10 Biggest Controversies In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Since we're currently sat in the middle of 2017, it's quite hard to remember a time when everybody loved Edward Norton as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, and everyone was deeply saddened when it was revealed he would not be returning to reprise his role in The Avengers.

Mark Ruffalo's portrayal of the character is pitch-perfect, but jump back six years or so and fans were less-than enthusiastic at the prospect of losing a talent as strong as Norton, especially when we were never given a solid reason as to why this occurred.

And that hurt most of all. It made Marvel look bad, unfriendly and uncooperative. By not fully explaining the situation to people, the media was forced to jump to conclusions. Was the studio being intentionally awkward?

Conjecture aside, we'll never truly know what caused the split - Norton has since stated that it was because he wanted "more diversity" in his career - and it was a difficult time for fans to endure. The MCU was just kicking off, and behind-the-scenes trouble this early made its future look a lot less bright.

In the end, no amount of petitions, Reddit threads or angry comments were able to keep Norton in the role, and this huge change was the first major dent in Marvel's seemingly-impenetrable armour.