Don’t make him angry. You wouldn’t like Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) when he’s angry — especially if you’re a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (Tom Holland). The Hulk has mellowed over the course of his tenure in the MCU, with Banner’s monstrous alter-ego evolving from a living engine of destruction who Hulk-smashed entire cities (New York’s Harlem in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and Johannesburg in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron) to a living legend who saved the entire universe (in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame). Combining Banner’s brains with Hulk’s brawn allowed both to co-exist as Smart Hulk, but the new Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer teases a meaner, greener side of Banner that’s more monster than man: Savage Hulk.
After another one of Banner’s shirt-ripping, pants-tearing transformations, the Hulk towers over the web-slinger. As Spider-Man remarks to the green-skinned Goliath before a thunderclap sends him flying, “I didn’t know you could get that big!” Besides being bigger and angrier than we’ve seen him since the one-two punch of 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok and 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War (at least up until his beatdown by Thanos), Marvel and Hasbro’s line of Spider-Man: Brand New Day toys has officially confirmed the Savage Green Hulk incarnation is smashing back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Why Is Hulk Human in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’?
“If you see me with this off, run,” Banner warns in the trailer, referring to the Hulk inhibitor device he wears to keep himself in human form. (The gamma-dampening device, which previously allowed the heroic Smart Hulk to revert to Banner in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and 2022’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, inevitably comes off.)
As an expert in gamma radiation who knows a thing or two about stress-induced changes, Banner mentors an unknown Peter Parker as he seeks a way to suppress his own mutating DNA. “So,” his mysterious pupil asks the professor, “could you get rid of the bad aspects but keep the good?” To which Banner replies, “How would you decide what parts of nature are good or bad?”
What the Spider-Man Comics Could Tell Us About ‘Brand New Day’s Biggest Twist
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Why Is Bruce Banner Not Smart Hulk in ‘Brand New Day’?
Without his Hulk inhibitor device suppressing his gamma-mutated DNA, Dr. Banner has regressed back into Savage Hulk, seemingly due to falling under the telepathic control of a mysterious hooded woman. The archetypal Hulk is a green, monosyllabic, simple-minded monster and “the strongest one there is,” who grows stronger the angrier he gets. (Bruce Banner’s secret? He’s always angry.) Previously, Banner used a metronome and breath-control techniques to slow his heart rate in an attempt to keep the “Other Guy” at bay. But after aiming his big green alter-ego at fellow gamma-mutate Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a.k.a. the Abomination, in The Incredible Hulk, the always-angry Banner had more control over his transformations by the time Earth’s mightiest heroes assembled in 2012’s The Avengers.
Still, Banner has been known to fly into a destructive rage. After “puny god” Loki (Tom Hiddleston) tried to induce a Hulk-out aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier through the influence of one of the mind-controlling Infinity Stones housed inside his Scepter, Banner lost control when the Helicarrier came under attack, and anger and anxiety triggered a transformation in which a rampaging Hulk chased down Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) before trading blows with the mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth).
In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) messed with Hulk’s mind, resulting in the Scarlet Witch-caused showdown between an enraged, grayish-but-still-green Hulk and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) in his Hulkbuster armor. In the 11 years since Hulk’s last public crash-out (or is that smash-out?), a childlike but “astonishingly savage” Hulk was a reigning gladiator on the planet Sakaar in a cosmic Contest of Champions (in Thor: Ragnarok), then refused to show himself for a rematch with Thanos (Josh Brolin) as he hid away inside Banner (in Avengers: Infinity War). Banner brought man and monster together in the five years post-Thanos snap, integrating his split Bruce/Hulk identities into the brainy and brawny Smart Hulk (in Avengers: Endgame), achieving a harmonious merger that would last until Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Who Is the Savage Hulk in Marvel Comics?
“Is he man or monster or… is he both?” So asks the cover of 1962’s Incredible Hulk #1, in which writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby introduced scientist Bruce Banner, cursed to transform into a gray-skinned, bad-tempered behemoth after being bathed in the radiation of his own gamma bomb. Initially changing into the gray Hulk by night and back to Banner by day, the green Hulk wouldn’t emerge until issue #2, and wouldn’t be able to appear in daylight until Banner was subjected to more radiation in issue #3. As early as issue #4, Banner used a gamma ray projector to change between his human form and the Hulk at will, blending the best of both worlds: the Hulk’s strength and body with Banner’s brain and intellect.
The Hulk continued to undergo changes throughout subsequent appearances in issues of The Avengers and double feature Tales to Astonish. Able to transform without the use of a gamma-dosing machine, Banner became stuck in the Hulk’s body, only to suspect that the savage part of him was taking control when he hoped to stay the Hulk forever. The half-man, half-monster eventually reverted back to Banner, and the Marvel comics canon now had a Hulk who, more often than not, was powered by rage.
The more verbal Gray Hulk would later take the identity of Las Vegas enforcer Joe Fixit, while the Green Hulk incarnation would eventually evolve into the merged Professor Hulk (an amalgamation of the Green and Grey Hulk personas), and at times would devolve into the Mindless Hulk (a mindless monster unconstrained by Banner’s subconscious). But the best-known Hulk is the Savage Green Hulk, who speaks in the third person (“Hulk smash!” “Leave Hulk alone, puny humans!”), gets stronger the angrier he gets, and usually emerges when Banner gets angry, anxious, stressed, injured, or even killed. (Some might even say the Hulk is immortal.)
In the comics, the Savage Hulk is typically resistant to telepathic attacks and mind control, but it remains to be seen whether Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey will be able to bring out a different shade of the gamma-irradiated and always-irritated incredible Hulk. He won’t like her when she’s angry…
Spider-Man: Brand New Day tickets are on sale now. The new movie opens in theaters July 31.
- Release Date
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July 31, 2026
- Runtime
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150 Minutes
- Director
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Destin Daniel Cretton