We saw plenty of Banner, not much of The Hulk.
Despite the fact that 1,734 superheroes were fighting during the Battle of Wakanda at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, one hero was conspicuous by their absence.
Well, it’s easy to spot that the lack of a ‘gigantic angry green brute that could smash the living shit out of anything that moved’ on a battlefield.
After getting his arse handed to him by Thanos at the very start of Infinity War, it appears that The Hulk has undergone something of an existential crisis because ‘the big guy’ refuses to come out and fight.
When Ebony Maw landed in New York to take on Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange, Tony Stark perfectly summed up the whole situation by saying : “Dude, you’re embarrassing me in front of the wizards” and now we know why.
With Infinity War set to be released digitally and on Blu-Ray, co-director Joe Russo has rubbished the theory that The Hulk was too afraid to take on Thanos again.
“People have speculated whether there was some fear on the Hulk’s part about having to face Thanos again. But I think ultimately what it is, is that he’s tired of playing hero to Bruce Banner.”
The director also said that it was always their intention to sideline The Hulk from the action following his major role in Thor: Ragnarok in order to focus on developing the character and arc of Bruce Banner.
“This was an interesting journey we went on with Banner, trying to decide how we move him forward in the Marvel Universe. What makes him unique as a character is that there is a host body that is being fought over by two distinct personalities who hate each other. And both want control of the host body. So we thought an interesting direction to take him in is what if Banner, who typically uses the Hulk to solve crisis situations, what if the Hulk were no longer interested in solving those problems for Banner? So that the relationship is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. That’s what’s going on here.”
Somehow, we see The Hulk getting angry again in the near future.
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