The Incredible Hulk

Concurrent with Iron Man. Bruce Banner has been on the run for five years since a gamma experiment — commissioned by General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, ostensibly a radiation-resistance study, actually a super-soldier programme — turned him into the Hulk.

Ross hunts him relentlessly, partly because Banner is dating his daughter Betty. Ross's chosen operative, Emil Blonsky, receives a serum derivative and demands more, eventually becoming the Abomination. Banner contacts a scientist he knows only as "Mr Blue" — Samuel Sterns — for a cure; Sterns is instead fascinated, and gets Banner's blood in an open head wound during the finale, causing his skull to deform.

This film sat ignored for seventeen years. Then Captain America: Brave New World picked up every single thread: Ross, Sterns, Betty, and Blonsky.

Who is Thaddeus Ross, and where does he keep turning up? Career military, obsessed with recreating the super-soldier programme. His full appearance list:

• The Incredible Hulk (film, 2008) — commissions the experiment that creates the Hulk, hunts Banner, creates the Abomination via Blonsky
• Captain America: Civil War (film, 2016) — now Secretary of State; the man who presents the Sokovia Accords
• Avengers: Infinity War (film) — brief video appearance
• Avengers: Endgame (film) — attends Tony Stark's funeral
• Black Widow (film) — brief
• Captain America: Brave New World (film, 2025) — President of the United States, recast from William Hurt (who died in 2022) to Harrison Ford, and this is the only film where he becomes Red Hulk

Is he still the villain of The Incredible Hulk? No — the 2025 arc is redemption, and he ends it imprisoned by choice and reconciled with his daughter. More on that in Part Nine.