The MCU's Bruce Banner: where does he go from here?

[Gaith]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Mark Ruffalo, but I also rather love The Incredible Hulk, and blame its soft box office more on residual apprehension from the Ang Lee movie than on any faults of its own. And though Ruffalo gave a good performance, I'd still have rather had Norton... oh well.


That said, while The Avengers directly references the Harlem climax of The Incredible Hulk, thus preserving some kind of link to the earlier movie (albeit less than any of the other MCUs), I have a few questions. As in:


- Wait, since when does Banner know who Fury and SHIELD are? Black Widow shows up and they start talking shop pretty much immediately. Huh? Did he read about 'em on nytimes.com?


- So I guess Bruce has given up on ever curing himself at the movie's start? And thus can never have a sexual relationship? Does that still bother him at all?


- What's Betty up to? Blonsky and General Ross were mentioned in the 2011 Marvel One-Shot The Consultant, so she/they may not have been forgotten about entirely, but I still want to know, darn it!


I'd love to see Hurt's Ross return in any future MCU movie; he wouldn't have to still be fixated on Banner/Hulk necessarily, and if Ruffalo does get a solo Hulk movie, they'll obviously have to address the Betty issue somehow. I worry, though, that for the time being we'll only get Banner showing up in side roles of the others' movies, along with Avengers 2, and that his development will therefore get short shrift - especially if this non-MCU Hulk TV series actually happens, which I'm still having trouble actually picturing.

Is anyone else, in short, rather more interested in the Rosses than the promise of yet another breed of weird evil space alien?

 

[Trekker4747]

- Wait, since when does Banner know who Fury and SHIELD are? Black Widow shows up and they start talking shop pretty much immediately. Huh? Did he read about 'em on nytimes.com?

He's been on the run for a few years he may just know who SHIELD ad its director is I never got he knew who BW was beyond "a SHIELD agent."

- So I guess Bruce has given up on ever curing himself at the movie's start? And thus can never have a sexual relationship? Does that still bother him at all?

The end of TIH suggests Banner was more focused on "controlling" The Hulk rather than working on a cure which he may have accepted as impossible. As for the sex thing.... ? When has that ever been a key motivator for him and why would it bother him? Plenty of people accept they can't have a sexual relationship due to a variety of reasons, not the least of which being medical issues. So why would the fact he has a weaponized penis be any different than a person who has an STD whose transmission cannot be by condoms or other barrier method devices?

- What's Betty up to? Blonsky and General Ross were mentioned in the 2011 Marvel One-Shot The Consultant, so she/they may not have been forgotten about entirely, but I still want to know, darn it!

To be fair The Avengers had a lot of ground to cover and couldn't get into the backstories and side-stories of all of the characters. Thor's Jane is given a passing mention just short of a "we'll deal with her in your next movie", Pepper, granted, does get two or three good scenes with Stark but he was a bit more of a focal character and obviously CA's love-interest and such will be dealt with in his own next movie.

Given the mediocre reception TIH got and that when The Avengers were being made no one knew how well Ruffalo's Hulk would be taken (and that it'd spawn talk of yet another Hulk movie) it makes some sense that The Avengers didn't want to get into it. It's also possible it was dealt with in scenes that ended up on the cutting-room floor.

As for where he goes from here? It seems as if SHIELD was willing to help him maintain something of a "normal life" it's possible (as we see them driving off together at the end) he'll work with Tony on projects or just way got back to Thirdworldistan to do his doctoring.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Wait, since when does Banner know who Fury and SHIELD are? Black Widow shows up and they start talking shop pretty much immediately. Huh? Did he read about 'em on nytimes.com?

Who'd you think was putting Ross up to the task of replicating the Super-Soldier serum? You didn't think Ross thought that up on his own, did you?

- So I guess Bruce has given up on ever curing himself at the movie's start? And thus can never have a sexual relationship? Does that still bother him at all??

Samuel Sterns was his best shot at a cure, and didn't pull it off. So yeah, Bruce has pretty much given up at this point. He probably figures if he tries again for a cure, "the other guy" will show up unbidden and wreck it all. And yeah, that means no sex for Bruce. (Though if you take the Ang Lee movie into account, he never had a sexual relationship before he became the Hulk anyway.)

Does it bother him? Three words: "I'm always angry."

- What's Betty up to? Blonsky and General Ross were mentioned in the 2011 Marvel One-Shot The Consultant, so she/they may not have been forgotten about entirely, but I still want to know, darn it!

I don't think she's been forgotten about, there was just no room to fit her in The Avengers. Pepper Potts and Jane Foster were lucky to get what they got on screen (and Peggy/Sharon Carter's cameo hit the cutting room floor, I heard).

I'm sure Betty and Ross will be in IH3 - and I'm sure there WILL be an IH3. The Leader's all set up, Doc Samson's around, and we have yet to meet Bruce's Ally McBeal-like cousin...

 

[Mr Light]

I'm sick of the mindless brute Hulk. If they do another Hulk movie, I really want to see an intelligent Hulk with Banner in control.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

If by "intelligent" you mean the cunning, smart ass, thuggish Joe Fixit personality then I agree.

If on the other hand you mean the Professor version then forget about it.

I'd take almost any incarnation of the Hulk including Devil Hulk and the Maestro over him. Banner with muscles? Aren't there enough intellectual heroes out there for you?

