Conan-chandesune wrote:Massive Spoiler. Massive. I am sorry.
[spoiler] At the end of Avengers 2, The Hulk is going to be sent to space. This is either in the third act or, possibly, after the credits.
It will be the Movieverse version of The Illuminati who do this. And they’ll do it because they deem The Hulk a terrible threat – so expect to see how and why he’s so dangerous.
Then, in Phase 3, this will be paid off with The Hulk’s standalone movie, adapting Planet Hulk. This was Greg Pak’s comics story in which The Hulk becomes a gladiator and then a King on an alien planet.
The Hulk will then return to earth for Avengers 3 which will draw on World War Hulk, another Pak run which sees Big Green coming back for revenge after his banishment.[/spoiler]
Being familiar with those storylines to a small extent, I expected something along those lines when Feige said there wouldn't be...
[spoiler]a solo Hulk movie until after The Avengers 2. The original Hulk movie (which is quite stellar and is even better all these years later on a rewatch as I learned the other day) kind of did all we needed from a solo Hulk picture without a major setting change.[/spoiler]
Now, I'm not very familiar with comic storylines, especially not to any sort of scholarly degree, but I did have an idea for something that I've been meaning to post. Forgive me if this has been mentioned or hypothesized elsewhere as I haven't been very active in the fandom.
[spoiler=Theory about an older cameo...]A lot of people (including RDJ himself) noted that the scene added to The Incredible Hulk with Tony Stark visiting Thunderbolt Ross ended up not fitting the continuity in a warm and cozy way, which is understandable since they had done it as a last-minute thing and weren't sure where The Avengers would go exactly (the actual dialogue was improvised, according to
William Hurt, Ross's actor). Of course, in the eventual Avengers film in 2012, General Ross was nowhere to be found (which isn't a plothole or anything, it just made that original stinger seem a bit pointless). But... when I saw it again... I realized something: What if "the team" Stark was talking about there wasn't the "Avengers Initiative" at all? What if, instead, it was actually "the team" that he was helping put together to get rid of the Hulk after some tragedy to come where he's deemed too dangerous for the planet?
Nowhere in the original segment does Stark make any reference to the time period or use the word "Avengers". For all we know, that scene could have taken place after The Avengers 2 and could be him visiting a down-and-out Ross who is a beaten man after so many failures in apprehending the Hulk. Now, presumably after the Hulk has decimated some place or killed thousands, the Illuminati--including Stark--are seeking out people from every branch of government and the like that they can to ensure their operation of getting rid of the Hulk is successful. Given Ross's history with the Hulk and Banner, I think he'd be pretty up for about anything.
I had heard about the Planet Hulk and World War Hulk storylines some time ago and for some reason that idea just suddenly hit me while trying to reason through how that scene could be integrated back into the franchise. (If Kevin Feige and team had actually intended that bit of misdirection all along, that is definitely a genius move on their part, unlikely as it may be.) Having the Hulk as a bad guy in The Avengers 3 is way too big of an opportunity to just dismiss, and with Mark Ruffalo's stellar performance and the great interplay he's had with everyone else... Yeah, I think I am down for this.[/spoiler]
Any thoughts on this? Am I really late to the party in bringing this to the table?