Why Hulk Will Be The Future Leader of The Avengers
The Hulk is only one left.
As of Avengers Endgame, the original six Avengers have pretty much disbanded. Black Widow and Tony Stark are dead, Steve’s an old man, Hawkeye’s retired and Thor has decided to go off world again. That leaves the Hulk as the only able-bodied Avenger left who was a part of the original team (able-bodied might be a strong term considering his arm and everything, but you get the point).
With Cap out of the game, Hulk is officially the senior most member of the Avengers team. When it comes to the ins and outs of the organization, Bruce has been through more battles than anyone else and he’s handled more bizarre situations too. In short, Bruce is just more experienced than everyone else is when it comes to Aveneging. So it would make sense that there may be a scenario where he becomes the leader of the team.
Intro interlude: Professor Hulk
It helps that Bruce has merged with the Hulk. Before, when he only had the Savage Hulk persona available to him, there would have been no chance that he ever became stable enough to lead the Avengers. Savage Hulk was just too -- well, savage. He was way too volatile and unpredictable. If Bruce couldn’t even control himself then of course he wouldn’t be able to lead the Avengers, but now that he’s Professor Hulk that’s a different story.
Normally the leader of the Avengers team (or any functional team really) isn’t decided by how powerful an individual is (although it helps). This is the reason why Steve Rogers got the job over Tony Stark and Thor, two heroes who are arguably both more powerful and knowledgeable than Steve is. If you feel the need to question that remember that Thor is over 1500 years old, he should definitely trump Steve in the knowledge department, and on top of that, Thor’s a god so his being stronger should be a no-brainer. And Tony Stark’s Iron Man suits have proven that they can adapt to any opponent. The only reason Steve defeated Tony in Civil War was because he had Bucky’s help, and do we really need to discuss the knowledge point here? Tony conjured an Infinity Gauntlet without any mystical help.
The thing that Steve did have over Thor and Tony was his temperament. Tony and Thor were prone to acting out due to their ego’s and charging into things head first without thinking. They considered themselves the stars of the show. Tony never really liked working with anybody and Thor has a history of paying no concern to the people fighting beside him. Steve, on the other hand, prefers to work with others and always looks out for his fellow “soldier” which is what made him perfect for the leader role in the first place. What does any of this have to do with the Bruce? Simple: as Professor Hulk, Bruce embodies the best of all three of these heroes, Tony, Steve, and Thor.
Professor Hulk is the Smartest
Let’s start the comparisons with Tony first.
Bruce was the only member of the Avengers who could rival Tony in intelligence. The two of them tended to solve problems that were well beyond the understanding of the other members. Hell, together they figured out what the Mind Stone was and used it create Ultron, the world’s first artificial intelligence that was indistinguishable from that of a real life creature. Ultron felt emotions and continually evolved throughout his film. Sure, he was completely insane and megomanicle but that doesn’t change the fact that he was still a technological marvel.
Bruce helped pull this off even though his genius didn’t extended to machines the same way Tony’s did. In fact, when the idea for time travel was brought up as a solution to Endgame, Bruce was the one everyone looked to when Tony was either unavailable or unwilling. And despite his mechanical knowledge not being on par with Tony’s, Bruce still managed to manipulate the time displacements of the Quantum Realm enough that he could age and de-age a person with it.
Now that Tony’s gone, Bruce is undoubtedly the smartest member running around with the Avengers. The only person who’s possibly rivaling him right now is Doctor Strange and even then that might be a stretch as well, and if not, Professor Hulk’s experience still trumps Strange’s. The man does have seven PHDs after all.
Professor Hulk is the Strongest
Next up, we’ll compare Thor.
So, okay, Professor Hulk definitely isn't the strongest. He should be, and has the potential for it, but he isn’t, not with Captain Marvel simply existing. Doctor Strange’s current versatility also puts Professor Hulk below him as well. Still, Captain Marvel’s offworld pretty much all the time, which does mean that Professor Hulk is currently amd physically the strongest hero on the planet. As for Strange, his responsibilities would probably making leading the Avengers very difficult, what with shielding all of his reality from magical monstrosities. Professor Hulk, on the other hand, doesn’t have such restrictions.
With Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel’s participation out of the way, Hulk is the strongest Avenger after Thor, and one of the few people capable of actually keeping up with him. This means that not only does Professor Hulk have Tony-level intellect. He also has Thor-level strength. As Savage Hulk Bruce managed to push Thor so far that Thor had to unconsciously call upon godlike power just stay in the fight. We imagine that as Professor Hulk where Hulk could have applied Burce’s intellect and thought to the fight, Thor may not have even gotten the chance to tap into his abilities before Professor Hulk disabled him. Bruce’s knowledge of biology combined with the Hulk’s devastating strength and agility would have been a real problem, enough to where, without his hammer, there’s no reason why Professor Hulk shouldn’t be able to put down Thor. (Of course, as Professor Hulk, Bruce wouldn’t have fought Thor to begin with).
