6. Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk is one of the most famous superheroes of all time, and that goes way beyond his popularity in the MCU. He was one of the few superheroes to become a household name at a time when comic book fare wasn’t all that common, with the classic Incredible Hulk TV series turning the green one into a pop-culture phenomenon.
Unfortunately, his MCU portrayal only occasionally lives up to that potential. Mark Ruffalo’s performance is amazing – so amazing, in fact that it’s easy to forget that Edward Norton initially played the role in the 2008 MCU film – but the further we move away from his Avengers era, the less Hulk-like Bruce Banner gets.
The work that Ruffalo did in The Avengers was sensational, and it went a long way in highlighting how unpredictable and dangerous the beast within truly was. But between his time off-screen ahead of his return in Thor: Ragnarok to the fact that the character is often played for laughs, it feels like the days of the real Incredible Hulk are long gone and we barely even got the chance to experience them when they were here.
There is still so much potential in the Hulk character, and he needs a solo movie to highlight that. If Marvel are finally able to make that happen in the future, then he will almost certainly make his way further on up this list.