Hulk's Avengers: Endgame Costume Incorporates a Subtle Superhero Logo

Marvel Studios' Head of Visual Development Ryan Meinerding notes he included a subtle "H" on the sporty new costume worn by Smart Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) in Avengers: Endgame as a nod to Hulk's superheroics during the five-year period separating Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. As revealed by Smart Hulk in Endgame, Bruce Banner spent 18 months in a gamma lab developing a process to achieve unity between Banner and "the Other Guy," combining Banner's brain and Hulk's brawn. The resulting amalgamation between the two was a superhero Hulk who enjoyed his newfound celebrity.

"Doing his costume was a little bit of a challenge," Meinerding says in Marvel's Avengers: Endgame - The Art of the Movie. "There are some full-body, more cloth-based costumes that the Hulk has worn through the years, but there's not a definitive one. I was trying to come up with a design for him that was a Super Hero look — the idea being that all the Super Heroes, after Infinity War, were gone, so Hulk's the only one left. He would actually be doing the job of all of the Avengers, and you would see him feel like a true, amazing Super Hero — and that costume was meant to elucidate that point."

"Whether it screams it or not, there is an H on his chest," Meinerding adds. "I worked it in there subtly — but if you know it's there and you know to look for it, you can see it pretty easily."

An unfinished deleted scene showing Hulk's heroic actions was included in the extended Endgame cut reissued to theaters over the summer.

Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely previously explained to The Los Angeles Times the scene was cut because it came off as "noise."

"You never know what's actually going to make it out into the world," Markus said. "We did have a scene illustrating more actively what the Hulk had been up to in terms of being a hero, as opposed to just starting it in the diner and explaining things. But it didn't give you anything that you didn't get from just sitting in the diner eating pancakes. And it came off more as noise than as content."

Added McFeely, "It takes us forever to learn these things. But if the scene is not doing more than one thing, it's probably not worthy of being in the movie."

Avengers: Endgame is available to own on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and Digital HD.