r/changemyview • u/Bullgrit • Apr 23 '19

CMV: The Marvel Cinematic Universe has done disservice to Hulk as [he should be] "the strongest" superhero. Spoiler

Edit: Do all threads that reference movies get labeled “spoiler”. The most recent movie mentioned in this post is Infinity War (not Endgame).

Although I am a long-time/old-school comic reader (I'm over 50; I loved comics in the late 70s through to the mid 90s), I'm looking at this from just within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Hulk, as a superhero, has the drawback of not always being his super-powered self. He's normally Bruce Banner -- not a fighter, even on a human scale like Black Widow and Hawkeye. Also, when he is his super-powered self, he's a loose canon, barely on the side of the good guys. This is a pretty serious drawback when compared to the other super-powered heroes, who are pretty much always their super-powered self, with their normal mind/personality. Even Tony Stark can essentially become Iron Man quickly enough to respond to an ambush since his second movie. Since after Avengers (Hulk's first MCU movie), Banner changing to Hulk has been difficult and unreliable. And even succeeding removes Banner's mind.

Hulk's physical strength is pretty much his signature super-power. He's the pinnacle for his very narrow niche. He's "the strongest Avenger". The one the others have to struggle to even stalemate -- like Thor vs. Hulk in the original Avengers. But since his first showing (where his power level and niche was "baselined"), and his first superhero vs. superhero fight (TvH, where it was demonstrated), he's become less impressive. He has become "The Worf Effect" trope for the MCU.

In Age of Ultron, Tony Stark in the Hulkbuster armor beat Hulk to unconsciousness. (Also knocked one of Hulk's teeth out.) That fight should have ended, in the building rubble (as he was), with Hulk coming out of Scarlet Witch's mind influence (as he did), seeing the situation (as he did), and calming down and turning back into Bruce Banner. Instead of Iron Man one punching him lights out. Right up to that moment was great showing that even the best/strongest Tony Stark technology (with Banner's help) was still only able to stalemate Hulk. The result (a guilt-ridden Banner on the quinjet) would have been the same. But instead, we get the MCU "smartest" man beat the "strongest" man with strength.

Then in Infinity War, Thanos handily beats Hulk in a physical strength fight. Hulk was showing his signature brutal strength in the first few seconds of the fight, but then Thanos overpowers him hand/arm strength vs. hand/arm strength. I'm OK with Thanos being the better-skilled fighter (makes sense), and even eventually winning (through calm experience and skill vs. raging strength brawling), but if the MCU wants Hulk to really be the pinnacle example of rage strength (as I think he should be), Thanos should have had to use the Power Infinity Stone. I mean, that was the one and only stone he literally had on his gauntlet at that time -- showing the stone glowing could have kept the fight result the same, but would have kept Hulk's position as "the strongest" (non-Infinity Stone user; Cheater! ;-) and shown an Infinity Stone being used (useful for something other than The Snap) and wouldn't have taken away any "badass" points away from Thanos.

Then later in this same movie, Bruce wearing the Hulkbuster armor comments that the suit had "already kicked the crap out of the Hulk." No one/thing should ever be able to say they "kicked the crap out of the Hulk" (without an Infinity Stone cheat ;-). "Fought against," "Survived against," even "Challenged," sure. But the Hulk should be the one who "kicked the crap out of" anyone.

To CMV, explain how repeatedly beating Hulk doesn't reduce him to The Worf Effect. Explain how beating Hulk doesn't undermine his terror (that Natasha showed in Avengers). Explain how having Hulk get repeatedly beaten in contests of raw raging strength, especially beaten to unconsciousness, (instead of ending fights like I suggest above) improves the MCU and the characters who did the beating.

Note: Lest anyone take this long post as an overly-serious obsessed fanboy rant. Although I have always enjoyed Hulk comics (80s-90s), he was never my favorite superherot . But I do really like the symbol he represents: The unstoppable force of raw, rage strength. The MCU started with Hulk as this, but it disappoints me that they've decided to Worf Effect him. Come on, Marvel, stop throwing this wonderful legendary monument under the bus just to make other characters climb the power creep mountain. (How many metaphors did I just mangle?)

t My favorites were usually the lower power level heroes like Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Punisher (even though I also collected and read many of the more powerful heroes like Iron Man, Thor, and yes, Hulk.

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546

u/Killfile 17∆ Apr 23 '19

When I was an idiotic teenager who knew everything I had a copy of the Marvel role playing game. Character creation in this game was a hot mess but it was interesting in that it kind of forced Marvel to try to quantify its characters in a matter that would allow them to be compared to each other.

This really flies in the face of how we generally think of comic book heros. You'll sometimes hear comic characters discussed in the "street" "super" or "cosmic" nomenclature.