Professor Hulk’s powers also have the potential to be driven even further. Bruce became Professor Hulk when he exposed himself to even more gamma radiation, and the Professor Hulk form is more powerful than the Savage Hulk one because it allows for Bruce to focus. Bruce can apply all of Hulk’s incredible strength to any situation he puts his mind to. He was unable to do this before since Hulk just raged out. If he just so happened to be raging at whatever the Avengers needed him to be raging at then they were more or less lucky. So, if Professor Hulk were to say, expose himself to even more radiation, then there’s a chance he would become even more powerful than he is now, right? He might even be able to restore his gimp arm in the process.
Professor Hulk is Sensible
Finally, for the most important attribute, let’s compare Professor Hulk to Steve Rodgers, because, again, power and intelligence aren’t always the deciding traits for a leader.
Like Steve, Bruce is a collected individual and unlike Tony and Thor, Bruce isn’t ever under the control of his own ego. He barely has one, if one at all. In fact, when you take away the Hulk persona, Bruce is just as mild mannered as Steve is, if not more so. There’s also never a moment where Bruce isn’t worried about the people around him. This would include his teammates as well, which was proven even back when Bruce couldn’t have at all been a good leader for the Avengers.
Bruce doesn’t have all of Steve’s military tactics, but then he doesn’t really need them. He would have Nick Fury to help him out with anything like that. Besides, he’s not supposed to be Steve Rodgers for this, the same way he’s not supposed be Tony or Thor. Bruce has his own strengths to rely on.
As Professor Hulk, Bruce may even have the potential to be a better leader than Steve was, and definitely a better leader than Tony or Thor could have ever become. He has all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses. He embodies all their talents with a healthy balance. On top of that, all of their strengths help to cover up all of Bruce’s own weaknesses.
Reasons Why Professor Hulk Probably Couldn’t Be Leader
For starters, Hulk hasn’t been the biggest priority for Marvel. Lately he’s been more or less shunned to the side to grant time for other characters. For instance, we mentioned that Bruce figured out a way to fuse the best parts of himself with the best parts of the Hulk. Well, this was actually a pretty big deal. The whole concept behind Hulk and Bruce is that they’re always in a struggle for control. They’re Jeckle and Hyde. So of course you would expect that whatever happens to join these two together and help them to get along would be shown on screen.
It wasn’t.
Instead, Marvel just had Bruce summarized the series of events as a joke, then they never spoke of it again and just moved on. The solution wasn’t even an agreement between Hulk and Bruce, it was just Bruce exposing himself to more gamma radiation, relying on the same method that put him in the situation with the Hulk in the first place. There was absolutely no importance given to what should have been the single most significant moment of Bruce and Hulk’s lives. If Marvel is unwilling to put time into something like that, then they're probably not going to be inclined to put in the work it would take to bring Professor Hulk up as the leader of the Avengers.
We also don’t know where exactly Professor Hulk is mentally. He was one of the people Endgame took the most from. Both his best friend, Tony, and his love interest, Natasha, died ensuring that the world would be safe from Thanos, and one of them seemingly has no hope of ever walking the face of the world again. Banner may not be ready to lead anybody yet. If not for Tony, he may be slaving away trying to figure out a way to bring Black Widow back from the grave.
Wrap Up
Professor Hulk is a formidable, potential leader. He has all of the right attributes for it, more than anyone currently in the Avengers today. He has the experience. He has the intelligence. He has the temperament. He has the strength. And he has every right as a founding Avengers member. It’s not like the remaining members would object. Steve is savvy enough to know that if Bruce wants to lead the team, he’s the best guy for it. Thor would more than likely encourage the decision and advocate for it and Hawkeye wouldn’t really care: he has his family back.
Making Hulk the leader would also be a sensible and interesting plot thread to give to the character, and an interesting and sensible plot is something that Marvel definitely owes the Hulk with the way his first storyline concluded. Making Professor Hulk the leader of the Avengers would give Marvel the ability to continue the Hulk’s storyline while still not having to rely on giving him solo movies. The position of leader would grant Bruce a spotlight no matter what happens.
Making Professor Hulk the leader would also be a great way to show how the character has evolved over the years. The Hulk has always been regarded as either a secret weapon or as a nuisance. He’s never just solidly been a member (at least in his own mind). To make him leader of the Avengers now would be a good way to physically show how Bruce and the Hulk have overcome that stigma. And if the Hulk is in a bad mental state at the moment that may not be a problem. Marvel could just use that as something Professor Hulk has to overcome in order to take up the responsibility as leader of the Avengers team.
