‘The Simpsons’ Predicted Part of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Plot 16 Years Ago

Somehow, Fox’s long-running animated sitcom The Simpsons continues to predict the future. When something big happens in entertainment or politics, some eagle-eyed fan takes to Reddit to point out that the same event was played out on The Simpsons years before. This future-reading even extends to Avengers: Infinity War.

It comes from an episode from the show’s 13th season called “I Am Furious Yellow,” which aired on April 28, 2002. The episode featured a cameo from Marvel icon Stan Lee, and focused on Homer becoming The Incredible Hulk. In one of Lee’s scenes, the show basically reveals the Hulk storyline from Infinity War, where Bruce Banner can’t get his big green friend to come out of hiding.

In the movie, once Bruce lands back on Earth, he can no longer convince the Hulk to transform and take over. He struggle and tries as hard as he can to force the Hulk out, but it just won’t happen. On this episode of The Simpsons, Stan Lee does the exact same thing.

When Homer transforms into his version of the Hulk, and he’s taken down by several police officers, Lee walks out onto the street and says that Homer can’t be the Hulk because “I’m the Hulk!” Lee then struggles to get the Hulk to come out, but to no avail, just like Banner did in Infinity War.

Check out the full scene below!

During an appearance on The Marvelists podcast in September, Ruffalo revealed that there had been talks about Hulk actually revealing himself at the end of Infinity War, but the creative team decided against it.

“We went back and forth a lot on how to end the movie with Banner, and do we repeat the Hulk coming at the last minute or do we try something new?” Ruffalo said. “And I think at that point we were all thirsting to have Banner be his own hero for once.”

“There’s a conflict brewing between banner and Hulk that’s been going on since the beginning and it all came out of this question that Joss Whedon asked me when Hulk gets the fairy dust from Scarlet Witch sprinkled on him in Avengers 2,” Ruffalo says. “Joss asked ‘What is Hulk afraid of?’ And that was a hard thing for me to answer, because what is the strongest, fiercest thing in the universe afraid of? What could he possibly? And then I realized its Banner. The only thing Hulk is afraid of is Banner. And so that’s become something we’ve been riffing on since Avengers 2. We played with a lot in Ragnarok, and it continues to be teased out in Infinity War 1 and Infinity War 2.”

How do you think Hulk will return in Avengers 4? Let us know in the comments!