Smart Hulk Was Supposed to Debut in ‘Infinity War’
By George Robbins
As we all know at this point, there are many points of contention in regards to some of the storylines in the ‘Avengers: Infinity War‘ movie. Some of these things are based on information we received long after the release of the movie and they were revealed by the filmmakers. Of course content is going to end up being cut from movies because it either doesn’t fit into the allotted time or it doesn’t fit into the story of the movie. This is what happened with a lot with the two most recent ‘Avengers’ films. There are parts of the story that many people feel were unnecessarily glossed over in favor of spending more time on other stuff throughout the films. Going into ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ one of the questions on many people’s minds was why Smart Hulk was a thing and when did it even happen.
In ‘Infinity War,’ the Hulk played a minor role throughout the film as a whole due to us only really seeing him at the beginning of the film. Following the end of ‘Thor: Ragnarok‘ many people, myself included, wanted very much to see more of the Hulk going into the end of the Infinity War Saga. He played such a major role in that film and we got to see another side of him, which just made us want more Hulk. He never really had much dimensionality to him in his previous outings where all he did was destroy whatever was in front of him. By the end of ‘Ragnarok’ he was a unique character with a personality all his own and we wanted to see this part of him moving forward. At the start of ‘Infinity War’ we thought we would see that again, but sadly it was not meant to be.
The Hulk being one of the first people Thanos fought in the movie was meant to be an introduction into just how powerful he was as a character even without the Infinity Stones. This sets up the tension for the rest of the movie where even the strongest character doesn’t seem like much of a threat to the Mad Titan. We would not see the Hulk for the remainder of the film and would only really see him again after the 5-year time skip going from ‘Infinity War’ to ‘Endgame.’ Even when we got to see him again, he was no longer the Hulk that we remembered and we got to see Smart Hulk. This new version of Hulk was one that combined the strength of the Hulk with the intelligence of Bruce Banner, which gave us an entirely new character to look at for the film. However, this was not originally meant to be our first introduction to the character.
During the final battle in Wakanda at the end of ‘Avengers: Infinity War,’ Bruce Banner is forced to fight against one of Thanos’ lieutenants, Cull Obsidian. He fights him in the Hulkbuster armor which has the capabilities of the Hulk but without the precise control that the Hulk has in combat. During this scene, the Hulk refuses to fight again, so Banner must do all he can to beat Obsidian on his own. Originally, this was meant to be the moment where Smart Hulk was introduced and he was meant to emerge from the Hulkbuster armor to fight Obsidian. He was then supposed to be approached by Natasha, who would try to calm him down like she used to only for her to find out he was in complete control. However, according to the filmmakers, this didn’t seem like the proper time to do this and they felt that Banner succeeding in fighting on his own made for a better character arc. Whether this is really true is unknown as it would be up to fans to decide, but we won’t really get a chance to see it.