The Hulk might be one of the most recognizable characters in the Marvel canon. Even people who aren’t super invested in the comics or even the MCU are aware of who the giant green rage monster is. As a piece of iconography for the company, he’s pretty popular, which is why it’s incredibly strange that the MCU never really seemed to take full advantage of the character.
Bruce Banner and The Hulk have made (non-cameo) appearances in 6 of the current 25 MCU films. Of those, only 3 of those movies portray the classic “angry Hulk”, who is destructive, driven by pure rage, and isn’t very verbal. Of course, one of those appearances was in The Incredible Hulk, which is a film that many MCU fans (perhaps purposefully) tend to forget about, as it’s unconnected to most other parts of the MCU and also doesn’t feature Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Again, it’s very strange that Marvel has seemingly pushed such an iconic and well-known character to the side and given fans very little content involving typical, angry Hulk. Is it time for the MCU to find a way to bring him back?
In general, Marvel seems to have this problem where they just don’t know what to do with some of their main characters. Hawkeye has fallen victim to this over the years, but Bruce Banner also feels inconsistent from movie to movie. Of course, part of this is that The Hulk’s role and even personality changes in what seems like a short amount of time across movies. He starts out as the normal, uncontrollable, angry Hulk in The Incredible Hulk and The Avengers whose main duty is...to smash. His role in Age of Ultron is to, once again, cause destruction, but this time with remorse and actual consequences after the fact. After that film, he disappears for a few years until he shows up again in Thor: Ragnarok, after living on Sakaar and becoming slightly more articulate (meaning he can speak in sentences rather than just roars).
Then comes Infinity War, where Hulk isn't really present because Bruce Banner can't get him to come out after being sent to Earth by Heimdall, and when he finally shows up again in Endgame, he's a being with the body of Hulk but the mind of Banner. It's a strange combination that works as an interesting thought experiment, but might be kind of boring in the long term. In the post-credits scene of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Bruce Banner appears as himself once again, which signals that the Bruce/Hulk hybrid isn't going to be permanent. But where does that leave the character of The Hulk now?
It just feels like Marvel skipped over that angry Hulk era really quickly, which is odd because that aspect of the character is so iconic and well-known. Maybe that's exactly why they sped through it, though, because they figured enough time had been spent on angry Hulk throughout the different iterations of the character in the comics and on-screen and they wanted to try something different. However, there are ways to do new and interesting things with a character as they're written without having to completely change them with every appearance. Developing Hulk is a great idea, but it only feels earned if the audience has spent enough time with the basic, nothing-but-anger version of Hulk so that they can really see and appreciate the change in him.
Smart, articulate Hulk also just isn't as fun as angry Hulk. Watching The Avengers for the first time and seeing Hulk get to use his destructive tendencies to take out the bad guys (rather than hurt the heroes) is so satisfying and entertaining. The whole point of The Hulk is that he's the complete opposite of the measured and well-spoken Dr. Banner, and seeing this calm and reserved man lose it and turn into a huge force of destruction is the whole fun of the character. The Jekyll and Hyde dynamic is literally the whole point of the character existing, and it's just not as fun to watch when Jekyll and Hyde are coexisting and working together. Again, not that it's not an interesting route to go down at some point, but it just felt like the MCU got to that point too early and didn't spend enough time with the fun of angry Hulk.
At this point, because of the development they've put The Hulk through - in Thor: Ragnarok in particular - it would be strange to see him go back to that non-verbal rage monster. Perhaps, if they wanted to go back to normal Hulk in the future, they could explain it away by saying that switching back to being Bruce Banner full-time after the hybrid state sent his Hulk self back into its rudimentary form before he developed in any way, or something like that. It would just be really interesting to see the duality of the characters again, rather than having them combined into one. There's something about the unpredictability of The Hulk that adds a lot of tension to the plot, and it would be great to see Marvel play with that again.
Hopefully, if the MCU plans on keeping Bruce Banner around for the next few Phases or so, they find a way to make Hulk fun again and bring back what made him so iconic in the first place. It might just be time for Marvel to go back to basics with the character and remember what made audiences like The Hulk so much when they first saw him emerge in The Incredible Hulk and The Avengers. Bruce Banner is one of the only MCU characters to get only a single solo movie with no plans for another in the future, which is strange considering he's been in the MCU for so long. It seems like Marvel pushes him to the side a lot, and it would just be great to see Hulk smash his way to the forefront once again.