The chances of Mark Ruffalo getting a solo Hulk movie seem like they're slim-to-none,
but the Hulk's been one of the most visible superhero movie stars for decades.
Here's a look back at all the Hulk movies, ranked from worst to best.
The last of three Incredible Hulk revival TV movies was The Death of the Incredible
Hulk, but despite the title and its status as the final chapter, Banner's death wasn't
meant to be permanent.
There was meant to be a follow-up called The Revenge of the Incredible Hulk, but it never
happened, possibly due to star Bill Bixby's failing health, but more likely because Death
of the Incredible Hulk got abysmally low ratings.
The good news is that this meant very few people got to see the moronic manner of the
Hulk's "death."
He falls from an airplane.
Seriously, that's it.
If you're a fan of both the comics and the show, you learned a long time ago to accept
that TV's Hulk wasn't even close to the comics version in terms of power.
Still, the Hulk dying from a long fall would be like Logan ending with Wolverine dying
from the flu.
Part of the goal of the late '80s Incredible Hulk revival was to use a familiar face to
introduce some of the other Marvel franchises to audiences.
That's why Trial of the Incredible Hulk was the debut of the first live-action Matt Murdock,
a.k.a. Daredevil, who represents Banner after he witnesses a crime linked to the Kingpin.
While Daredevil fans likely wouldn't put Trial of the Incredible Hulk any higher on a list
than Hulk fans would, the movie gives way more attention to the Man Without Fear than
the Green Goliath.
While he makes a ruckus earlier in the movie, Banner's gigantic alter-ego doesn't even get
close to the climactic action during the final fight.
Instead, pretty much everything is in the hands of Daredevil's badly choreographed martial
arts.
Ang Lee's Hulk is not well-loved, but maybe it deserves a break.
At the very least, it was trying to be more than just another popcorn action flick.
The script isn't great and most of the performances are wooden.
The story is often boring, with Lee waiting a long time to introduce the Hulk and waiting
even longer for the film's only impressive action scene: Hulk's battle in the desert
with the military.
The effects are inconsistent, with some shots coming off as stunning, and others are embarrassingly
cartoonish.
That said, there's a lot of mythic imagery.
Lee connects the Hulk with nature, which is why he works in moments with the Hulk mesmerized
by certain rock formations, and why it almost makes sense that one of the most memorable
fights in the film comes when the Hulk takes on a bunch of gamma-powered Hulk Dogs.
Almost.
Lee tried to make something unique and entertaining.
He thoroughly fails at the latter, but you have to admit that he went for it.
In 1988, American network television got its first new installment of David Banner's lonely
saga since 1982 in the made-for-TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns.
Along with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, Returns stars Eric Allan Kramer as Thor and Steve
Levitt as the thunder god's classic alter-ego, Donald Blake.
It's definitely pretty far from perfect, but of the three TV movies, Returns is by far
the most bearable.
Unlike Death, the Hulk doesn't die in a ridiculous way, and unlike Trial, the guest superhero
actually adds to the plot instead of completely stealing the show.
Hulk and Thor have their compulsory battle in a lab, almost 25 years before Chris Hemsworth
and Mark Ruffalo would tussle on the deck of a Helicarrier or duke it out in an outer
space gladiatorial arena.
Admittedly, their eventual team-up later in the film feels way more like a fight from
an episode of The A-Team than an epic clash of strength between the strongest Avengers,
but the fight is still absolutely worth watching.
If nothing else, you can see how far we've come since 1988.
If this were a different kind of ranked movie list, there's a really good chance Avengers:
Infinity War would make it a lot closer to the top, but as a Hulk movie, it doesn't have
much to offer.
After that first opening scene on the refugee ship, the Hulk pretty much disappears.
We see a few flashes of green when Bruce Banner tries and fails to get the "Other Guy" to
come out, and it even has a couple of good Banner moments.
"Aha!
You guys are so screwed now!"
That's about it, though, and even worse, the Hulk totally gets Worfed.
If you're not familiar with "The Worf Effect," the name refers to how often the Enterprise's
Klingon security chief gets beat up on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
It's an easy trope; the bad guy beats up the biggest, baddest good guy early in the story
so the audience knows he's a threat.
The Hulk getting trounced and then nearly vanishing would each be bad enough on their
own, but together?
We eventually got some good character development out of it, but for Hulk fans, it adds some
surprising disappointment to Infinity War.
"Hulk, we got a lot to figure out, pal."
Incredible Hulk is probably not on the top of anyone's list of MCU films, but the truth
is, it's probably a whole lot better than you remember.
At the very least, it's not bad.
For one thing, it introduces the green guy much sooner than its 2003 predecessor.
For another, it gives us a lot more action in the form of one classic Hulk villain, the
Abomination, and the foundation for the emergence of another in the form of Dr. Samuel Sterns,
a name Hulk fans would recognize belonging to the mastermind villain the Leader.
It even has Stan Lee turning into a Hulk, and even if that happens offscreen, it's definitely
fun to think about.
