Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, Eric Bana, Edward Norton, and Mark Ruffalo and CGI, and now, another Hulk is being added to the fray as Matt Joseph of We Got This Covered has revealed. If you can’t figure out who it is, and no it’s not She-Hulk as there’s a show planned for her already, then you might not have been reading any comic books lately. Okay I’ll stop the suspense and tell you that it’s Amadeus Cho, the next in line for the role of the green goliath since if you remember in Endgame the Hulk was pretty messed-up from performing the Snap and as a result the damage simply won’t heal, meaning he’ll likely be weak in his right arm for a long time to come unless there’s a miracle that can be worked in the writing room. But barring that it would seem that Cho is going to be making his way to Disney+ to start with and will later on be coming to the big screen, which is what it sounds like.
Sigh, it’s kind of hard to say anything bad or even that might be construed as negative about a Hulk since they’ve all been pretty awesome in their own right. But Banner holds a lot of prestige at this point since he’s still the original and the guy that’s been kicking around for decades. One of the only issues with Banner’s Hulk, and it’s a big and persistent one, is that for the longest time he didn’t want to learn how to embrace it, or even deal with it on anything but a defensive level. Thanks to the Hulk being so destructive he did his absolute best to cage the beast at all times and didn’t want to get too excited or too angry as this might have let the rage monster free. But the fun thing is that Banner would eventually learn how to handle the Hulk and would in a big way merge with him to create a super-intelligent and ultimately super-powerful being that was able to retain his intelligence and his strength at the same time. Disney kind of pooched the whole thing when they brought Banner and the Hulk together since became too much of a caricature really and no longer had the needed edge that made him so awesome.
Amadeus on the other hand reveled in the power that being the Hulk gave him. He was a bit weaker than the original Hulk but he was still insanely powerful until he lost some of that power and became a weaker version of himself. But he’s been pretty integrated into the whole Hulk story since he and the big green guy did become friends at one point and Cho stuck up for him quite often since he figured that he and the Hulk were tight. Bringing Cho to bear in the MCU might take some doing since a lot of people are still extremely loyal to the Bruce Banner character, but the fact that Disney has mucked him up so bad at this point is one reason why it might be nice to see what else they can do with another character in order to keep the Hulk alive and still kicking. The only downfall that Cho has is that despite being intelligent the power of the Hulk goes to his head a bit and thanks to his inexperience he does tend to use the power in a rather irresponsible way sometimes. The fact that he’s so much younger and a lot more impetuous than Banner ever was seems to indicate that the Marvel universe was trying to bring the character of the Hulk into the current era and was doing so in a way that might relate to younger readers and give them a chance to see someone that’s their own age be given the kind of responsibility that so many younger people desire at times.
Cho could be a worthy addition to the MCU and he could be someone that fans will love, but it might take some careful planning and hopefully, on Disney’s part, true respect to the original character that’s been sorely lacking so far. I know, I know, fans will say anything when they get their expectations blown apart but the truth is that making the Marvel universe family-friendly has dampened it down to a level where only kids and adolescents are really getting much out of apart from various moments when the action ramps up and it becomes easier to watch. There are plenty of reasons the MCU is still one of the biggest things in the theater at the moment but it’s also fair to say that unless the next couple of phases really kick it into a higher gear that they might find themselves wondering why the fan base isn’t responding in the same way any longer.