Let Tony Stark be the smartest superhero in the MCU. Let the Hulk be the kind of guy who knows muscles are for beating the shit out of bad guys and not lifting beakers and test tubes.

 

[sojourner]

Where did this "no sex" stuff come from? Is everyone assuming that Bruce can only have angry sex?

 

[Turtletrekker]

^When he and Betty Ross/Liv Tyler were about to get it on in TIH, they had to stop because it was accelerating Bruce's heart beat to danger levels.

 

[Scout101]

Of course, now that he can control it better, might not be enough to set it off...

 

[Gaith]

Wait, since when does Banner know who Fury and SHIELD are? Black Widow shows up and they start talking shop pretty much immediately. Huh? Did he read about 'em on nytimes.com?

Who'd you think was putting Ross up to the task of replicating the Super-Soldier serum? You didn't think Ross thought that up on his own, did you?

He could have. But even if the revival were Fury's idea, that's no reason Banner needed to know who he was. I get that The Avengers was trying to introduce the gang as quickly as possible and with a minimum of fuss, but it still felt weird to moi. YMMV.

Does [no sex] bother him? Three words: "I'm always angry."

Touche!

 

[Trekker4747]

Where did this "no sex" stuff come from? Is everyone assuming that Bruce can only have angry sex?

In TIH he cuts his finger and blood drops from the catwalk his on to the bottle drink production below. He rushes down there and cleans up the mess and inspects some bottles to ensure his blood didn't get into any of them. He missed a bottle which ended up being filled with the drink and was eventually bought by someone in the States (Stan Lee) who dies soon after drinking the tainted drink.

In short, his body fluids are potentially deadly. Sure he could wear a condom but why take the risk that it won't break or something? And this is along with we see during his make-out scene we see his heart-rate going up which could potentially release The Hulk.

 

[Christopher]

Samuel Sterns was his best shot at a cure, and didn't pull it off. So yeah, Bruce has pretty much given up at this point.

I don't think "given up" is the right phrase. The ending of TIH implied that he'd gained a measure of control over the Hulk and had come to accept it as part of himself. So his emphasis has shifted from "cure" to management.

I'm sure Betty and Ross will be in IH3 - and I'm sure there WILL be an IH3.

It would be IH2, not only because the Ang Lee film is in a separate continuity, but because its title was merely Hulk, no Incredible -- so there's only been one Hulk film to date that the initials IH could apply to.

In TIH he cuts his finger and blood drops from the catwalk his on to the bottle drink production below. He rushes down there and cleans up the mess and inspects some bottles to ensure his blood didn't get into any of them. He missed a bottle which ended up being filled with the drink and was eventually bought by someone in the States (Stan Lee) who dies soon after drinking the tainted drink.

The film never said he died. The actual line was "possible gamma sickness." The only visible effect on Stan when he drank the beverage was that he uttered a surprised "Wow" and dropped the bottle. Beyond that, the effects of the sickness were never specified. Here's the clip.

Maybe it just imparted him with a case of wanderlust, because he soon ended up in Arizona at the site of Mjolnir's crater, and later was interviewed while playing chess in New York City.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Maybe it just imparted him with a case of wanderlust, because he soon ended up in Arizona at the site of Mjolnir's crater, and later was interviewed while playing chess in New York City.

Was the trip to Arizona before or after he jumped in the time machine back to the 1940s?

 

[Trekker4747]

Maybe it just imparted him with a case of wanderlust, because he soon ended up in Arizona at the site of Mjolnir's crater, and later was interviewed while playing chess in New York City.

I assume you're kidding here, since I doubt all of Stan Lee's cameos are intended to be the "same person" and just a bunch of men who happen to look the same. (For the record, he also turned up at two major events at the same time as Tony Stark where he was mistaken for Hugh Hefner and Larry King.)

 

[trekkiebaggio]

Maybe it just imparted him with a case of wanderlust, because he soon ended up in Arizona at the site of Mjolnir's crater, and later was interviewed while playing chess in New York City.

Was the trip to Arizona before or after he jumped in the time machine back to the 1940s?

Omg Stan the Man is Kang the Conqueror!

 

[Christopher]

Was the trip to Arizona before or after he jumped in the time machine back to the 1940s?

That was his grandfather.

I assume you're kidding here, since I doubt all of Stan Lee's cameos are intended to be the "same person" and just a bunch of men who happen to look the same. (For the record, he also turned up at two major events at the same time as Tony Stark where he was mistaken for Hugh Hefner and Larry King.)

I'm not being entirely serious, no, but it's possible some of the Stans could be the same guy. And I excluded the IM cameos because I wasn't sure of the timing. Since footage of the campus rampage in TIH is shown toward the end of IM2, that means Stan's IM cameos may have been chronologically before the others, though it's a bit tricky to figure out how IM2, TIH, and Thor overlap chronologically.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Plus on top of all the other weird things in this world, its easy to imagine ways it is the same guy. They would never address it in a movie but its fun to speculate about.

 

[Christopher]

He's actually a very old Jamie Madrox...

 

[Brikar99]

it's a bit tricky to figure out how IM2, TIH, and Thor overlap chronologically.

Well, according to Marvel:

Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline

 

[captcalhoun]

he wasn't in Arizona, it was New Mexico. South West USA geography fail!

 

[Christopher]

it's a bit tricky to figure out how IM2, TIH, and Thor overlap chronologically.

Well, according to Marvel:

Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline

Ahh, thanks.