The Incredible Hulk was the second Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that Marvel made when it began working on its own movies. However, there was a problem with this movie, not the least of which was that Marvel didn’t have the complete rights to the character. The company’s deal with Universal allowed the two companies to co-produce movies about Hulk, but without Universal’s okay, Marvel could only use the character in other movies where Hulk was just a supporting character. Unlike the Spider-Man franchise, where Sony and Marvel have worked hand in hand, nothing has been done with Universal since the first movie, but Hulk has still appeared in one way or another in 9 other MCU properties.
Here is a look at Hulk’s complete MCU timeline, from his debut in The Incredible Hulk to his battle against Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Hulk was last seen on the big screen in 2003, with Eric Bana starring as Bruce Banner and the Hulk. In 2008, Hulk was back, but this ended up as a reboot and was positioned as the second movie in the MCU, following Iron Man. The Incredible Hulk had a quick scene that showed how he became the Hulk and explained that General Ross wanted to capture the Hulk and weaponize him. Banner was hiding out in Brazil and hadn’t transformed in months, as he was working on his control. However, one incident brought the military to the area, and Hulk eventually returned to America.
This saw Hulk fighting the Abomination, a former special forces operative whom General Ross turned into a gamma-radiated creature to fight Hulk. This turned things around, almost turning Ross into a villain, while forcing Hulk to act as the hero once again to save the world from a rampaging Abomination. The movie ended with Ross allowing Hulk to leave as a sign of respect for what Hulk did to save everyone, but then the post-credit scene showed Tony Stark approaching Ross about possibly working together.
The next time that Hulk appeared was in The Avengers in 2012. In this movie, Bruce Banner found a job working as a doctor in Calcutta when Nick Fury sent Natasha Romanoff (The Black Widow) to attempt to recruit him. The burgeoning team was trying to learn more about the Tesseract, and Banner agreed to help the team as a scientist, where he then met Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. However, thanks to Loki’s interference, Banner turned into Hulk and ended up crashing to the ground from the helicarrier after a fight with the Black Widow.
Hulk then returned during the Battle of New York and explained to Captain America that he had learned to change to Hulk with his willpower by always staying angry. This led Cap to tell Hulk to “Smash,” and together the new Avengers were able to stop the Chitauri invasion and help stop Loki, with Hulk delivering the final blows that took Loki out of the fight.
The next time that Bruce Banner showed up in the MCU was in the post-credit scenes from Iron Man 3. After the events of the first movie, he asked Tony Stark to build a Hulkbuster armor so he could stop Hulk if he went on another rampage. However, in this movie’s scene, it had nothing to do with the Hulk and was instead a funny scene where Stark seemed to need therapy. Stark shared all his experience with the Extremis formula while the two men were relaxing in the Avengers Tower, before Banner said he wasn’t “that kind of doctor” and fell asleep on Stark.
The next major appearance of Hulk came in Avengers: Age of Ultron. In this movie, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark developed an AI that was supposed to be able to protect the Earth so the heroes wouldn’t have to risk their lives as they did in the Battle of New York. However, neither scientist expected their creation to gain sentience and declare that humans were the greatest threats to Earth and that they needed to be extinguished to save the planet.
Hulk fought in the film’s opening battle with Hydra forces, but that was when his help began to end. Ultron recruited Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver to work with him, and when the Avengers tried to fight them, Wanda Maximoff used her powers to hex Hulk, turning him against his allies. Iron Man called in the Hulkbuster armor, and they fought. Finally, in the final battle with Ultron, Hulk helped them win, and then he flew off in a Quinjet and wasn’t seen again until Thor found him on another planet.
Hulk’s next appearance was in Thor: Ragnarok. In this movie, Thor and Loki ended up stranded on Sakaar after Odin died and Hela arrived to attempt a takeover of Asgard. Thor was captured and placed in a gladiator combat system against his will. In his first fight against the champion, he had to fight Hulk, who had been on Sakaar since leaving after the Ultron battle. During his time on Sakaar, Hulk had grown in intelligence, and while Banner was not in control, Hulk was smarter and could now speak.
