She-Hulk Pokes Fun At Mark Ruffalo's Predecessor Edward Norton

If you, like many legions of Marvel fans, have been wondering whether the MCU would ever address the existence of Edward Norton’s version of The Hulk, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has finally answered your prayers. In the second episode of the Disney+ series, Tim Roth reprises his role as Emil Blonsky (a.k.a. the antagonist, Abomination) from the 2008 Norton-led The Incredible Hulk film, suggesting that that film is indeed canon even though Mark Ruffalo took over the role starting with 2012’s The Avengers.

In She-Hulk, Tatiana Maslany plays Jen who is the titular role as a lawyer for superheroes and is the cousin of our friendly neighborhood Hulk, Bruce Banner. When she’s assigned to be Blonsky’s lawyer for his parole hearing, she initially declines, citing his antagonistic relationship with her cousin. She calls Bruce (played by Ruffalo) to get his opinion on the matter, and he reveals that Blonsky had apologized to him via a heartfelt haiku. “That fight was so many years ago, I'm a completely different person now — literally,” he says, winking at the audience.

It’s not the first time She-Hulk has addressed long-gestating questions in the MCU; in the first episode the series definitively provided details about how Captain America lost his virginity. For his part, Ruffalo is thrilled that the MCU is able to poke fun at the situation. “I think it's really funny. It's just the reality that we all are often dancing around, but it's true,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I actually joked with Ed about this. I was like, ‘It's like our generation's Hamlet. Everyone's going to get a shot at it.’ And there'll probably be another couple before it's all over. People will be like, ‘Remember when the Hulk used to look like Mark Ruffalo? Now it looks like Timothée Chalamet.’”

Though he’s been the face of The Hulk for a decade, Ruffalo has no concerns about eventually passing the baton. “The cool thing about this world is that it could just be anything,” he said. “Five years from now it could totally morph into anything, whatever's pertinent at the time. I almost see him going back to 'Berserker Hulk' or 'World War Hulk'. It could go anywhere. That's the exciting part — I've played five different versions from beginning to now, and that's kept it interesting for me and I hope interesting for other people.”

In a way, Ruffalo already feels like he’s passing the legacy onto Maslany on the She-Hulk series. “When they decided to do She-Hulk — which I thought was really cool and exciting and apt and timely — they gave me the premise, which I already knew from the comics, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I'd love to do that,’” he said. “And I do feel like I'm actually passing the torch on, in a strange way.”

But because the series is called She-Hulk and not Hulk Cousins, Bruce Banner will likely take a back seat in coming episodes. At the end of episode two, the camera reveals that Bruce is in a lab somewhere in outer space, and that he won’t be returning for awhile. “As far as Bruce leaving, we really were just looking for a convenient way to make sure that everybody knew this is Jen's show, and it's not going to be about Bruce," said head writer Jessica Gao. "And we just wanted to make sure people weren't expecting to see Bruce every single episode hanging out with her, because frankly, we can't afford it.”

Despite his short stint on the show, Ruffalo loved every minute of inhabiting an everyday version of Banner’s Hulk. “Just seeing the Hulk and She-Hulk, in their everyday lives, was really exciting to me because we don't know much about that character outside of fighting for the universe, really,” he said. “It was really fun and funny.”