Captain America: Brave New World concept art shows alternate designs for Red Hulk, including some where the character is sporting facial hair. The YouTube channel The Artbook Collector recently shared a video that details the contents of the Brave New World art book, which gives fans an inside look at the making of the film. A couple of the pages are dedicated to Red Hulk, showing the various looks the creative team considered during development. One piece of concept art shows smoke coming off Red Hulk’s body, a possible reference to the character’s fire-like powers from the comics. Other illustrations show Red Hulk with a prominent mustache, typically a trademark staple of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
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The book contains multiple renderings of Red Hulk with various facial hair styles. Check out a screenshot from the video in the space below:
In Captain America: Brave New World, Harrison Ford replaced the late William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross. Ford was clean shaven, a contrast from Hurt, who donned the character’s signature mustache across his Marvel Cinematic Universe appearances. The change was explained in-universe in a dialogue exchange between Ross and Sam Wilson, where Ross reveals he was told he would lose the presidential election if he didn’t lose his mustache.
In the comics, Thaddeus Ross does not retain his mustache when he transforms into Red Hulk (a decision that was made to preserve Red Hulk’s true identity as a surprise to readers). Ross is not the only character to become Red Hulk in the comics. There’s also Robert Maverick, a military general. Maverick’s Red Hulk does have a distinct mustache.
It’s interesting to see that different looks for Red Hulk were considered. On comic book adaptations, the creative team will cycle through various designs before settling on something that works best for the film. There’s been some Thunderbolts* concept art that’s come out showing different costumes for the main characters, ones that have more of a black ops vibe to them. It’s unclear why the mustached Red Hulks were discarded; that concept art must have been made early in the film’s development before a final decision on that detail was made. Perhaps the filmmakers were just getting an idea of how certain designs looked, helping them inform their choice. Ultimately, it might have been done in interest of staying accurate to the source material. Even if Ford kept a mustache for Ross, Red Hulk would still be clean shaven.
The future of Hulks in the MCU is up in the air for the time being. Ross is now imprisoned in the Raft, so it’s unlikely he will ever turn into a giant rage monster again. It’ll be fascinating to see if Marvel ever revisits the concept of Red Hulk down the line, perhaps bringing Robert Maverick to live-action. That could give them an opportunity to utilize one of these mustached concepts.
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