The Incredible Hulk could have subtly laid the foundation for introducing Wolverine into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Disney/Fox acquisition is reaching its final stages now, with Disney currently expecting to have completed the purchase by June. When it’s finally done, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four will be handed over to Marvel Studios. The Fantastic Four aren’t too difficult to add to the MCU as it currently exists, but the X-Men franchise involves a lot of complicated concepts and ideas which will radically reshape the shared universe. Naturally, there’s a lot of excitement about how this will be acheived, not least with the most popular mutant of all: Wolverine.
Created by Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and John Romita, Sr., Wolverine was first introduced as a Hulk enemy in The Incredible Hulk #180. Although it didn’t take long for the Canucklehead to make his way over into the X-Men comics – complete with a minor change in mask design – Wolverine and the Hulk have had an antagonistic relationship ever since. The scraps between the two are legendary, with Wolverine’s natural agility allowing him to dodge the Hulk’s punches, his healing factor repairing the damage from any blows he’s unable to avoid, and his adamantium claws even managing to pierce the Hulk’s skin.
Related: Why Mark Ruffalo Replaced Edward Norton As Hulk In The MCU
Given the strong connections between the Hulk and Wolverine, it’s quite fitting that 2008’s The Incredible Hulk is the Marvel film that subtly creates the opportunity for Marvel to introduce a comic-book-accurate version of Wolverine.
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The Incredible Hulk Establishes A History of Super Soldier Programs
The Incredible Hulk introduced viewers to General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, the latest in a long line of US military leaders who’d been interested in resurrecting the Super Soldier program from World War II that transformed Steve Rogers into Captain America. As Captain America: The First Avenger revealed, Dr. Abraham Erskine, the only man who knew the process, was killed by a Hydra assassin and the secrets of “Bio-Tech Force Enhancement.” were lost.
Ross had been keen to return to the idea, attempting to create more Super Soldiers with Bruce Banner’s research into radiation resistance. Pushed by Ross, and determined to prove himself, Banner injected himself with a Gamma-based serum he had devised – and unwittingly transformed himself, becoming the Hulk. The novelization of The Incredible Hulk fleshes this out still further, hinting that there had been other super-soldier programs. In one key scene, Ross debriefed General Greller on the Hulk’s origin.
“”Banner’s work was a tangent of Bio-Tech,” said Ross after a moment’s hesitation.
Greller didn’t make the connection at first. Then, when he started to, he couldn’t quite believe what Ross was saying. “You told me you were going to Brazil to nab a scientist. Are you telling me another one of your Super Soldier experiments went haywire?” When Ross nodded, Greller leaned back in his chair, amazed. “And you didn’t think it was important enough to give me a heads-up?””
Related: All References To The Incredible Hulk In Later MCU Movies (That Prove It’s Canon)
The clear implication is that Ross created other Super Soldiers, enhanced beings who went on some sort of rampage. That fits with the film itself, where Ross subjected Emil Blonsky to a Super Soldier serum that he’d managed to save from one of his projects, giving him resistance to the Hulk’s attacks and abnormally high heart-rate. The novelization adds a little detail to Ross’ thoughts at this point; “If Blonsky’s body began to show the other properties associated with that machinelike heartbeat, then Ross knew that Blonsky would do far more than walk again. Far more.” It seems Ross was actually familiar with test subjects who displayed a superhuman healing factor.
Page 2 of 2: How Weapon X And Wolverine Can Fit Into The MCU
The Weapon X Project Was A Super-Soldier Program In The Comics
As any X-Men fan will know, Wolverine himself was the subject of a top-secret Super Soldier program; that’s why his body was laced with adamantium. What most casual viewers won’t realize, though, is that the comics have connected the infamous Weapon X Program with the super-soldier experiments. In the 2000s, writer Grant Morrison revealed that the “X” in “Weapon X” wasn’t about Xavier or his X-Men, but the Roman numeral for ten. The various programs were:
- Weapon I: Otherwise known as Project Rebirth, this was the program that created Captain America.
- Weapon II: This program experimented upon weaponized animals, and succeeded in bonding an adamantium skeleton and claws into a squirrel.
- Weapon III: This was a master-spy called the Skinless Man, a mutant with elastic multi-sensory skin who became a top espionage agent.
- Weapon IV, V, and VI: These programs experimented upon ethnic minority test subjects.
- Weapon VII: Otherwise known as Project Homegrown, this program experimented upon US soldiers during the Vietnam War. The only known successful subject of Weapon VII was Nuke, who became a dangerous fascist terrorist.
- Weapon VIII and IX: These programs experimented on psychopaths; Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld has suggested Wade Wilson was one of Weapon IX’s subjects.
- Weapon X: This project experimented upon mutants, most famously creating Wolverine.
Project Rebirth is already an established part of the MCU, and The Incredible Hulk clearly suggests that Super Soldier experiments continued up until the mid-2000s. They could easily have included the Weapon X Project, with the US capturing the mutant named Logan and bonding his skeleton and claws with adamantium.
In the comics, the Weapon X Project ended in disaster when Logan broke out and slaughtered most of the scientists who had experimented upon him; reduced to animalistic savagery, Logan disappeared into the wilderness. This would fit pretty well with General Greller’s comment in the novelization that previous test subjects had gone “haywire,” and it’s even possible Ross first observed a healing factor when he saw Logan recover from injury at an accelerated rate. The mysterious cocktail Ross injected into Blonsky’s bloodstream could even have potentially contained genetic modifiers based on Logan’s X-gene.
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Naturally, this theory would be a retcon to MCU continuity; there’s no way Marvel ever expected to get the film rights to the X-Men back when they were producing The Incredible Hulk. But it’s one that fits surprisingly well – and could offer some good opportunities going into Phase 4.
What Could This Mean For The Introduction Of Mutants In The MCU?
This connection between Wolverine and The Incredible Hulk only works if mutants like Wolverine have always been a part of the MCU; he’d have to have been experimented on before 2010 (when The Incredible Hulk is meant to take place)? So why haven’t they ever been seen before?
Ironically, the X-Men comics may provide a solution for that. In print, have been a handful of mutants who appeared from ancient times through to the Victorian era, including the likes of Selene, Apocalypse and, of course, Wolverine himself. They were essentially evolutionary precursors, anomalies whose X-genes had triggered and granted them superhuman powers. But they were few and far between, and either went unremarked on by history or became creatures of myth and legend. It’s only in the modern era that humanity reached an evolutionary “tipping point” in which X-genes were triggered en masse. Stan Lee imagined that tipping point to have been reached due to higher background levels of radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of atomic weapons testing.
Perhaps the same could be true in the MCU as well; there have always been mutants, they’ve just been rare, with some sort of trigger required to activate X-genes across the globe. That approach would allow characters like Logan, Magneto, and Professor Xavier to exist in the MCU, and to be experienced in the use of their powers; when mutants are activated across the planet, Professor Xavier and Magneto would naturally become champions of their conflicting causes. Meanwhile, this The Incredible Hulk connection would also mean that Marvel’s Wolverine could have already undergone the Weapon X Project years ago.
More: X-Men Theory: How Galactus And Phoenix Force Can Be Easily Retconned Into The MCU
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