Why Bruce Banner Is Still Smart Hulk in She-Hulk After Shang-Chi's Retcon

Disney shared the first look at the TV series Marvel Cinematic Universe continues its expansion now that the Infinity Saga is over, and it’s now branching out to streaming with a long list of TV shows to stream exclusively on Disney+ and which will be directly connected to the movies. Among those Marvel TV series is She-Hulk, which in addition to introducing the title character, will bring Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk back.

She-Hulk is being marketed as a legal drama superhero TV series and will count on Tatiana Maslany to play Jennifer Walters, Bruce’s cousin. Jennifer is a lawyer specialized in cases involving superpowered people, but at some point in her life, she gained the same powers and abilities as her famous cousin – including transforming into a larger, more powerful, green-hued version of herself. Of course, the exact context behind her transformation is to be seen, but in order to properly explain her origins, She-Hulk will bring back Bruce Banner, who was last seen in the mid-credits scene of Shang-Chi when Wong (Benedict Wong) asked him and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) for help – and which retconned his “Smart Hulk” transformation.

During the five-year gap in Avengers: Endgame, Bruce Banner decided not to fight “the other guy” anymore and instead bring together the best of both sides: the Hulk’s strength, and Bruce’s intellect, making way for the first look at She-Hulk briefly showed Bruce as Smart Hulk helping Jennifer deal with her transformation, though this can be justified by when exactly the series is taking place in the MCU timeline.

Although some movies and TV shows are set one after the other in why he appeared as Bruce in Shang-Chi. From that brief She-Hulk teaser, it’s seen that Smart Hulk is experimenting on Jennifer, which could help him in his process to go back to being just Bruce Banner.

She-Hulk still doesn’t have a release date, and plot details are still unknown, so there’s going to be a lot of speculation around the story and Smart Hulk’s involvement in it, as well as how it will explain Bruce’s change back to his full human form. For now, the safest bet is that parts She-Hulk will be set before the events of Shang-Chi, though again, exactly when it’s set is a mystery.

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