Wherein Mark Ruffalo In The Incredible Hulk Would Change The MCU

The MCU would have been subtly changed if Mark Ruffalo had played the part of Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk. It’s easy to forget that Mark Ruffalo was not the first actor to play the Hulk in the MCU; fairly, that honour gets on to Edward Norton, who appeared in The Incredible Hulk. There’s a distinct degree of irony in this because director Louis Leterrier liked Mark Ruffalo to play Bruce Banner, but he was overruled by Marvel. They were enticed by Norton’s star power, while they deemed Ruffalo a poor fit because they felt he only did “smart, intellectual movies” back then.

Marvel recast Norton, of course, and Marvel’s What If…? Episode 3 has gone one walk distant by spotting Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner into the tale of The Incredible Hulk. The clear implication is that everything in that film played out just the same, but Banner had several faces, voices, and mannerisms. It leads to a fascinating moment in which Banner stands alongside forgotten Phase 1 personality Betty Ross, the Hulk’s classic love interest in the comics and from the movie. It’s not the first time Marvel did this; a new in-universe book called The Wakanda Files encompassed an image with Ruffalo’s Banner reputation next to Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross, but the change in the energetic series is much more significant.

But how would the MCU have played out had Leterrier had his way over a decade ago, casting Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner? There are no normals to view these alternate timelines in the real world, but it’s likely the MCU would have existed subtly different.