Original Review: The Hammer of the Gods (four stars)
I’ve got a bone to pick with this movie, so let’s figure this out together. Here are the facts: Hulk took off in a Quinjet after helping defeat Ultron. Fury thinks that Quinjet crashed in the Banda Sea, but can’t be sure. Regardless, Hulk’s not around for Civil War. The next time the mean, green killing machine shows up, it’s in Thor: Ragnarok, where he says (yeah, he talks now) that he crashed his Quinjet on the alien world of Sakaar. So that’s weird, how did a thoughtless brute take a terrestrial aircraft across the universe?
Captain Marvel shows that Fury’s Quinjet was upgraded in the Nineties with Skrull technology which allows them to easily fly into orbit. It’s reasonable to assume that later Quinjets copied those changes, so that explains why Hulk was able to fly into space. But Captain Marvel also established that FTL travel isn’t really a thing in the universe, except for the Bifrost. So we know how the Hulk could have gotten into space, but we still need an explanation for how he could have gotten to Sakaar.
In the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, spaceships are shown to travel over great distances using “jump points.” Most memorably, in Guardians 2, Rocket and Yondu make like 700 consecutive jumps – it’s the part when they have their faces all distorted. Sakaar seems to be the destination at which many jump points end, which is why there are so many portals around the planet. Plus, we can reasonably assume Bifrost destinations also use jump points, since the Devil’s Anus puts Thor and the others out right in front of Asgard.
Given what we’ve learned, I assume Hulk flew into orbit and quickly got sucked into a jump point. He then crashed on Sakaar, and began his life as a gladiator on the war world. I actually think that makes sense, even though for years I’ve held a grudge against this movie for handwaving this crazy coincidence. Hey, Thor: Ragnarok is super good, who knew? It was the first time Marvel released three movies in one year, that’s a bit much. I feel like I just reviewed this, so I don’t have anything new to add. I really like it!
MCU Power Rankings: You know, it’s up there.