Plus, it stands to reason that Ed Norton could have been the perfect Bruce Banner.
He built his career playing characters who were meek pushovers one second and intimidating
bullies the next.
Unfortunately, his talents aren't really used well in what amounts to a formulaic action
flick with no real glimpse of who Bruce Banner is.
The CGI rendering of the Hulk is definitely more consistent than what we saw in Ang Lee's
Hulk, and the monster's bellowing roar is a huge improvement, but watching Incredible
Hulk now, the effects look primitive compared to what we see in everything that comes after.
For a Hulk fan, Age of Ultron was a tough pill to swallow.
For the sake of the plot, Iron Man needs to win their mid-movie tussle, and as cool as
it is to see the Hulkbuster armor in action, it raises the question of why they even need
the Hulk around if Tony Stark can just build something stronger whenever he wants.
It does have some bright spots, though.
Regardless of who wins, the Hulk/Iron Man battle is wonderfully executed, and in the
final conflict, Hulk's probably the only Avenger to successfully use his teeth to trash robots,
and takes out Ultron in one shot… twice.
There are also some wonderful character moments for Hulk in Age of Ultron.
Whether you like the romance with Black Widow or not, it reveals an interesting side of
Banner we haven't seen before.
While most of this list is for live-action flicks, 2010's Planet Hulk is a worthy exception.
Based on the comic storyline of the same name, Planet Hulk is about the Green Goliath being
exiled by Earth's other heroes to the planet Sakaar, where he becomes a gladiator and eventually
leads a revolt against the tyrannical Red King.
Planet Hulk was about as faithful to its source material as a comic book movie could get.
Stuff is left out for time, with the final battle between Hulk and the Red King playing
out a little differently and the Hulk's major gladiatorial battle is against Thor's spacefaring
buddy Beta Ray Bill instead of the Silver Surfer.
The biggest change, though, is that it stops short of the cataclysmic explosion that the
comic story ends with.
In the comics, that acted as a prologue to Hulk returning to Earth for payback in the
next storyline.
That last omission, however, is one of the best things about Planet Hulk, because it
gives us something we rarely see in a Hulk movie: a happy ending.
Looking at 2017's Thor: Ragnarok through the eyes of a Hulk fan can feel very bittersweet.
On one hand, it's the only live-action adaptation of Planet Hulk fans are likely to get, but
on the other, it's tough to know that the closest we'll get to that story is a film
dedicated to one of the character's biggest rivals.
"So how long have you been like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like this.
Big and green.
Stupid."
"Hulk always Hulk."
The Hulk's dialogue perfectly captures what any old school Marvel fan should remember
of the Savage Hulk's monosyllabic speech, but in the arena, he winds up having to unwittingly
cheat to win the fight.
"Voice activation required."
"Banner."
"Welcome, Strongest Avenger."
"Uh, what?"
Despite the contradictions, what keeps Ragnarok so close to the top of this list is the banter
between Hulk and his best frenemy Thor and all the comedic moments that go along with
it, especially the Hulk's dogged determination to take down Surtur at the end.
As a Hulk film it's far from perfect, but it's still pretty great.
Infinity War gave us a lot of Banner and very little Hulk, but 2019's Avengers: Endgame
rewards fans with a lot of both by showing us a Banner who stopped treating the Hulk
"like a disease" and used his genius to merge his mind with the Other Guy's body.
We get to enjoy his embarrassment at the earlier Hulk's caveman persona, and once the heroes
gather the Infinity Stones, only Hulk has the power to undo Thanos' purge and survive
the ordeal.
We even get a tribute to his classic Secret Wars feat of holding a mountain range at bay.
Unfortunately, the Hulk never gets another shot at Thanos; in fact, he doesn't get much
time in the final battle at all.
It's a pretty crowded scene already, sure, but after their first battle ended in such
a crushing defeat, you really want to see as much smashing as possible.
It's a little ironic that 2012's Avengers is above and beyond all other Hulk movies.
Not only is his name not even in the title, but he actually isn't in it all that much.
His screen time was limited to the film's two big action sequences, but that was enough
for him to completely steal the show, and provide him with a line that's every bit as
iconic as the classic "don't make me angry."
"That's my secret, Cap.
I'm always angry."
That moment marks the final cohesion of the team, and made him the movie's most crowd-pleasing
star.
His hilarious sucker punch on Thor in Grand Central Station, the epic thrashing of Loki
in Stark Tower, and the unique way that he helps to bring Tony Stark back to life are
all pure gamma-powered gold.
For the first time, Hulk's raw power on the screen finally mirrors what we've seen in
the comics, and the visual effects were never more impressive before what we saw here, with
the Hulk's face actually looking like a green, pumped-up version of the actor playing Bruce
Banner.
Just like in Ang Lee's film, we're made to wait quite a bit to finally see the Hulk emerge,
the build-up is perfect and there's enough room in the movie for him to shine in the
time given.
Unless the impossible happens and Mark Ruffalo gets his own solo Hulk flick, the Green Goliath
is unlikely to get a better portrayal than what we saw in Avengers.
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