: Universal Pictures/Marvel Enterprises

There are two notable issues that later Marvel motion pictures did not transplant from the Ed Norton film. The first is Tim Blake Nelson, who at the finish of the movie began reworking into the basic Hulk villain The Leader. When the MCU dropped that concept, audiences missed out on a cool character with limitless mind and vainness, plus telekinesis and the incapability to die. Besides, teasing extra of Tim Blake Nelson in a franchise with out delivering on it must be a felony. The second factor we misplaced is a feral, animalistic Hulk who can’t maintain a dialog and might’t be managed — a scarier, extra thrilling model of the character who’s a lot nearer to the comics’ unique model of him as one thing like a radioactive werewolf.

The stakes for Hulk are larger from the first few seconds of The Incredible Hulk, the place we see Norton as Bruce Banner testing a treatment for gamma radiation poisoning, which triggers his transformation. We watch from his POV as he hurts the folks round him, together with his girlfriend Betty (Liv Tyler), who sees him as a terrifying monster with no connection to Bruce.

Director Louis Leterrier does all of this with out dialogue, by visuals solely. That ups the depth, serving to the scene go straight to the lizard portion of the viewers’s grey matter, the place it’s processed the similar method as a horror film. That’s actually the core of what makes The Incredible Hulk so nice. It isn’t an precise horror flick, however many elements of it, its take on the titular character included, are horror or horror-adjacent.

By going this route, Leterrier has does some notably memorable issues with Hulk that give the character extra depth. For instance, each time this model of Bruce reverts again to human type, Norton performs him as clearly exhausted, terrified, and traumatized. After the struggle at Culver University, when Betty checks herself and Bruce right into a motel, this character who was simply shrugging off bullets the dimension of thermoses is decreased to a shivering mess lined in a blanket. He can’t discuss, he can barely transfer, and when he one way or the other manages to get in the bathe, he begins reliving the trauma of the struggle, the place he wasn’t in charge of himself and was being shot at. After so many Marvel motion pictures the place superheroes have confronted off in opposition to area demons, the Goddess of Death, and an alien imbued with the nice powers of the cosmos, a personality feeling fearful of weapons appears nearly quaint. But it isn’t quaint — it’s human. Ed Norton’s Hulk is refreshingly human.

Photo: Universal Pictures/Marvel Enterprises

Compare that scene with the first time Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk in The Avengers, falls to Earth, modifications again to human, and instantly begins quipping with a safety guard. It’s not that focusing on trauma is healthier than comedian aid — each are legitimate takes on Hulk that may be backed up by some iteration of the comics. And there’s no denying that Mark Ruffalo’s efficiency has been an enormous hit with audiences, serving to make Hulk an A-list superhero. But as a lot as Ruffalo’s Bruce talks about how he’s afraid of “the other guy,” his model of Hulk continues to be a hero, somebody who all of the sudden appears as in-control as he must be each time the motion beats name for it. Ed Norton’s Hulk isn’t.

The 2008 film hammers in that time over and over, most notably proper after the Culver University struggle, the place Hulk takes the unconscious Betty away and hides them each from the rain, tucked below a rock outcropping. When she wakes up, she screams at the sight of him. Later, we see Hulk yelling at the storm and hurling rocks at it. This Hulk isn’t a superhero, he’s a robust animal. He’s mainly an enormous ape, with a point of sentience, however finally working on animalistic intuition. That’s why, in terms of the last showdown between this character and Abomination, Norton’s Banner doesn’t plan to vary, then hope Hulk will select to be noble and save the day. Instead, he hopes to “aim” the inexperienced monster at the different monster, and pray like hell that he doesn’t damage any harmless folks alongside the method.

The bizarre factor is, The Avengers seemed prefer it was going to provide us that Hulk in the starting, with a Ruffalo-Hulk who’s feral, harmful, and incapable of telling pals from enemies. Later in the similar movie, although, co-writers Joss Whedon and Zak Penn dial down his wildness and switch him into the Marketable Hulk, who understands human speech, waits for Captain America’s directions to smash issues, and saves Iron Man when he’s falling from the sky. Once extra, there’s nothing unsuitable with that take — however there’s a transparent disconnect between Hulk at the starting of the film and at the finish, with no clear cause for the change.

Image: Universal Pictures/Marvel Enterprises

So why not repair that? What if the MCU went again to that model of the character? We see glimpses of it in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, when Scarlet Witch messes with Hulk’s thoughts, however there’s a lot extra story potential for a extra harmful, much less urbane Hulk, a Hulk who can’t actually be referred to as an Avenger as a result of he doesn’t have sufficient of a thoughts to consent to being a part of a workforce. A Hulk who would most likely have to be “contained” and aimed toward enemies the Avengers can not deal with, which raises the varieties of giant moral questions the MCU may stand to sometimes take into account.

All of that would nonetheless be accomplished. Professor Hulk doesn’t have to be the last phrase on the character in the MCU. 100 various things can occur to discover Hulk additional as a feral killing machine. If solely Marvel and Disney really wished that. They most likely don’t, as a result of he’s extra marketable as a superhero. But the choice continues to be on the desk, simply ready for somebody to select it up and proceed what The Incredible Hulk began 15 years in the past.