Avengers: Endgame - 13 Things It Actually Took From The Comics
6. Hulk Holds Up... Everything
Marvel Comics
Ask any Hulk fan what one of the character's most iconic visuals is, and they're likely to mention the cover to Secret Wars #4. It sees Bruce Banner's alter-ego holding up the weight of an entire mountain to shield his fellow heroes, and while the character doesn't accomplish the exact same feat in Avengers: Endgame, he does accomplish one similar in scale.
With Thanos and his forces having travelled through to the present, his ship - the Sanctuary II - unleashes an all-out assault on the Avengers' compound. If not for Hulk, all of Earth's Mightiest Heroes would've been killed in the wreckage, with the good doctor managing to keep the entire building from collapsing on his allies by mustering all of his strength.
"Hulk lifts some stuff" isn't exactly breaking news, but the way the shot is framed and the scale of his task draw comparisons with the same sequence featured in Secret Wars.
It's similar to how Spider-Man: Homecoming replicated the iconic moment from If this be my Destiny, and it works just as well, even if the film doesn't pause to dwell on its significance.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
