Warning: SPOILERS for Captain America: Brave New World are ahead!
Although Captain America: Brave New World is the fourth installment of the Captain America film series, and 35th of the Marvel movies in order overall, it really serves more as a follow-up to MCU entries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Incredible Hulk and, to a lesser extent, Eternals. On the subject of that middle movie, Brave New World saw Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and Samuel Sterns playing important roles, as well as Betty Ross cameoing at the end. And yet, Hulk himself, a.k.a. Bruce Banner, was nowhere to be seen, though director Julius Onah’s explanation for the absence makes it understandable.
Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner are familiar with each other from the brief time they spent together in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, but regarding why the latter never came to the former’s aid or even just spent some time with his The Incredible Hulk cohorts, Onah told The Playlist the following:
Well, I think at the end of the day, and I’m happy it landed where it did—this is Sam’s story. This is Sam’s first cinematic adventure as Captain America. And you want it to be about Sam leaning into his superpower to overcome the odds. So, you pull in Banner—as great as Mark Ruffalo is and as exciting as it would be to have him—and suddenly, the focus shifts away from Sam. The conversation obviously came up, but ultimately, it felt like this wanted to be Sam’s film.
I can see where he’s coming from. If Hulk came in to tussle with Thunderbolt Ross after he transformed into Red Hulk, then Sam Wilson would have been pushed to the sidelines and unable to shine in the movie’s final battle. Why make a Captain America movie if Captain America isn’t the one to defeat the final boss? It also made for a more inventive battle, as Sam used his intellect, his skills as counselor and the Wakandan technology in his wingsuit to tire out Red Hulk, which reverted Ross back to normal.
That being said, even though it was Edward Norton playing Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk, I really do need Mark Ruffalo, who took over the role in The Avengers, to appear in a project involving these characters from the 2008 movie. We got a sampling of this in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law when Bruce briefly tussled with Emil Blonsky, a.k.a. The Abomination, but that’s not enough. Let’s see Bruce reunite with Betty, learn what happened to Sterns and either reconcile with Thunderbolt Ross or exchange blows with him in his Red Hulk form.
That rumored World War Hulk movie would be the perfect platform for all this to happen, so hopefully that project gets confirmed for the upcoming Marvel movies schedule. For now, Captain America: Brave New World is playing theaters, and you can revisit both Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner’s prior MCU appearances with your Disney+ subscription.
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