Avengers: Endgame almost saw Bruce Banner face off against arguably his greatest foe...
himself.
In a recent interview, co-writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely revealed that they
scripted a scene in which Banner meets his angry, green alter-ego in a Soul Stone-induced
vision after using the Stark Gauntlet to bring back all of the dusted heroes.
The scene, unfortunately, never made it before the cameras.
The scene followed a rule of sorts established in Avengers: Infinity War, in the poignant
scene in which Thanos encounters young Gamora inside the Soul Stone after snapping away
half of all life in the universe.
"Did you do it?
"...Yes."
"What did it cost?"
"Everything."
Thanks to Endgame's titanic run time, however, the "rule" was never invoked again; a scene
was shot in which Tony Stark has a Soul Stone-based conversation with an older version of his
daughter Morgan after he uses the Infinity Stones to dust Thanos and his army, but it
ended up on the cutting room floor.
The scene in which Banner and Hulk hash out their differences after the restorative snap
existed in an early draft of the script, according to Markus.
The scribe recalled:
"We did actually write a version, and this existed before the Ancient One scene was slowly
beaten out, but there was a version where it was Banner talking to The Hulk.
And we never shot it, but it was kind of a cool thing to get them both on screen together
interacting."
We disagree: it would have been a really cool thing, but when you're crafting the epic conclusion
to a decade-long saga involving dozens of characters, you simply can't include every
single cool idea you might have.
In fact, it probably won't surprise you to know that the Banner/Hulk sequence was far
from the only one to be scripted for Endgame, only to get cut before the cameras rolled.
"Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards."
After the devastating events of Infinity War, Markus and McFeely used Endgame's five-year
time jump to explore the effects that such a brutal loss would have on the Avengers.
They all took interesting, and often unexpected, directions.
Banner merged the two halves of himself to permanently become Smart Hulk, Hawkeye became
a bloodthirsty vigilante, and Thor got drunk and bro-y, for example.
"Listen buddy, if you don't log off this game immediately, I'm gonna fly over to your house,
come down to that basement you're hiding in, rip off your arms, and shove them up your
butt!"
But in an early draft of the screenplay, one team member — James Rhodes, AKA War Machine
— made a pretty big leap from superheroism to the highest levels of politics.
In a recent chat with ComicBook.com, Markus explained:
"We took it out because it didn't have any story weight, but I believe that during one
draft, in the five year jump, Rhodey became vice president."
It actually makes a lot of sense.
He was a decorated career soldier before suiting up, he was pro-registration during the events
of Captain America: Civil War, and he's so darn patriotic that he was briefly referred
to as the Iron Patriot.
Heck, Rhodey could step out of the MCU and into our universe to run for office, and he'd
have our vote.
Another scene involved a character that Marvel fans have been waiting patiently to see onscreen
forever: Richard Rider, the man called Nova.
In the comics, Rider is an Earthling tapped by Rhomann Dey, the last survivor of the destruction
of Xandar, to house the entirety of that planet's knowledge — the "Xandarian Worldmind" — and
the combined power of its armed forces, the Nova Corps.
Xandar, Nova Corps.
leader Nova Prime, and Dey were all introduced in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, but Rider
was not — and if the character had been included in Endgame, his backstory would have
been significantly tweaked.
Also, it would have been he, and not Hulk, who would have come crashing to Earth to warn
the Avengers of Thanos' impending arrival in Infinity War.
Markus told ComicBook.com:
"I remember in the big manifesto thing that we did, where the first work we did on these
movies where we just...
every possible storyline that you could take from what's around, that Nova has the Xandarian
Worldmind.
In this conception, he would be the herald, not unlike the Hulk... that one member of
the Nova Corps [who] survived Thanos' attack.
The Xandarian Worldmind would be the voice of Glenn Close, because you had her, and why
not?
And that he would be Richard Rider and he would come to Earth... it would've been amazing."
Another choice that was kicked around early in the scripting process would have altered
Endgame's narrative even more drastically.
In a wide-ranging sitdown with the New York Times, the ace writing duo explained that
originally, the Avengers' time travel shenanigans didn't involve a return to the Battle of New
York.
Instead, the team would have wound up in Asgard, where an invisible, stealth-suit-wearing Tony
Stark would've done battle with Heimdall, who would've been able to see him.
Look, we understand that massive projects like this go through lengthy bouts of revision,
and ultimately, Markus and McFeely did an amazing job of crafting the complex and crowded
narratives of Infinity War and Endgame.
But invisible Iron Man fighting Heimdall?
Of all the cool things the scribes were forced to cut, this has got to be the coolest.
If the producers of the upcoming Disney+ series What If...? haven't been made aware that this
was once on the table, someone needs to clue them in, pronto.
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