It didn’t take long for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law to mention the Edward Norton-shaped elephant in the room, with the show getting it out of the way early that Mark Ruffalo and Tim Roth had never actually come face-to-face in the same Marvel Cinematic Universe project before.
With that done and dusted, the series was free to carve its own path through canon by referencing the events of The Incredible Hulk, which had spent the better part of a decade being overlooked and unloved before gradually being folded back into continuity
However, the finale could have ended up with the most self-aware cameo yet in a episodic adventure that was hardly shy of breaking the fourth wall, with director Kat Coiro admitting to The Direct that one of the many ideas being bandied around was for Norton to show up in Ruffalo’s place when their superpowered alter-egos renewed their old hostilities.
“There was a lot of talk about the fact that the last time they were together a different actor was playing the Hulk. And Mark made quite a few jokes about that. And we did entertain the idea of swapping Mark out for Edward Norton. But that did not come to pass.”
Even though Jennifer Walters literally clambered out of her own project to call out the Marvel Studios method of bringing its content to a conclusion, it would have easily been the funniest moment of the entirety of She-Hulk were Norton to show up for a brief minute to start brawling with Roth’s Emil Blonsky, only to disappear and never be mentioned again.
Sadly, it never got to happen, and as polarizing as the finale has proven to be among the fandom – nobody would be able to contain themselves were the MCU’s original Banner to swing by unannounced before Ruffalo stepped back in as if nothing had even happened.
