Marvel Phase 4 Will Finally Resolve Incredible Hulk’s Biggest Mystery

Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will finally resolve what happened to the Abomination (Tim Roth), who last appeared in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. The second official MCU film was also the only appearance of Edward Norton in the dual role of Dr. Bruce Banner and the Hulk, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, and director Louis Letterier. But the Abomination is set to return in She-Hulk on Disney+, with Roth reprising his role as the gamma-powered monster.

The Incredible Hulk is a strange outlier that’s often a forgotten piece of the MCU Phase 1 puzzle. This is, in part, because Edward Norton broke ties with Marvel after the film, necessitating Mark Ruffalo to replace him as Hulk/Banner in The Avengers and going forward. The Incredible Hulk was also made before Marvel Studios became part of Disney; while Marvel owns the rights to the Hulk character, Universal owns first refusal rights to Hulk solo movies, and the two studios don’t have the best working relationship, which is why Hulk/Banner has been relegated to being part of ensemble movies like The Avengers and Thor: Ragnarok. But since no sequel to The Incredible Hulk ever materialized, it left the fates of certain characters like the Abomination up in the air for over a dozen years.

The last thing fans heard about the Abomination and his alter-ego, Emil Blonsky, was that he was incarcerated in the Vault, a secret facility in Barrow, Alaska. The Abomination was held in a cryo-cell and was guarded by SHIELD after he was apprehended following his ramage in Harlem, New York, and his defeat at the hands of the Hulk. Although the Abomination was last seen in The Incredible Hulk, he was mentioned in the Marvel One-Shot “The Consultant”. In that short film, Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Agent Jasper Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernandez) discussed that the World Security Council wanted the Abomination to be part of the Avengers Initiative, but that spot eventually went to Bruce Banner/the Hulk. The Abomination was also mentioned in Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD when Coulson (Clark Gregg) threatened to send Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) to Alaska to guard Blonsky’s cryo-cell. But, fans may finally have all their questions answered in the upcoming She-Hulk series, which – according to Marvel’s chief creative officer, Kevin Feige, will contain the Abomination.

This means that the questions surrounding Emil Blonsky will finally be answered, which are now even more pertinent because so much has changed in the MCU in the last dozen years. For instance, SHIELD was in charge of guarding Blonsky but the global spy agency collapsed after HYDRA was revealed to be part of SHIELD from its inception in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Since Agents of SHIELD isn’t really part of the mainline MCU canon, SHIELD hasn’t been active in the MCU movies’ continuity since 2014. Further, after Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, it’s now after 2023 in the MCU timeline, which means the Abomination has been in cryo for over 15 years (unless he has somehow been freed in the interim). The Abomination in She-Hulk could also give him renewed stature as a menace to the rest of the MCU going forward.

Excitingly, Marvel announced that along with Abomination, Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner and Hulk will also be part of the series led by Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk so all of their combined stories will continue on the show. She-Hulk not only sets up a rematch between the characters of Hulk and Abomination for the first time since 2008, but it will also be the first meeting between Roth’s villain and Ruffalo’s version of Banner and his bigger, greener half, who may or may not still be Smart Hulk in the series. For the Abomination and for fans of The Incredible Hulk, their patience has paid off as the future of Marvel’s gamma-powered monsters looks bright on Disney+.