Few heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been as fun to follow over the years
as the Hulk.
From his perpetual inner conflict to his temper, nearly limitless strength, and near invincibility,
the character has plotted a uniquely absorbing story that few of his fellow heroes can match.
Here's his story in full.
While you can find "the beginning" for most MCU heroes simply by heading back to their
origin stories, the earliest moments of the Hulk's timeline are a little harder to pin
down.
The problem is, Hulk technically doesn't have an MCU origin story like he does in other
movies.
Not in detail, anyway.
In fact, his story begins several years after the "Other Guy" already came into existence.
However, over time and through hints, exposition, and flashbacks, it becomes clear that Banner
originally volunteered to test his own gamma radiation experiment on himself, and things
quickly went very wrong.
The experiment led to the creation of the Hulk, a being that, in simplistic terms, shares
a body and mind with Bruce Banner — although for many years, only one could express themselves
at any one time.
Not long after the accident, the duo find themselves on the lam.
These early years are rough for Banner, who is constantly tracked by the U.S. Army.
He struggles to contain the Hulk in order to stay quiet and out of sight.
After several years of moving around, the scientist finds himself living a secret life
as a fugitive in Brazil, where he focuses on anger management and searches for ways
to reverse his "condition."
"You don't understand!
Something really bad is about to happen here!"
By 2008, Banner has spent nearly half a year hiding in Brazil, where he works in a bottling
factory.
However, his tenuous situation is upended when General "Thunderbolt" Ross finally tracks
him down.
When this happens, he transforms into the Hulk, blows his cover, and goes back on the
run.
The ensuing adventure sees Banner return to America, where he reunites with his sweetheart,
the general's daughter Betty Ross, and continues his quest to "heal" himself of his condition.
Throughout these events, he's closely dogged by General Ross' forces, and even meets them
head-on in front of Culver University — where he is directly confronted by Emil Blonsky,
a British special-ops commando injected with a Super Soldier Serum that allows him to survive
his first encounter with the Hulk.
After that, Blonsky escalates the situation by having the Hulk's blood transfused into
his own body, an event that turns him into the Hulk-sized villain Abomination.
Meanwhile, Banner realizes the futility of trying to fix his condition and is finally
taken into custody by General Ross — just in time for Abomination to appear on the scene.
This new threat forces Ross to release Banner, as it quickly becomes apparent that Hulk is
the only hope they have to contain the transformed Blonsky.
This leads to a catastrophic showdown in Harlem, where Abomination is subdued and Hulk flees
the scene.
After the events in Harlem, it seems apparent that the scientist may finally be gaining
a level of control over his angrier other half.
However, by the time he re-enters the larger MCU story, much of that progress has been
lost, and the scientist is once again living a quiet life of solitude — this time hiding
in India and helping the local population.
It's here that Black Widow pays him a visit in 2012, asking him to lend his impressive
scientific knowledge to SHIELD in its attempt to find the Tesseract and protect the world
from a global threat.
Banner reluctantly agrees, and soon finds himself working alongside the crew that will
soon be known to the world as the Avengers.
Although Banner joins the team with good intentions, it doesn't take long for the Hulk to show
up and threaten the entire operation.
After a tussle with Thor that almost destroys S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, Hulk ends up falling
out of the sky, before turning back into Banner on the ground.
From there, he's given a helping hand by a security guard, who lends him his motorcycle
so he can reunite with the team.
When Banner reunites with the Avengers, they're in the early stages of fending off an invasion
of Chitauri soldiers on the streets of New York City.
As he heads into battle, he reveals the one thing that has taught him how to willingly
control his transformations into the Hulk.
"That's my secret, Cap.
I'm always angry."
The Hulk plays a central role in the ensuing Battle of New York, smashing Chitauri, stopping
a leviathan or two, and even giving Loki a particularly brutal smackdown in Stark Tower.
After the battle, Banner finds that he no longer needs to live perpetually in fear of
arrest, and settles into a new phase of his superhero career.
At one point, he even attempts to help Tony Stark process some of the reformed playboy's
own traumatic experiences.
"You were actively napping?"
"I was..I...I drifted."
Over the next few years, Banner and Hulk continue to work with the Avengers, albeit in two very
different capacities — Banner as the brains and Hulk as the brawn.
Prior to the Battle of Sokovia, Banner continues to offer the Avengers his incredible intellect
as a scientist.
He helps Tony Stark work on combining Baron Von Strucker's work with the Ultron program
— inadvertently creating Ultron in the process.
He also helps create Vision, and even strikes up a romantic spark with Natasha Romanoff.
Hulk, on the other hand, is repeatedly brought out to "save the day" when the team is in
a tight spot.
This begins with the retrieval of Loki's Scepter from Von Strucker's base in Sokovia and ends
with the world-saving showdown with Ultron in the same location.
In the interim, he also duels Iron Man in Johannesburg, reinforcing the troubling truth
that the Green Machine is little more than an unwieldy tool in the hands of his fellow
Once Ultron is defeated, the Hulk refuses to surrender control back to Banner, instead
taking the Avengers' Quinjet and flying off into the unknown.
