Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man films are different to anything else in the MCU. The partnership between the two studios has led to some of the best movies in the MCU so far, both critically acclaimed and blockbuster hits – even at a time when the shared universe as a whole has struggled. Part of their magic, of course, lies in the fact these films carefully position Spider-Man alongside other high-profile Marvel heroes. Iron Man, Nick Fury, and Doctor Strange have all played prominent roles in the Spider-Man movies.
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day, will be no exception, and this time Mark Ruffalo will be joining Tom Holland as Spider-Man teams up (or fights) the Hulk. The two characters have a great history in the comics, with Spider-Man stumbling on the Hulk during a battle with the Sinister Six, and once managing to calm the Hulk down with – of all things – a knock knock joke. We don’t know much about the Hulk’s role in Brand New Day, but it may well be an opportunity for Marvel to finally set up the Hulk story everyone wants.
Marvel Has Failed Badly With the Hulk
The MCU has struggled to make the most of the Hulk. The character’s overarching narrative has been oddly disjointed, not helped by a (needed) recast after The Incredible Hulk. Ruffalo considered Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame to be a loose trilogy in terms of the Hulk’s arc, but it was one in which a lot of major developments actually happened off-screen. Thor: Ragnarok riffed on the popular “Planet Hulk” story, but relegated it to second place behind Thor’s battle against Hela. There’s a sense in which we haven’t seen the real Hulk since Avengers: Infinity War.
There were out-of-universe reasons for this disjointed Hulk story, of course. The distribution rights for the Hulk sat with Universal; Marvel initially worked with Universal on The Incredible Hulk, but that partnership hit problems when Marvel was bought by Disney in 2009. The MCU now had access to Disney’s own distribution network, and Disney was naturally unwilling to let Marvel make a movie that would be distributed by a competitor. The Hulk wound up in limbo, making cameos but unable to star in another film.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Is a Chance To Fix the Hulk’s Problems
The Hulk is best known as “an enormous green rage monster” (to quote Tony Stark), but that character hasn’t really been seen since Avengers: Age of Ultron. Taika Waititi had no interest in him in Thor: Ragnarok (as he explained in an interview with The Empire Film Podcast, he couldn’t see how anybody could have anything in common with “this bipolar, angry green beast”). The Russo brothers built on this in their Avengers movies, even turning him into “Smart Hulk” in Avengers: Endgame. But this means the best Hulk stories have never been told.
Take, for example, “World War Hulk,” a 2007 comic book summer event generally considered one of the best Hulk stories of all time. This saw a wrathful Hulk turn against all the heroes of Earth, proving just how powerful and dangerous the Hulk really was. It’s not exactly deep in characterization, but that’s not the point; the Hulk considers himself “the strongest one there is,” and this was the ultimate versus match to prove whether he’s right. It’s just unfortunate that Thor was dead at the time, only coming back too late to have his own Hulk fight.
In the comics, “Planet Hulk” – the story that influenced Thor: Ragnarok – was the precursor to “World War Hulk.” Thor: Ragnarok took the Hulk in the wrong direction, moving away from this story, but it’s one that everyone familiar with the comics is eager to see. For it to happen, though, there needs to be a film that features the Hulk prominently first; one where he isn’t part of the ensemble cast, but is at least something of a co-star, so his status quo can be changed radically. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the best chance Marvel has to go for it.
It’s Time for an Iconic Superhero Versus Match
All this means Spider-Man: Brand New Day is Marvel’s best chance for a classic fight we’ve seen in the comics many times. There’s always been an entertaining dynamic between Spider-Man and the Hulk, because the wall-crawler sometimes lapses into overconfidence, but soon learns this particular David cannot take down the Goliath that is the Hulk. At the same time, though, Peter Parker’s compassion and empathy means he also cares about the man behind the monster. In Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, he’d rather flunk a test to join the Avengers than risk turning Bruce Banner in.
The catch, though, is that this dynamic only works if the MCU reverts to the classic Hulk. Otherwise, Brand New Day just becomes more of the same; the Hulk as a character totally different to the one everybody really cares about, robbing the interactions of their power. And if Marvel do this right, finally bringing back the classic Hulk, then the idea of a “World War Hulk” movie is suddenly a possibility once again. We can only hope this is an opportunity Marvel take.
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