10 Important Milestones The Marvel Cinematic Universe Must Pass

3. Keeping The Hulk Going For More Than One Movie

As another lime-skinned fellow once sang, it's not easy being green. It's not even easy alternating between being pink and green and a slightly different height every time you show up in a movie. No, The Incredible Hulk doesn't have the best track record when it comes to follow-ups to his movies, and it's a problem Marvel really ought to solve if they want Bruce Banner to be a headlining character in films other than Avengers sequels. Much of the problem has to do with the fact that, once Banner takes on his alter ego, he's that much less interesting because all he wants to do is smash. Well, most of the time. Joss Whedon's version of the Hulk (commendably played and mo-capped by Mark Ruffalo) was injected with much more pathos than previous installments after Bruce's underplayed admission that he's "always angry", and was even shown to have a sense of humour and fun if his friendly smacking of Thor is anything to go by. So Hulk's much more viable as a character now, and with Whedon guiding the hand of Marvel for the moment there's a good chance that we'll get the right take on the Jade Giant in the next few years. Well, if Marvel can slot it in between all the other projects on their slate...