The latest promotional image for Avengers: Endgame revealed some new looks for the reassembled original Avengers, from Black Widow’s red hair to Hawkeye’s new ‘do to Iron Man’s Mark 85 armor. We were already expecting these alterations, however, thanks to previous leaked concept art. What we weren’t expecting was the CGI rendering on the Hulk which has us theorizing that the Green Goliath might be in for a bigger transformation than the rest.
Check out the image in the gallery below and you’ll notice that Hulk more closely resembles Bruce Banner than he has before. Now, this could just be another redesign of the other guy’s features in order to make him more like Mark Ruffalo, as has happened due to improving visual effects since he first played the part in 2012’s The Avengers. However, could there be an in-universe reason for Hulk’s more Banner-esque features this time around? What if Banner and Hulk merge into one being in Endgame? What if we’re about to get an MCU version of Professor Hulk?
For those who don’t know, Professor Hulk’s essentially the merged medium of Banner and the Jade Giant’s personalities, marrying Bruce’s smarts with Hulk’s incredible strength. A distinctive feature of the Professor is that he has a more human face to represent that he still has Banner’s mind – which would fit with the design of the Hulk, as seen in this promotional image. The Professor also often wears more clothes than the typically-topless Hulk. Note the purple onesie he’s wearing in Endgame.
In many ways, introducing Professor Hulk would be the perfect culmination of the character’s storyline across the MCU. And we’ve been promised that Endgame will wrap up a loose arc that’s been building across his past three movie appearances – this, Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War. We don’t know if this will be the last we’ll see of Hulk in the MCU, but it seems that the curtain’s closing for many of the OG Avengers – except Black Widow – so it’s a definite possibility.
Either way, all will be revealed when Avengers: Endgame hits cinemas on April 26th.