If you had a nickel for every element Avengers: Age Of Ultron decided to junk as quickly as they dreamed it up, you'd probably have enough to go down to your local comic store and buy a book of your own. One of the most interesting concepts we've heard from this summer's certified blockbuster hearkens back to the source material in such a way that it could have perplexed audiences both familiar and new to the backstory. It all comes down to a matter of coloring, as the film was originally going to feature a grey tinted version of The Hulk.
Screen Rant was told by legendary effects house Industrial Light and Magic that one of the abandoned concepts from Joss Whedon's summer starting blockbuster was in fact a greyish tinting to Bruce Banner's Hulk. The hue was supposed to be symbolic of the mental tricks Scarlet Witch pulled on him during the events of the film's standoff in Wakanda – which lead to the now infamous battle between Hulk and Tony Stark's Hulkbuster armor. While this sounds like a very cool concept, Whedon and company dropped it because it was too confusing for fans of the original comics.
In the comic run of The Incredible Hulk, not only was the Hulk originally grey before being switched to an easier to color green, the "Grey Hulk" came back as a separate persona of Bruce Banner's superpowered alter ego. While Banner's normally gamma enhanced form was a brutish madman with an anger problem, the "Grey Hulk" was in control of his mind, and was even a bit of a player in the Las Vegas scene under the name "Joe Fix It." However, this was not the intent for Hulk in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, as it was merely an indication that Hulk was compromised.
If Whedon and his team had followed their ambition to pay homage to the Grey Hulk, they wouldn't have been the first ones. That honor went to Ang Lee, as his Hulk featured Bruce Banner's father as a rival Hulk of that very same color. So, while we've never technically seen a true version of the Grey Hulk character on screen, we've seen the visual concept executed before. So if you weren't a fan of that Grey Hulk fake out, you're probably breathing a sigh of relief about now.
With Marvel Studios re-evaluating where and when they're going to bring back Bruce Banner and "the other guy," there's plenty of room for interpretation in The Hulk's possible future. Considering rumors have swirled around linking the character to possible solo pictures, as well as Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, there's no limit to where, or how, the Hulk could pop up. Here's hoping that he'll show his face sooner rather than later.
Avengers: Age Of Ultron will be avaliable on Digital HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 2nd, while Captain America: Civil War reintroduces the world to the Marvel Cinematic Universe on May 6th, 2016.
