And just like that, Hulk is off-planet again. Midway through the second episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Jen phones her cousin Bruce to get his blessing on taking a new job, which would require her to defend Bruce’s old nemesis from The Incredible Hulk, Emil Blonsky aka Abomination. Bruce of course agrees but then reveals that he can’t do more because he’s on a spaceship headed for Sakaar, the same ship whose sudden appearance in episode one caused the accident that led to Jen getting Bruce’s gamma-irradiated blood in her system. While it makes sense to have Bruce featured heavily in the first episode and then go away, to bring in viewers but not overshadow the main character, this plot beat may be more than a narrative convention. Speaking to The Direct, She-Hulk showrunner Jessica Gao confirmed that the spaceship opens the door for another Hulk story. In the series premiere, Bruce identified the spacecraft as a “Class A Sakaaran Courier Craft.” MCU fans will recall that Sakaar is the planet Bruce lived on the last time he went suddenly off-planet, stuck in Hulk form in Thor: Ragnarok. While that film gave us a glimpse of Hulk’s life as a gladiator for the entertainment of the Grandmaster, it largely focused on his escape with Thor. But Gao says that story left open far more possibilities. “Well, all I’ll say is, you know, he spent a lot of time off-planet as we saw in Thor: Ragnarok,” teased Gao. “And, we only got to see a little tiny bit of what his life was like when he was on that planet.” But even with such a marked tone, Thor: Ragnarok could not cover everything that occurred during Hulk’s time on Sakaar. For Gao, this is an interesting possibility. “I mean, God knows what Hulk got up to in the years he was there, so he’s gotta go back and handle some off-world things that happened during that time,” she said. That phrase “what Hulk got up to” may be the most compelling. As comic readers know, one of the things Hulk did on Sakaar was partner with a Sakaaran Caiera and sire a son, Skaar. His return to Sakaar may be a chance to meet this child, which would bring another Hulk into the MCU — always useful if Mark Ruffalo decides to follow the leads of Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and Robert Downey Jr. and retire.
