Marvel’s She-Hulk: Mark Ruffalo on World War Hulk Tease

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Thursday’s She-Hulk Episode 2, “Superhuman Law.” The Incredible Hulk. Smart Hulk. The Big Guy. Bruce Banner’s (Mark Ruffalo) gamma-fueled alter-ego goes by many monikers, but in World War Hulk, the gladiatorial champion returns to Earth with another name: Worldbreaker. The 2007 Marvel Comics storyline is the sequel to Planet Hulk, which saw the Hulk exiled from Earth by the superhero cabal called the Illuminati. As the Green Scar, the green goliath became a gladiator and then a king on Sakaar, the same planet where Ruffalo’s Hulk crash lands after leaving Earth in between the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Thor: Ragnarok.

And in Thursday’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, titled “Superhuman Law,” Smart Hulk sets a course for the trash planet after a Sakaaran spacecraft appears on Earth, causing the car crash that transforms Bruce’s cousin Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) into the She-Hulk. With Hulk once again off-planet, will we see the Grandmaster’s (Jeff Goldblum) champion back on Sakaar? 

“I don’t know. It certainly does suggest that,” Ruffalo told Variety. “There has been some conversations about what happened in the two years where Hulk abandoned Banner and the Avengers [on Sakaar], and the emergence of Smart Hulk, which hasn’t ever fully been answered. I think maybe we’ve given four sentences to that time period since then. It’s really an interesting, exciting part of the Hulk story and Banner story.”

She-Hulk‘s series premiere answered burning questions raised by Avengers: Endgame, explaining Banner spent the Blip in a Mexico beach lab integrating the Banner-Hulk identities to become Smart Hulk. In the comics, World War Hulk sees the ex-Avenger return home angrier — and stronger — than ever as the Worldbreaker, waging war against Earth’s mightiest heroes with an army of intergalactic gladiators called the Warbound. 

After 2017’s Ragnarok adapted pieces of the 2006 Planet Hulk storyline, fans have speculated the events of She-Hulk are leading to World War Hulk and the re-emergence of the rampaging Savage Hulk. 

“I do think that the trip to Sakaar is a good place to start and what that means to the idea of what the fans have been asking for — this idea of Planet Hulk or World War Hulk or just the journey that Banner and Hulk have to make to come to peace with each other,” Ruffalo said. “That’s really interesting to me, and I do feel like there is some interest in exploring that down the line.” 

Asked about his Marvel future after playing the Hulk for a decade, first portraying the character in 2012’s The Avengers, Ruffalo answered, “I mean, I’ll probably do it as long as they’ll have me if people are interested, and I can bring something that’s interesting to me to it, and interesting to the fans. But I have no idea.” 

Starring Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, Jameela Jamil as Titania, Ginger Gonzaga as Nikki Ramos, Josh Segarra as Augustus “Pug” Pugliese, Jon Bass as Todd, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Mallory Book, Tim Roth as the Abomination, and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Smart Hulk, new episodes of Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law are streaming Thursdays on Disney+.