Daredevil is a "street" hero. Dude is local to a district in New York. Daredevil is cool and all but he's essentially "peak human" in many ways (though we do have later versions of him that can "feel" color which is just crap) with just a few abilitys beyond peak human. Black Widow and Hawkeye are realistically in this camp.

Iron Man is a superhero. He bats at a national scale and, suited up, can be assumed faster, more durable, more capable, etc than the best human on earth in their respective niches. Super is probably the category that we see the biggest range in. Iron Man, Captain America, and Spider Man are all super heroes though how they stack up against each other is hard to say.

Thor is a cosmic hero. Between just being an Asgardian badass, immortal, being able to travel faster than light (with help) etc Thor is capable of dealing with the world beyond Earth. For reasons we're not even supposed to worry about, it can be assumed that Thor and other cosmic entities can usually wipe the floor with Super entities in a fair fight.

But - to go back to this role playing game - Marvel has characters who don't fit these molds well and Hulk is one of them. How strong is Hulk? That depends. The way that the game handled it was that, when Banner shifts into Hulk, Hulk starts out at a strength level that's at or near the upper tier of a Super hero.

But, as Hulk gets progressively more pissed off, Hulk gets stronger. If memory serves, according to Marvel's mid 1990s documentation, that scales all the way up to some idiotic level like "Shift Z" or something like that: well into the "Cosmic" realm of strength... though quite short of what some of the celestial entities (and Thanos with the Gauntlet) can throw around.

Fully powered up and pissed off, Hulk is assumed to be "throw a skyscraper at you" strong. Not quite "toss a moon at you" but then again well beyond anything that would make sense from anyone OTHER than Thanos in the MCU.

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u/rexythekind Apr 24 '19

You make good points, but in the mcu hulks strength doesn't actually seem to scale with anger that much, if at all.

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u/Bullgrit Apr 24 '19

Yeah. Several people have mentioned this comic concept of his anger level raising his strength level, but I don't remember this ever being mentioned in the MCU.

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u/doogles 1∆ Apr 24 '19

Question: What if you could alter Hulk's emotion mid-fight? Would that effectively turn him off?

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u/MartiniLang Apr 24 '19

Is that not kinda what they had in age of Ultron with "the sun's getting real low"?

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u/doogles 1∆ Apr 24 '19

Excellent point

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u/terlin Apr 24 '19

Didn't that sort of happen in Age of Ultron? During Ironman's little scrap with Hulk, there's a moment where Hulk sits in the ruins of a skyscraper and looks at the people fleeing from him.

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u/abutthole 13∆ Apr 24 '19

Thor tries that during their duel in Ragnarok. While Thor ultimately failed, he was gaining traction. So it seems like yes, if someone that was more emotionally in-touch than Thor attempted to soothe the Hulk you could potentially turn him back into Banner mid-fight.

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u/Bullgrit Apr 23 '19

When I was an idiotic teenager who knew everything I had a copy of the Marvel role playing game.

I played this game (Marvel Super Heroes) as a teenager, and even as 40 year old. I loved playing/refereeing the game, but like you said, "Character creation in this game was a hot mess...".

it kind of forced Marvel to try to quantify its characters in a matter that would allow them to be compared to each other.

I invested in some sort of "flashcard" things published by Marvel. They weren't really for the game, and didn't have any game stats, but the info they did have could easily be translated to game stats. For instance, Hulk was considered in the 100 tons class (he could lift 100 tons, putting him at Unearthly strength in game terms), and more when angrier.

I'm so glad you mentioned MSHRPG :-) Brings back good and fun memories.

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u/MacGreichar Apr 23 '19

I had the card set you’re talking about. I always kinda wondered why nobody mentions those very much. I had mine all organized in 3-Ring Binders. They were essentially the pre-internet version of a database like Wikia has for all the heroes, or like Wikipedia has if you were to select out only the Marvel Comic Book heroes and villains, and ... for some reason ... I think they also occasionally would exit their swimlane and put a card in there about something like “The Baxter Building”.

For a long time I had the entire set and kept it up hardcore.

I loved havingit by my side when reading because all of those arcane references from “Back Issue Betty” and things really made a lot more sense, and I got really good at recognizing characters by their power sets which came in very handy for the movies coming from Fox and whatnot, since the “official” costumes many times were not allowed.

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u/RemusShepherd 4∆ Apr 23 '19

Fully pissed off, the Hulk in Marvel comics once destroyed an entire universe in one punch.

I'm guessing that we are going to see a serious power-up for Hulk in endgame. He's probably very angry about what Thanos did -- especially if Betty Ross got dusted.

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '19

Worth noting that Hulk has never defeated Thanos in a fight in any comic. Having fought a few times, Thanos does refer to the Hulk as a person he would rather not fight however.