After Thor helped Hulk escape the Grandmaster and they got off Sakaar, they headed to Asgard to fight Hela. Hulk was a solid ally here, fighting alongside Thor, Loki, and Valkyrie against both Hela and, for a short time, Surtur, whom Hulk mistakenly took to be another villain they had to stop. By the end, they saved as many Asgardians as they could before leaving as the city was destroyed. This then led to Thanos.
When Avengers: Infinity War opened, Thanos and his Black Order had attacked the ship and killed several Asgardians. Thanos beat Thor, killed Loki, and beat Hulk so badly that when Heimdall launched Hulk back to Earth, the green monster refused to come out and fight when he was needed. Banner ended up with Doctor Strange, and then when Iron Man showed up, they had to figure out how they were going to deal with Thanos, who had arrived on Earth.
This was a movie where Hulk never showed up again after that opening when Thanos severely beat him. Every time that Banner tried to change into Hulk, the Hulk refused to come out. As a result, Banner used the Hulkbuster armor to help fight in Wakanda, and while he was in no way up to the level of Hulk, he was still able to hold his own until Thanos snapped. Banner was one of the few survivors of the snap, even though Hulk still refused to come out.
It was never shown on screen, but the next time that Hulk was seen, he was back as the Hulk again, but he had Bruce Banner’s brain controlling the body. This was Smart Hulk, and it was first shown as a shock, with Ant-Man finding the Smart Hulk in a diner to talk to him about the Blip and what had happened. There was a scene planned for Avengers: Infinity War that was going to show Banner and Hulk merging personalities, but it didn’t get filmed, although there are storyboards and video displays showing how it would look.
Regardless, with Banner now in control, Hulk was back on the front lines in the fight against Thanos. While he was not as strong as the savage version of Hulk, his brain did allow him to help out in other areas, including helping create the time travel device to gather the Infinity Gems and then aiding in the end when Steve Rogers went to return everything.
Just like in Iron Man 3, Hulk had another post-credit scene in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Here, the scene had the remaining defenders of Earth communicating as a new post-Avengers force, with Captain Marvel, Wong, and Bruce Banner talking about the possibility of Shang-Chi joining their new team. After discussing the ten rings and what Shang-Chi brings to the team, Banner welcomed him to the team. This was not Hulk, and Banner is shown here in his human form only.
Hulk’s next appearance came on the Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Jennifer Walters is Bruce Banner’s cousin, and she was involved in a car accident with Bruce. In the accident, Bruce’s blood ended up mixing into Jennifer’s system, and she ended up becoming the She-Hulk. While she had her full intelligence and complete control, Banner believed that she could become a danger, so he abducted her and forced her to train to keep her in control.
Hulk was mostly a supporting cast member here. He worked to help train She-Hulk and even offered up his hope that Abomination could find rehabilitation for his past crimes. In the end, Hulk had to leave when he heard that he was needed off-planet. He then returned at the end from a trip to Sakaar, with his son Skaar by his side. Skaar hasn’t been seen or mentioned since the end of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, other than in a photo on Banner’s desk at school.
The most recent appearance of Hulk caused the hero’s life to fall completely apart. Bruce Banner was working as a professor of quantum mechanics at Empire State University in New York City. Peter Parker went to Banner to ask for help in controlling his mutating arachnid DNA. Banner had no idea who Parker was thanks to the spell from Spider-Man: No Way Home, but he did let Parker know that mutating DNA could be extremely dangerous.
Interestingly, Banner was wearing a power inhibitor here, and he was no longer turning into Hulk at all after something happened to end his control of the monster. This ended up as a huge problem when Jean Grey took control of Banner mentally, removed the suppressor, and had Hulk trying to get into the Department of Damage Control. Hulk eventually fought Spider-Man and Punisher, and by the time it was over, Banner was being taken to a secure psychiatric ward for the protection of the world.
