It’s funny how Iron Man started things with a kind of Real World approach but things kept on getting too comic-booky. But the time the films reached Avengers: Endgame, we had all sorts of fiction concepts involved in the MCU – Time Travel, Infinity Gauntlets, the Quantum Realm and what not. Endgame introduced us to Marvel’s own version of time travel. The Avengers now have access to a Time Machine. How crazy is that. But, what’s crazy is that Hulk may have unknowingly invented the immortality machine.
Whilst trying to figure out Time Travel, we saw Hulk test it out on Scott Lang. Tony Stark explained later on that instead of pushing Scott through time, they ended up pushing time through Scott. Tony Stark described it as quite dangerous, but we saw Scott turn into an Oldman, a baby, and a teenager while having his current consciousness. So, this concept could be used for anything in the MCU. Reddit user u/ak2sup suggests that Hulk could actually heal his arm with this. Hishe also used this concept to make Captain America young again.
Just imagine the insane possibilities of using this so-called “immortality machine.” The brightest minds of the MCU could be turned young. Hank Pym could get younger and Janet Van Dyne could get younger. People in the MCU may never get old at all. The moment that anyone gets older, they could just use this machine to go back to their prime!
Smart Hulk did this by accident. But if this technology could be perfected by him, then he may deserve to be crowned as the biggest and the smartest brain in the MCU. When asked from the directors about the smartest Avenger, Joe Russo replied –
“Now Banner tried to solve time travel, but he didn’t. Who solved time travel?”
Now to be fair, Smart Hulk didn’t get a long enough shot at solving Time Travel. The concept was already out of his league and he still did manage to do a good job. Tony Stark didn’t solve Time Travel in just one night. Robert Downey Jr. revealed that his suit was made solely for one purpose, i.e. to harness the power of the Infinity Stones and get the job done. It was not meant for Tony to survive. Since Tony already had the suit ready, it means that he was working on Time Travel for a long time and Scott’s emergence helped him solve the one piece of the puzzle he wasn’t able to earlier.
While Hulk may not have perfected time travel, but he did accidentally push Scott through time. That way, what he did was invent the immortality machine. Baron Mordo confirmed that there are consequences to tampering with Time. Traveling through different eras creates an alternate reality, thus consequences. But what could be the consequence of getting younger using this “Immortality Machine.” We actually see it as an absolute win!
But you’ve gotta argue, that Shuri could have helped the team quite a lot in the last 5 years if she wasn’t snapped out of existence. When people at Comic-Con applauded for Iron Man being the one to solve time travel, Anthony Russo nominated Wakandan princess and inventor Shuri. Even Joe Russo then went on to claim that “Shuri’s the smartest avenger.”
Back in 2017, Black Panther producer Nate Moore told ComicBook.com that Shuri’s smartness was even beyond Stark. He said:
“As far as the technologically advanced side, in our mind and in our incarnation, Shuri is the head of the Wakandan design group. So she is, in our mind, the smartest person in the world. Smarter than Tony Stark, but she is a 16 year old girl, which we thought was really interesting. Again, black faces in positions of power, or positions of technological know how, that’s a rarity. So it’s something that a big part of the film.”
Now to keep things fair, let’s just crown all three of these individuals as the smartest members of the team, and give Rocket a consolation prize in the same category.
