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Welcome to my MCU Rewatch, where I write a review and analysis of the MCU movies in the order of theatrical release. In this installment, I speculate that The Incredible Hulk’s exclusions from the MCU may not be because it is a bad movie. 

Release Date: 13 June 2008
Distributor: Universal
Director: Louis Letterier

Before watching The Incredible Hulk, I had low expectations. It pretty much bombed at the box office, the reviews were generally not good, and you might as well have written most of the events out of MCU canon. My impressions after watching it was that it was an enjoyable movie despite a couple hiccups.

I mentioned in my post about Iron Man that MCU Phase 1 and a little bit of Phase 2 played around with genres. Going off that, The Incredible Hulk is a mix between a monster movie and a superhero movie, but it wasn’t blended thoroughly enough. As a monster movie, it could have further explored the dichotomy between anger and monsterhood. I would have especially liked it if character Emil Blonsky (played by Tim Roth) had a more obvious “to hunt a monster I must become a monster” mentality. As a superhero movie, there’s not much there unless you already know the Hulk is a member of a superhero team. Overall, it should have asked the question, “Who is the real monster here?”

For most of this movie (and most other MCU movies featuring Hulk), the characters treat Hulk as a separate entity from Bruce Banner (played by Edward Norton in this version). Jekyll and Hyde may or may not have been referenced at some point as it’s the more obvious metaphor. But I want to draw your attention to another famous monster who has a better parallel with Hulk: Frankenstein’s Monster.

In the book Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, Prometheus  (the name Frankenstein’s monster gives himself) is viewed as a monster because the people around him treat him as such. No one bothers to ask Prometheus what he wants in life. The same goes for Hulk. He wakes up and destroys a laboratory, and for that he is only treated with violence. Whenever Hulk emerges, it is in reaction to violence, so he only knows violence when he’s out and about. No one tries to reason with Hulk. No one tries to use words with Hulk. No one tries to be friends with Hulk. It’s no wonder he feels unwanted on Earth and instead becomes a gladiator for the Grandmaster where he is celebrated and has friends (Thor: Ragnorok).

Bruce’s closest friends throughout the MCU, are people who don’t treat Hulk any differently than Bruce. The most notorious of these is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who teams up with Bruce to become the Science Bros (not an official name). In The Incredible Hulk, that person is Dr. Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). She fearlessly approaches Hulk and calls him by his name and is totally the Big Spoon.

I don’t think this movie failed because it’s ultimately a bad movie (I very much enjoyed it and it’s soundtrack). I think it failed for two reasons:

1. It’s a remake for a movie that was under 5 years of age. Hulk, released in 2003, starred Eric Bana and Jennifer Connolly (!), and was directed by Ang Lee (!!). It’s proximity to The Incredible Hulk’s release date did not bode well for the second iteration, where people probably didn’t see it because Hulk did even worse than The Incredible Hulk at the box office.
2. The nature of the Hulk is easier to swallow in an already established superhero universe. Later MCU iterations of Bruce/Hulk are endearing and cool because he’s given the opportunities to totally Hulk out and go wild. I’m especially fond of the Thor: Ragnorok version. Bruce/Hulk shines when he’s a secondary character.

As The Incredible Hulk is the least popular of all the MCU films (only making one third of its production budget opening weekend), I understand that several aspects of the film are essentially swept under the proverbial rug. For instance, where in the heck did Betty go in later MCU films? She’s not referenced at all, no does she come up in Avengers: Age of Ultron where Bruce finds some romance in a fellow superhero.

But my biggest questions are about the absence of SHIELD.

General Ross (William Hurt) reveals that the program that produced Hulk was based off the supersoldier program that produced Captain America in World War II. Though SHIELD was founded after WWII, the organization’s connection to the Captain America program means that it would have kept very close ties to any and all off-shoots. So where was SHIELD when Bruce Banner first Hulked out? Where was SHIELD when General Ross was hunting him down afterwards? Where was SHIELD when Bruce and the Abomination, in the words of Tony Stark, broke Harlem?

In Avengers, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) tells Banner that SHIELD had been keeping several organizations off his scent. This is a tactic meant to win Bruce’s trust for when they come to ask him for a favor. I speculate that SHIELD also had a hand in keeping Bruce hidden in the beginning parts of The Incredible Hulk, where it’s revealed General Ross spends years hunting down Bruce/Hulk with minimal success. But that begs the question, are the military actions in The Incredible Hulk the product of an off-the-books mission? As a general in the US Army, what is Ross keeping from his superiors? As the world’s greatest intelligence organization, why doesn’t SHIELD know about this?

My biggest question of all, however, is what does this manhunt cost the taxpayer? Is my good, hard-earned money really worth the years-long pursuit of a man that does not want to be found? Did my money really have to go into sound cannons that are destroyed within ten minutes of being used?

Tune in next time for the return of Iron Man and the introduction of Black Widow.

Random Thoughts about The Incredible Hulk

• When Dr. Stern showed off all the packets of blood made from Banner’s small sample, I couldn’t help but think “You broke science.” While I am a proponent of inaccurate science for the sake a science fiction film, I do have my limits.
• Speaking of, I very much enjoyed Dr. Stern’s thick monitors and analog getup while injecting Bruce with the “cure.” (Meanwhile, in Iron Man, Tony’s video calling from a cell phone in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere).
• I will never get enough of Little Spoon Hulk. Hulk is the little spoon. Hulk deserves to be the little spoon all the time, but he also deserves to be emotionally stable enough to be big spoon.