One of the strongest – if not the strongest – superhero in Marvel, The Hulk has made a name for himself and become a serious fan-favourite with the amazing feats of strength and power he has shown in both the comics and the cartoons/animations.
However, in the movie universe, The Hulk has seriously suffered a lack of movies and save for 2007’s The Incredible Hulk, all the others before then were lacklustre to say the least.
Yet, even with all the things we know Hulk can do without breaking a sweat – like holding up a 150 billion ton mountain, Lifting the whole island of Manhattan to keep it from sinking, holding the tectonic plates of a planet together to keep it from splitting in two, amongst others – we, sadly, haven’t seen even a fraction of The Hulk’s strength on the big screen.
Ang Lee’s Hulk was a very poor showing, with critics and fans heavily bashing the movie. However, 2007’s The Incredible Hulk played by Ed Norton was more in tune with what one would expect from the big green monster. His battle with abomination was a wonderful final fight, and the movie actually spearheaded and was the preamble to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that is currently in it’s Phase 3.
Thanks to Disney splitting the rights with Marvel, we get to see the gamma monster in the MCU, like we saw in both Avengers movies and we will see in Thor: Ragnarok in November and also Avengers: Infinity Wars and the fourth untitled Avengers movie. But doesn’t The Hulk deserve his own standalone movie?
There are so many storylines to explore. Thankfully, Thor: Ragnarok will showcase the Planet Hulk storyline, but even at that, it wouldn’t be the full storyline, because the movie is all about Thor and Asgard’s destruction. But the Planet Hulk deserves its own storyline and movie.
There is also the possible return of Abomination to explore, because though he isn’t as strong as a very angry Hulk, abomination is at least strong enough to break out of any prison holding him (except Tony Stark has a hand in building it).
Red Hulk is another possible storyline that is long overdue. General Ross has appeared in both Hulk movies so far and also in Captain America: Civil War. And with his relentless pursuit and failure to keep capturing Hulk, it’s only a matter of time before he does the procedure that will turn him into Red Hulk.
As for the World Breaker Hulk storyline, it’s not something i believe can be explored until Sentry is brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So a movie of that right now wouldn’t give us up to half of the experience we would have gotten from a Sentry and Hulk fight.
The Hulk may be appearing in cameos and other standalone MCU movies, but it’s about time he got another movie to his name. If after 5 different movies, played by 2 different people, Sony and Marvel can agree to bring Spiderman into the MCU and give him the expected 3 standalone movies, then surely Disney and Marvel can also agree to give Hulk another run of movies and bring some more madness, destruction and thrilling experiences to the big screen again.
As we hope for that, you can catch The Hulk in the Planet Hulk storyline when Thor: Ragnarok is released in November.