Fan Fridays: Will Thor Ragnarok Turn Out To Be Planet Hulk?

Amidst the onslaught of Iron Men, of Super Soldiers, of Black Panthers and Spider-Men, sometimes it's difficult to remember that two of the Avengers' "big guns" are still bouncing around behind the scenes right now. Thor and the Hulk, who are at least given a name drop in Captain America: Civil War, are sitting out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a spell until they both appear in the third Thor movie entitled Thor: Ragnarok. Considering the name, "Ragnarok", this final part of the Thor trilogy promises to be epic in scale with producers on record as saying it will be the equivalent of Captain America's Winter Soldier in terms of quality. Comicbook Fan, "Thulk", dropped us a line with his theory that Ragnarok may in fact be a cover for presenting the now iconic story, Planet Hulk, to the mass audience. Let's take a look at the facts!

9 times out of 10, if you ask a Hulk fan which Green Goliath story they want to see on the big screen, they'll say Planet Hulk. The storyline that saw the Hulk jettisoned to a gladiatorial planet by his fellow heroes, sees Bruce Banner go through tough times, but eventually create a life for himself. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end as the very ship that brought him to the planet explodes, destroying the alien world, along with the Hulk's wife and unborn child (until its revealed that his son actually survived and grew up to be Skaar). The storyarc was one of the most popular Hulk tales to come around in some time, and led into the even bigger World War Hulk wherein Jade Jaws returns to Earth to fight everyone. So popular was this arc in fact that it even got its own direct to dvd animated film.

So why not just create a movie titled "Planet Hulk"? Well, that's a sticky wicket. The distribution rights for Hulk films are, apparently, still owned by Universal Pictures, who assisted Marvel with creating the Ang Lee Hulk film and distributed the subsequent Incredible Hulk in the MCU. While Banner can appear in any Marvel movie moving forward, Disney/Marvel would need to go through Universal for distribution of any solo Hulk films. Ultimately, it's a far better choice for Marvel to keep Banner as a supporting character in other films and team up flicks, and heck its worked pretty well so far.

Looking more at the story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, Thor and Hulk have already been confirmed to be in something of a "buddy cop" scenario in Ragnarok. With the pair being off planet, ending up on the gladiatorial world of Planet Hulk seems like a slam dunk. Keep elements from Thor in the forefront, incorporate the Odinson into the events of the Planet Hulk outline, and you're good to go. Clearly, you can still have the subplots from the previous Thor films, such as Loki being Odin, still thrown in for good measure, but having Thor and Hulk in a no holds barred alien battle royale seems like a no brainer.

Do you have a fan theory you'd like to see featured on an upcoming Fan Friday? Drop us a line at Fans@Comicbook.com and yours may be the next one we feature!