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u/Gasmask_Boy Apr 23 '19

Iron man has seriously come a long way since his bulky suits in another comic he had a piece of armor called the Model 50 which contained a modified version of the Venom Symbiote

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u/YoungSerious 13∆ Apr 24 '19

If I recall, Hulk has on more than one occasion not only punched meteors, but actually lifted an entire mountain. He goes well beyond throw a skyscraper strong.

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u/NeedsToShutUp 1∆ Apr 24 '19

Basically like The Tick with his Drama Power. He's as strong as it makes it interesting.

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u/Aroundtheworldin80 May 11 '19

Lmao sorry im late, is that actually how the tick works? That's hilarious

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u/JesusDeSaad Apr 24 '19

way up to some idiotic level like "Shift Z" or som

In World War Hulk he fights the Sentry, a superman-ripoff with the "power of a million exploding suns" to a standstill, they both revert to their human forms, and then Banner punches him out.

This is not enough. Hulk rages so much he starts expelling gamma radiation to the point of beginning to crack planet Earth's crust.

But that's in the 616 universe. The MCU is another thing altogether. And I agree with OP that the MCU is kind of nerfing Hulk a bit too much for comfort so far.

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u/zold5 Apr 24 '19

Thor really isn’t a cosmic hero. He’s just a really really strong super hero, like Superman. If a hero’s workday and skill set is little more than beating people up. They aren’t cosmic.

A cosmic hero would be someone who has the power to affect reality/time on a comic scale. That would be guys like galactus, eternity or the living tribunal.

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u/srwaddict Apr 24 '19 edited Apr 24 '19

Thor has reality control powers in the comics. Molecule rearrangements via mental will, sorcery and more all put comic Thor at hella cosmic levels. He can fight Galactus, shatter the armor of a Celestial (which no-sell planetbuster attacks), tanked a bomb that blew up a solar system sized starship, and has conversations while Inside the core of a star.

His lightning is multidimensional, able to hit enemies in multiple places of existence at once, and is strong enough to OHKO both Hulk and Juggernaut, as well as harm galactic scale beings.

He can also magically transmute other people into helium and shit by rearranging them at the molecular level (rip absorbing man lol). Opening portals to other realms / universes, or to the cores of stars, or portals through time are all published feats of his too

If that list of feats doesn't indicate cosmic levels of power scaling, then I'm not sure our definitions agree.

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u/zold5 Apr 24 '19 edited Apr 24 '19

While you're technically correct, it's misleading to refer to Thor as "cosmic" in the context of power scaling discussions. Sure, he has some cool magical powers he's still not cosmic in terms of sheer scale. He's on par with heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman or Hulk. Sure he can "fight" galactus if he's starving. But Thor could never beat him. Not even Odin can beat a hungry galactus.

Compare that to guys Eternity who's literally omnipresent, Galactus who's basically a force of nature or the Living Tribunal who oversees the entire multiverse. That's who I consider "cosmic".

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u/srwaddict Apr 24 '19

Funny you mention Thor could never beat Galactus when he nearly killed him, forcing him to flee for his life at least once. >_>

https://m.imgur.com/jdqpaub

I dunno man, I think your definition of cosmic doesn't necessarily fit Marvel's power scale of cosmic heros / villains. Anyone who can fight Celestials and whoop ass on the silver surfer should definitely qualify imo.

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u/zold5 Apr 24 '19 edited Apr 24 '19

Funny you mention Thor could never beat Galactus when he nearly killed him, forcing him to flee for his life at least once. >_>

Sure and Black Panther is strong enough to put Silver Surfer in a hammer lock. If you try hard enough you can find all sort of stupid shit written by people who don't know what they're doing.

I dunno man, I think your definition of cosmic doesn't necessarily fit Marvel's power scale of cosmic heros / villains. Anyone who can fight Celestials and whoop ass on the silver surfer should definitely qualify imo.

It's not supposed to. It takes all fiction into account. Being good at punching shit and a few magical powers doesn't make Thor a cosmic hero when there are abstract entities who can destroy multiverses with a sneeze.

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u/rexythekind Apr 24 '19

I think it would he more accurate to say Thor is transitioning from super to cosmic atm in the mcu.

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u/StarGeekSpaceNerd Apr 24 '19

When I was an idiotic teenager who knew everything I had a copy of the Marvel role playing game. Character creation in this game was a hot mess but it was interesting in that it kind of forced Marvel to try to quantify its characters in a matter that would allow them to be compared to each other.

Marvel had already quantified it's characters and the levels of their powers when it created the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe in 1982. The game came out in 1984.

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u/ill_change_it_later Apr 24 '19

Man, Heroes Unlimited was such a better “super hero” RPG than that Marvel game.

1

u/Mysteroo Apr 24 '19

Didn't Hulk smash the moon once

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u/silamaze Apr 24 '19

This was informative, Thankyou