She-Hulk premiere clears up Bruce Banner and Smart Hulk riddle
Topics: Film and TV, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Gabriella Ferlita
Featured Image Credit: Disney+
Topics: Film and TV, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Warning: this article contains spoilers for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have just been graced with the release of She Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney+.
But it turns out that there was some confusion around Bruce Banner and Smart Hulk.
Dedicated followers of the franchise will recall how Banner struggled to deal with Hulk in Avengers: Infinity War, with the character having spent 18 months in a lab putting ‘the brains and the brawn together’.
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In the end, he came up with Smart Hulk, the ‘best of both worlds’, according to Banner. This new superhero would be blessed with Hulk’s super strength and healing abilities, as well as Banner’s mind.
However, as viewers may remember, a mid-credit scene of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings showed a human Bruce Banner – wearing a sling, no less – after causing serious damage to his arm in Endgame from using the Infinity Stones on Thanos.
Then, the trailers for She-Hulk dropped and showed Hulk having turned back into Smart Hulk once again without any injury to his arms.
This, understandably, caused a lot of confusion among fans – but the premiere appeared to clear things up for viewers.
In the premiere, Bruce explained to Jennifer Walters that he spent years coming up with an inhibitor device worn on his arm, which helped to heal his injury and maintained his ability to stay in human form most of the time.
Early in the episode, Bruce and Jen sustain a car accident, where the device breaks. This is where She-Hulk is born, as some of Bruce’s blood is transferred into one of Jen’s open wounds.
After rigorous testing, Bruce discovers that Jen and Bruce have different blood, despite sharing some similarities.
Bruce then uses Jen’s DNA to aid the injury on his arm, but it does mean that he will require a different device if he wants to return to his human self.
Knowing that the previous device was broken during the accident and took some years to develop, it may take the same amount of time to replicate again in future.
Basically, all viewers need to know is that Smart Hulk is the Hulk and Bruce that we’ll be seeing more of in the MCU. Oh, and his arm is all better now.
Elsewhere, the series is shaping up to be the show of the summer, despite the superhero's shaky first appearance.
In fact, the show already has a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, despite the previous backlash about the series’ CGI.
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