10 MCU Plot Points Marvel Has Completely Abandoned

8. Betty Ross/Bruce Banner's Romance

Captain America: The First Avenger Red Skull Tesseract
Universal Pictures

The Incredible Hulk is the black sheep of the MCU family, the one movie that is rarely factored into the equation by both fans, and Marvel themselves - but it's still very much canon.

The emotional backbone of this solo Hulk story was Banner's relationship with Betty Ross, as they strived for normality in a world where having sex together would literally prove fatal for the female.

The two were infatuated with each other, but as the film ends they're forced to part ways, with Bruce's unusual powerset coming between them and a normal life.

That being said, the implication was that they'd bump into each other again at some point - you don't just forget about the love of your life. So what happened to Betty, and why doesn't Bruce seem bothered that the two haven't had any contact for years?

Banner's forced romance with Natasha Romanoff in Avengers: Age Of Ultron felt like a cheap way to cover up this prior relationship and separate Mark Ruffalo's Hulk from Ed Norton's. In reality, Banner would not just stop caring about Betty.

It's not even that he's incapable of loving another, or doesn't desire a normal life - he seems to care for Natasha very much - and the fact that his former lover hasn't been given so much as a passing mention is equal parts bewildering and out of character.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.