AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR Officially Released Concept Art Shows Hulk Busting Out For A Battle With Cull Obsidian

@MalseMarcel - I don't believe he was intended to be "smart" Hulk yet. Remember, he's stil just regular old bruiser Hulk at the beginning of the movie. Banner doesn't "fix" things until that "five years later" between movies.

@MalseMarcel -
"Smart Hulk breaking out of the armor"

Not 'Smart Hulk' just unleashed Hulk, a Hulk that has the approval of Banner to go wild - Banner effectively potentially sacrificing himself in order to save the day. Remember the concern that he'd be stuck locked away inside his mind with Hulk in control? Infinity War would have ended like that. Victory over Cull Obsidian and a rematch with Thanos, but at a cost and they still lost.

Then in Endgame, to try and fix everything, Hulk would have sacrificed himself realising that they need the intellect of Banner. This would have been much better than Endgame casually mentioning that Bruce murdered the Hulk personality and stole his form with no resolution to the Hulk storyline and no chance for Hulk to return in future without retcons.

"Stark and Strange switching roles"

Would be an interesting visual switch and arguably fits with the more 'technology VS sci-fi/fantasy' route they seemed to be going with Infinity War originally. Original concept art for Endgame hinted at more tech based suits for the team and I expect Tony was going to build armours for each of them which would have had a larger role than just the time travel sequence (I expect this was how they were going to survive the destruction of the Avengers HQ originally given they would still be wearing these suits)

"Thor and co fighting the world serpent"

Fairly sure they only cut this because Ragnarok was popular enough to get a Thor 4 which Taika Waititi originally wanted to be 'Ragnarok Part 2' with the World Serpent and a trip through the more spiritual realms.

Having Asgard be fully brought back at the end of Endgame means the entire Ragnarok story has concluded. No logical reason for Thor to fight the Midgard Serpent. If the story had been told properly we would have had 'Asgards destruction' (Thor Ragnarok), Thor Vs Midgard Serpent/Thor Death? (Infinity War) and 'Asgard Rebirth' (Endgame).

Instead we skipped one of the most important aspects of Ragnarok being that Thor had to die and as such Ragnarok as a concept was trivialised and solved in a two act structure rather than a natural three act structure.

"the appearance of the Living Tribunal"

Unless they introduce a bigger threat than Thanos, e.g. Kang, it would be impossible to introduce the Living Tribunal in a future storyline without effectively retconning the idea of his existence.

The original intent was that Doctor Strange would have been the only one to meet the Living Tribunal and that the Living Tribunal would view Thanos as a natural consequence for Strange's meddling with Time in Doctor Strange. Strange reversed time to revive people who should be dead and upset the established universal balance, so the Living Tribunal would effectively tell him to 'deal with it' himself.

@MyCoolYoung -
"it was supposed to be resolved in infinity war during the fight and the merged banner/hulk bust out"

I highly doubt that was what was planned to happen.

We had the core explanation and set-up for what was going to happen in Ragnarok.

Banner was concerned that he would be stuck inside his mind if he became Hulk again. Throughout Infinity War, Hulk is afraid of coming out again and people believed this was because of the fear of facing Thanos.

In reality, the delve into Bruce's subconcious mind to meet Hulk would have revealed that Hulk was afraid of losing Bruce. That despite thinking Bruce was 'Puny' he still cared and that the next transformation would get rid of the Bruce personality forever. Hulk just wanted to be accepted.

Then Bruce would have convinced Hulk that its alright to be afraid of losing (both in regards to Thanos and himself). Thus we get this version of Hulk which is fully in control.

Then Endgame would have naturally had this version of Hulk missing Banner and eventually sacrificing himself so they could use Bruce's intellect during the final battle - creating the merging of the body and mind.

@Scarilian - I'm not sure who your sources are but

"Either way, as Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus explained to Fandango, originally the plan in Avengers: Infinity War was for Bruce Banner to fix his “communication problems” with Hulk and transform into Smart Hulk just in time for the final conflict in Wakanda. However, it was decided late in the creative process that this shift didn’t feel tonally right, so it was scrapped and saved for Avengers: Endgame."

@MyCoolYoung -
Fixing 'communication problems' with the Hulk is different to what they actually put into Endgame. Hence why I believe the version that they originally wanted to put into Infinity War would have been Hulk & Bruce's personality working together or an intelligence boost for Hulk by allowing Bruce's personality to contribute to his.

Endgame's Smart Hulk is an opposite of what they described, a complete destruction of the Hulk personality and just Bruce in a Hulk-Sized shell. It is less 'fixing communication problems' and more 'murdering the other guy so that you dont communicate at all'

@Feralwookiee - lol it really would've. We could have a movie of just those events

@MalseMarcel -
"I kinda wish we got to the Doctor Strange and Iron Man switch-up (although the artwork already is more than enough really)"

I expect it was just going to be a small alternative to this scene starting from the moment that Ebony Maw turns around.



• Ebony Maw sees Tony with the cloak
• Armour goes to Strange to protect him
• Ebony Maw turns back to Strange
• Strange is about to use his magic but fires a missile that destroys the wall shooting Ebony Maw into space
• Spider-man saves Tony
• Strange remarks for Tony to give him back the Cloak Of Levitation or some similar quip

We even have a small pause in the music when Ebony Maw see's Tony that was presumably left for the audience to laugh at seeing Tony wearing the Cloak looking smug.

@SummersEssex - They still got plenty of stories to tell. I'm certain theyll reuse some of these ideas down the line for other movies.

@MrLuciass -
We have evidence here of better concepts than what we got that actually fit in line with the previously established set-up and remarks from those involved in creating the movie.

Personally I enjoy seeing storylines resolved, rather than getting teased about a resolution that we never see.

The core one is Hulk. Everyone involved spoke about how Ragnarok, Infinity War and Endgame were going to be a Hulk trilogy. People expected a proper resolution. We had the set-up in Thor 3 that Bruce was worried about turning into Hulk and we had the set-up in Infinity War that Bruce was going to sacrifice himself to become Hulk... and it goes the opposite way with Bruce murdering the Hulk personality and stealing his body.

TLDR;
Hulk goes from a coward in Infinity War to getting murdered off-screen in the five years prior to Endgame