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Last month, the pop culture-loving world celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the blockbuster franchise that kicked off in 2008 with the release of Iron Man. But Iron Man wasn’t the only Marvel Studios movie to drop that summer! It took more than one movie to kickoff the MCU, and that other movie turns 10 today. That movie is The Incredible Hulk.
Yeah, that’s right–we’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of The Incredible Hulk, a.k.a. Not the Ang Lee One, a.k.a. The One with Edward Norton. I get why The Incredible Hulk is the most overlooked Marvel Studios movie. It was a co-production with Universal Studios, which is what’s kept Marvel from giving the Hulk a solo sequel in the decade since. It was also produced alongside Iron Man, so it didn’t benefit from the loose style guide that Iron Man set in place either. And even though the film sets up the debuts of characters like Doc Samson, the Leader, and Red She-Hulk, none of that ever came to pass. The Incredible Hulk is just kinda… there, the lowest-grossing movie in the entire MCU franchise.
But that doesn’t mean that The Incredible Hulk is totally a waste of time! In fact, there are some things–seven things, to be specific–that the film introduced into the MCU that have actually paid off and made a difference. Maybe Hulk wasn’t a huge hit and maybe it left a lot of dangling plot threads, but you can’t say it didn’t contribute! Here’s what The Incredible Hulk established.
The Hulk exists!
Obviously this is the one thing you expect a Hulk movie to do–and it does it! Not only does the Hulk exist, but the film also runs through the MCU Hulk’s origin by way of opening credit montage. But bare minimum, Incredible Hulk establishes that Earth has a Hulk prior to the events of 2012’s Marvel’s The Avengers. He’s big, he’s mean, he’s green–you can’t miss him.
This is the movie’s biggest contribution to the MCU. Bruce Banner goes on to appear in 2012’s Avengers, 2013’s Iron Man 3 (in a post-credits scene), 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, and 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War. Of course just because the Hulk returned doesn’t mean Edward Norton did; the dual role was recast with Mark Ruffalo, who took over in 2012 and remains the jade giant to this day.
Radiation gives you super powers!
Believe it or not, this is a thing that had to be clarified! After all, Iron Man only features super-characters with suits of armor. While the Iron Man suit is definitely sci-fi, it’s not part of Marvel’s longstanding tradition of radiation exposure = superpowers.
Incredible Hulk’s opening montage reveals that Banner became the Hulk after exposure to gamma radiation–but his origin is different from the one in the comics. Originally, Banner was caught in a gamma bomb blast on a desert testing site. Instead, the film’s origin is actually more in line with the one featured in the 1978 TV show, which featured the Hulk rampaging forth after a lab experiment gone horribly awry.
The reveal that there are more than just tech-based heroes in the MCU is a big one. Just like how Thor, Doctor Strange, and Guardians of the Galaxy expanded the borders of the canon. Hulk established that heroes can get powers through science. In that way, the Hulk is a precursor to non-tech-based characters like Thor, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man.
General Ross exists!
Incredible Hulk features plenty of comic book characters in its supporting cast, and a few of them are even pretty big deals (where is Liv Tyler’s Red She-Hulk movie?!). But while we still have never seen Ty Burrell play Leonard Samson in all his green ponytail glory, and Tim Blake Nelson never returned with the Leader’s enlarged brain, we have seen more of William Hurt’s General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
Hurt is, so far, the only Hulk actor to return for any other MCU movie, since he appeared in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Oh–and yes, I know Martin Starr had a nonspeaking cameo in this movie as Computer Nerd (he is not Amadeus Cho, people!) and he was later cast as a teacher in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. Could those be the same two characters? Only time will tell!
Super-people are a problem!
Okay, honestly, this one might be a bit of a cheat since Iron Man did actually have a bit of a skirmish with some U.S. fighter jets in his movie. But still, the main focus of Iron Man was about Stark’s battle with Obadiah Stane and not the U.S. government. Incredible Hulk changes that.
This movie establishes that the United States government and armed forces aren’t exactly on friendly terms with all of the super-powered people that keep popping up. In this movie, Bruce Banner is a super threat and constantly on the run from Ross and his troops. That same paranoia will become a through line that low-key connects a lot of the upcoming Marvel movies. S.H.I.E.L.D. will get in Thor’s way in 2011, Banner will remain skeptical of the government in 2012, and then S.H.I.E.L.D. falls apart in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And then distrust of the government and their desire to control super-beings is what 2016’s Civil War is all about. 2008’s Hulk is the first Marvel movie to really put that clash front and center.
The Super Soldier Serum exists!
Surprise! Incredible Hulk actually laid the groundwork for the debut of Captain America a few years later. That’s a pretty big deal! This movie features the first time that the Super Soldier Serum is not only mentioned, but a modern attempt at recreating it is what gives both Bruce Banner and the special-ops maniac Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) their super-abilities.
It’s revealed that Banner’s entire experiment was commissioned by General Ross as part of an attempt to recreate the lost Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America back during World War II. Instead, Banner used gamma radiation to power his experiment and, well, that didn’t turn out so well. The same thing happened to Blonsky, who was injected with the serum and Banner’s blood and turned into a hulking and spiny abomination.
New York City is in danger!
New York City got off easy in Iron Man, as the armored avenger kept all of his domestic action to Los Angeles. But Incredible Hulk took its final brawl to the streets of Harlem, becoming the first Marvel movie to absolutely wreck a NYC neighborhood. 2012’s Avengers, 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, and 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War would be just some of the movies to feature super-villains taking a bite out of the Big Apple. And that’s not even counting all of the Marvel/Netflix shows, which cause regular property damage to the five boroughs.
Additionally, the specific battle between the Hulk and Abomination has been referenced throughout the MCU. Characters talk about it in The Avengers, and a newspaper with the headline “Harlem Terror” can be seen in episodes of the Netflix series Daredevil, The Defenders, and The Punisher.
This is a shared universe!
You gotta have more than one movie in order to have a shared universe, and Hulk–which opened a month after Iron Man–established the MCU as a definite thing. You could see that throughout the movie, as Ross’ troops deployed Stark Industries weapons against the Hulk and they used S.H.I.E.L.D. tech to track Banner to a college in New York City.
But it was Robert Downey Jr.’s totally surprise cameo at the end of the film (not post-credits, mind you, as this was before Marvel taught fans to stick around) that changed the game. This proved that Marvel Studios wasn’t just going to include nods to the other movies. The actors themselves were going to jump from movie to movie, sometimes as surprises. That’s definitely proven to be true over the last 10 years–and now fans know to stay in their seats until the credits roll.
