17 years after the MCU’s Hulk debuted in The Incredible Hulk, I think Captain America: Brave New World may have omitted a pretty major link between Captain America and the Hulk’s origins. The MCU’s Bruce Banner has been largely neglected compared to his fellow Avengers, receiving just one solo movie and playing a supporting role in Avengers movies and Thor: Ragnarok. I’m concerned that this has afforded negligible character development for the Jade Giant, with such momentous reveals as the existence of his son, Skaar feeling shoehorned when it happened in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
This series was the last time before Captain America: Brave New World that the concept of other Hulks began picking up steam. It debuted three of the Hulks introduced in the MCU, possibly foreshadowing a Hulk-centered storyline that I and countless others have been hoping for for several years now. Should the MCU be gearing up for a Hulk-filled World War Hulk adaptation, however, then it needs to ensure that it is abreast of the Hulk lore it established. Unfortunately, I think Captain America: Brave New World just ran roughshod over that particular concept.
Red Hulk Is Created By Gamma Radiation In The MCU
The Leader Gives President Ross Gamma-Infused Pills
Captain America: Brave New World finally debuted Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross’ rage-fueled alter-ego, Red Hulk. While trailer footage removed much of the mystery surrounding his previously theorized involvement, it stopped short of revealing the circumstances surrounding Thunderbolt Ross’ pivotal transformation. As it turns out, it was an unwitting one borne from the carefully enacted plans of Samuel Sterns, AKA the Leader, who forced Red Hulk into appearing to tarnish Ross’ political career and ultimately have him imprisoned.
This suggests that a steady diet of these gamma pills is all it takes for any MCU character to transform into another kind of Hulk.
Sterns achieved this by plying Ross through plying Ross with gamma-infused pills that slowly increased the gamma radiation in Ross’ blood. Ross was oblivious to the subtle sabotage of his biology, as he took the pills believing they were purely designed to stave off a fatal heart attack. The minutia of Sterns’ gamma experiment is unclear, but what is apparent is that he was aware of how a gamma infusion in Ross’ blood would yield similar results to Bruce Banner’s own experiments with gamma radiation, as briefly touched upon in The Incredible Hulk.
The Leader is also responsible for creating Red Hulk in Marvel Comics along with MODOK using gamma radiation and cosmic rays.
This suggests that a steady diet of these gamma pills is all it takes for any MCU character to transform into another kind of Hulk. While I’m not completely averse to this development – it could help to supercharge that World War Hulk adaptation, after all – it’s hard to understate the impact of Sterns’ creation. If all it takes to create an army of rampaging rage monsters in the MCU is the dissemination of gamma-irradiated pills, then the MCU could be in big trouble. The problem is, this isn’t how the MCU’s Hulks have thus far been created.
Hulks (Including The Leader) Were Created With Something Else
All Other Gamma-Powered Characters Share A Direct Link To Bruce Banner
Red Hulk’s genesis sidesteps one key detail that links all other Hulked-out characters in the MCU: Bruce Banner’s blood. Banner’s blood is a major MacGuffin in The Incredible Hulk, with Banner spending much of the movie being constantly distressed about it coming into contact with other characters. You would think, with Captain America: Brave New World being a sequel to The Incredible Hulk in all ways but nominally, it would readdress such a pivotal throughline from the 2008 movie. Instead, its most pivotal moment sidesteps this setup completely.
