Roth’s Abomination Tease Sets Up A Perfect Hulk Clash (But With A Problem)

Tim Roth’s recent tease of The Abomination appearing in She-Hulk sets up a potential clash with Bruce Banner and/or the Hulk, especially after his appearance in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Roth first appeared as Emil Blonsky in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, where he began as a special-ops soldier who is given a variation of the Super Soldier Serum in order to help defeat the Hulk. However, the variant serum has a side effect that turns Blonsky into The Abomination, a Hulk-like creature that wreaks havoc on the city before being defeated.

Blonsky reappeared 13 years later in Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, where he took on a somewhat different role than that of The Incredible Hulk. Partnering with Doctor Strange‘s Wong, The Abomination showed up as a contender in an underground fight club, where it was revealed he was actually working with Wong and that their fight was “fixed”. Why The Abomination agreed to that scenario was not made clear, but it was obvious that he was more in control of his previous “savage” Nature, and was coherent enough to work with and carry out a ruse with Wong.

Roth is returning to the role of The Abomination in the Disney+ series She-Hulk, in which he’s listed as appearing in all ten episodes of the show. She-Hulk stars Tatiana Maslaney as Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, the cousin of Bruce Banner, who will also appear in his “Smart Hulk” persona acting in a mentor-like role, guiding her to control her new powers. It’s unclear how Roth’s The Abomination will factor into the show, but Roth teased in a recent interview that returning to the role on the show was a “blast” and “insane”, citing his excitement in working with Ruffalo and Maslaney, suggesting he will have scenes with both of them in their monstrous forms. However, with his more “friendly” appearance in Shang-Chi, the question now is whether there will be a Hulk vs. Abomination rematch as enemies, or if they’ll now act as allies.

Roth’s The Abomination fought Hulk in a brutal battle at the end of The Incredible Hulk, which was the highlight of the film. It was also when Edward Norton was in the role of Bruce Banner, so She-Hulk will be The Abomination’s first interaction with the Mark Ruffalo version of the character. This would be the perfect opportunity to see a rematch between the characters, especially since Roth’s transformation is now looking more like his comics-accurate Abomination appearance, a complaint that was brought up in his initial big-screen debut. However, the issue to be resolved now is why he would suddenly be battling the Hulk (and/or She-Hulk for that matter).

Of course, there are many ways that Roth’s The Abomination could become a villain again, creating an epic-scale rematch with The Hulk, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll stay bad. The most likely course of action would be to have a “misunderstanding” style battle that brings the characters together at the end of the fight when the issue is resolved, but it’s also possible that The Abomination could be a villain throughout, potentially teaming up with She-Hulk’s other villain Titania, played by Jameela Jamil. Fans would love to see a rematch of The Abomination and The Hulk in She-Hulk, but how that happens needs to make sense given his recent transformation in Shang-Chi.