An Original Avenger Is In Marvel’s Moon Knight Series?
Who could it be?
This article is more than 2 years old
A rumor is making its rounds across the web that one of the original Marvel Cinematic Universe Avengers will be showing up in Disney+’s upcoming mini-series Moon Knight. Who could it be? Well, Iron Man is dead. Black Widow is dead. Captain America is… gone? Thor is in space. So it could be Hawkeye but, no, that’s not the rumor. The reports say that Mark Ruffalo will reprise the role of Bruce Banner aka the Hulk in Moon Knight.
The new report comes from The DisInsider Show podcast (via CBR), where hosts Skyler Shuler and Derek Cornell claim to have received inside info that Ruffalo will be appearing in Moon Knight. There’s no word on the nature of his appearance — whether it will be a cameo or if he will have a full-fledged recurring role in the mini-series — though they joked about the notion of Bruce Banner becoming for the new era of the MCU what Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury was for Phase 1.
So could there be any possible reason for Bruce Banner or his “other guy” to show up in Moon Knight? So far, the MCU Hulk hasn’t been real strong on the mystical side of things like Moon Knight. Nor is he considered a so-called “street-level” hero like Marvel pugilists along the lines of Moon Knight and Daredevil. Sure, like the guys from The DisInsider Show joke, he could simply act as something of a contact for a new line-up of Avengers to link up. However, there is a potentially much more intriguing connection between the Hulk and the Fist of Khonshu.
As has been widely reported, Moon Knight will delve deeply into the titular hero’s Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), once known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Oscar Isaac’s character displays at least five distinct personalities — Marc Spector, Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, Moon Knight, and Mr. Knight. Know what other Marvel character, in the source material, suffers from DID? That’s right — Bruce Banner.
In 1990’s Incredible Hulk #373 it was established that Bruce Banner’s different personalities — e.g. Banner, the classic savage Hulk, the gray “Joe Fixit” Hulk — could all co-exist. Soon the character Leonard Samson — a gamma-irradiated psychiatrist — helped merge those personalities, or so he thought. It would later be revealed that rather than merging the three versions of Banner into one unified personality, he had merely created a brand new splintered personality — the so-called “Professor” Hulk.
To date, the MCU portrayals of Bruce Banner have not addressed him suffering from DID, nor have they even brought up the childhood trauma that caused his personality — like those Oscar Isaac plays in Moon Knight — to splinter. It could be that, assuming the rumors of Ruffalo’s involvement in the series is true, it will be this aspect of the character that connects him to the hero of Moon Knight.
Even if we don’t hear of a diagnosis of DID for Bruce Banner in Moon Knight, it could be that the subject will at least be broached for further exploration in She-Hulk. Mark Ruffalo is confirmed for that series, and while it mainly serves to introduce his cousin’s character, it could represent the perfect opportunity to finally delve into his past.