Captain America: Brave New World‘s villainous string-puller is well accustomed to these parameters, given he had his own private store of diluted Hulk blood that ultimately created Abomination and turned him into a hyper-intelligent villain. In fact, while Sterns would replicate the conditions of Hulk’s transformation to create Abomination by firing gamma radiation at the super soldier while also injecting him with Banner’s blood, the blood was all it took for Samuel Sterns to undergo his transformation. The same would then be true for every other Hulk transformation until Red Hulk.
|
MCU Hulks and How They Were Created (In Order of Appearance) |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Hulk Character |
First Appearance |
How They Were Created |
|
Bruce Banner/Hulk |
The Incredible Hulk |
Project Gamma Pulse – an attempt to replicate Captain America’s super soldier serum using gamma radiation instead of Vita Rays. |
|
Emile Blonsky/Abomination |
The Incredible Hulk |
A mixture of Bruce Banner’s blood and gamma radiation orchestrated by Samuel Sterns. |
|
Samuel Sterns/The Leader |
The Incredible Hulk |
Exposing an open wound on his head to a sample of Bruce Banner’s blood. |
|
Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk |
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law |
Having Bruce Banner’s blood mix with her own following a car accident. |
|
Todd Phelps/HulkKing |
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law (retconned) |
Injecting himself with Jennifer Walters’ blood. |
|
Skaar |
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law |
Biological son of Bruce Banner/Smart Hulk. |
|
Happy Hogan/Freak |
What If…? |
Accidentally injected with Hulk’s blood when protecting it from Justin Hammer. |
|
Apex |
What If…? |
Created as a kind of clone of Bruce Banner when he tries to rid himself of the Hulk persona. |
|
Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk |
Captain America: Brave New World |
Ingesting gamma-infused pills. |
This would, of course, not be as much of a big deal if it was the case that Bruce Banner himself transformed because of gamma radiation alone – but that isn’t the case. While Hulk is created using gamma radiation in Marvel Comics, the missing factor in Red Hulk’s transformation is the presence of the replicated super soldier serum used on Banner in the MCU. This concoction presumably traveled down the line with every Hulk that was subsequently exposed to Banner’s blood.
In the MCU, the Hulk was created as a result of Project Gamma Pulse, a project spearheaded by Thunderbolt Ross to recreate Dr. Abraham Erskine’s perfected super soldier serum that used on Steve Rogers to create Captain America. While Captain America was created using a combination of Vita Rays and the serum, Banner attempted to unlock the formula of Erskine’s serum by subsтιтuting Vita Rays for gamma rays. The result was the Hulk, as an additional primer given to Banner by Ross allowed his blood cells to absorb the gamma radiation.
Red Hulk Shouldn’t Exist In The MCU
He Does Not Explicitly Come Into Contact With Bruce Banner’s Blood
With all of that in mind, Red Hulk does not meet the requirements to even exist in the MCU. The fine-tuned conditions used to create Hulk were always supposed to be intricate enough to prevent easy replication. This is why Bruce Banner’s special blood is so key to his characterization, as he knows it’s the only feasible way for more Hulks to be created. If there was anyone capable of replicating these parameters, of course, it would be the super-intelligent Leader – but he doesn’t. Instead, the only factor replicated from Project Gamma Pulse is the gamma radiation.
It’s also frustrating as this link to Captain America was not addressed in Captain America: Brave New World, despite the movie struggling to justify why this Hulk sequel has Cap’s moniker attached. I feel like Marvel Studios missed out on tying Sam’s indecision about the super soldier serum to Red Hulk directly, bringing about the same conditions that created Hulk in Project Gamma Pulse as Ross embraces the experiment while Sam shirks it due to his experience-borne aversion to the serum. This could have also tied into his tumultuous experiences with John Walker in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Missed opportunities aside, I now wonder if some extraneous yet unnamed factors caused Red Hulk to emerge without the super soldier link. The Leader might have, for example, recovered more samples of Hulk’s blood from his collection, which he included in the formula for the pills only for Captain America: Brave New World to avoid specifying this. Whatever the case, I think the MCU should probably address this plot hole soon, lest it risk retconning a huge part of Hulk’s MCU origins.
Upcoming MCU Movies
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Thunderbolts*
- Release Date
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May 2, 2025
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The Fantastic Four: First Steps
- Release Date
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July 25, 2025
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Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
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Spider-Man Homecoming 4
- Release Date
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July 24, 2026
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Avengers: Secret Wars
- Release Date
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May 7, 2027
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