After the events of Sokovia, Hulk's story takes a rather dramatic turn.
While flying the Quinjet through space, the Hulk enters a wormhole and suddenly finds
himself crash-landing on the strange garbage planet known as Sakaar.
Once there, his powerful physique and fighting prowess catches the attention of the the Grandmaster,
who recruits him as one of his gladiators — a position uniquely suited to Hulk's violence-prone
temperament.
Hulk remains in control for the next two Earth years.
It isn't until 2017 that the cover is finally blown on his self-imposed exile when he finds
himself confronted in gladiatorial combat by none other than his fellow Avenger, Thor.
After a hotly-contested duel in the Grandmaster's arena, the pair retire to Hulk's private quarters
where they discuss what to do next.
"We must prevent Ragnarok"
While Hulk has no desire to leave his comfy situation, he does show Thor where the Quinjet
landed, which inadvertently exposes him to a recording of Black Widow — and allows
Banner to regain control of his mind.
Once Banner is back, he and Thor join with Valkyrie and Loki to form the Revengers and
head back to Asgard.
There, Banner and Hulk help Thor stop his villainous sister Hela by unleashing Ragnarok.
During the fight, Hulk fearlessly dispatches Hela's giant wolf Fenris and then jumps right
into the maw of the fiery Surtur while the monster is in the middle of destroying Asgard.
Afterward, Hulk joins the surviving Asgardians as they evacuate onto a spaceship just in
time to escape Asgard's destruction.
With Thor's home reduced to atoms behind them, they set a course for Earth — only to be
intercepted by Thanos, who destroys the ship and kills most of the passengers.
When Hulk attempts to stop him, the Mad Titan decisively wins their fight with a few well-placed
blows, and Hulk is only saved from death when Heimdall summons the Bifrost and sends him
hurtling back to Earth.
This disastrous confrontation is the final straw for Hulk, who refuses to help the Avengers
in the ensuing conflict with Thanos and his armies.
Instead, Banner is left to do his level best with Tony Stark's Hulkbuster armor.
While Hulk's absence comes across as cowardice on the surface, his motivation is at least
partly fueled by the fact that he refuses to be taken advantage of by the Avengers all
over again.
Hulk's absence from the first round of the war against Thanos serves as a crisis point
for the hero.
And while it initially has catastrophic consequences, it ultimately leads Banner to the next step
in his story's evolution.
During the five years after Thanos snaps away half of the universe, Banner and Hulk finally
confront one another in an attempt to find some kind of middle ground.
The result: Professor Hulk.
Realizing that he needs to stop seeing Hulk as a problem, Banner decides to embrace his
alter ego as "the cure" to his maladies.
He dives back into his long-dormant gamma radiation research and spends 18 months in
a lab, fusing his own consciousness and intellect with Hulk's physical prowess.
This new round of experiments officially brings the two-sided character together into one
personality for the first time in the MCU.
The arrival of Professor Hulk ends up transforming not only the character but also his role within
the MCU.
The cerebral yet musclebound hero finds a new lease on life by the time 2023 rolls around,
as he helps the Avengers turn back the clock and undo the damage of Thanos' snap.
First, he's brought in by Captain America, Black Widow, and Ant-Man to help figure out
time travel during Tony Stark's temporary retirement.
While that experiment ends up a flop, it doesn't change the fact that the green-skinned Avenger
still knows enough to properly and concisely explain how time travel in the MCU works.
Next, he time travels back to New York City in 2012, where he is faced with the embarrassment
of encountering his past self.
From there, he's able to find the Ancient One and convince her to surrender her most
prized possession: the Time Stone.
After the team has traveled through time and gathered the six Infinity Stones, they return
to the Avengers Headquarters in Upstate New York in order to officially assemble Stark's
version of the Infinity Gauntlet.
Once that gauntlet is complete, though, one question remains: who will put it on and snap
their fingers?
"Let me do it.
Just let me do something right."
Ultimately it's Hulk who steps up, declaring that his resilience to gamma radiation makes
him the perfect candidate for the job.
He dons the gauntlet and snaps his fingers, restoring half of the universe in an instant
— and causing permanent damage to his arm in the process.
This move is indicative of how far the character has come since those early days of inner turmoil,
hot tempers, and childish behavior.
At the end of the day, it's Hulk that makes the sacrifice play, and brings back half of
the universe in the process.
While his arm took some serious damage from undoing Thanos' snap, Hulk is hardly down
for the count.
On the contrary, Hulk is one of the only original Avengers still standing post-Endgame, which
means his future in the MCU is wide open.
Not only is he in an excellent place as far as his personal story arc goes, but he's also
a character that has spent time on and off Earth, which means he could join with anyone
from Spider-Man in the Big Apple to Captain Marvel on Hala or even the Guardians of the
Galaxy as they search for Gamora.
According to CheatSheet, Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo is still under contract to appear in two more
MCU films, although they likely won't be standalone outings due to Universal's claim on solo movies
for the character.
Still, don't go assuming you've seen the last of the big guy yet — he's still got a few
fights left in him.
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