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‘Avengers: Endgame’ deleted scene of Smart Hulk to the rescue shown in concept art

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‘Avengers: Endgame’ deleted scene of Smart Hulk to the rescue shown in concept art

Official concept art is our window into the Marvel multiverse.

Marvel’s visual development team of artists design countless variations of characters, costumes, creatures, settings, and the like, brainstorming what everyone and everything in the MCU will look like on screen. Not all of it makes it to the final cut. Some, like these alternate costume options for Paul Rudd‘s Ant-Man, end up on the cutting room floor. But together they are a living archive of what could’ve been.

A new book highlighting the work of Ryan Meinerding, the head of visual development at Marvel, reveals more of those what ifs.

According to EW’s exclusive excerpts from Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding, written by Tara Bennett and Paul Terry, an entire sequence was cut from the beginning of Avengers: Endgame (2019) involving Mark Ruffalo‘s Smart Hulk. “As all the Avengers were gone, he was going to be the only one left, and you got to see him do some amazing things,” Meinerding says in the book. “Hulk jumping off the building to save people inside a satellite dish was one of the things that he was gonna do. I worked with Ian Joyner on Smark Hulk’s face.”

Ryan Meinderding’s concept art for a now-deleted ‘Avengers: Endgame’ scene with Smart Hulk, excerpted from ‘Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinderding’.

(C) 2024 Marvel Studios


This particular deleted scene was first revealed among several minutes of bonus content that accompanied the re-release of Endgame in theaters in 2019, but fans can get a closer look at what that scene might’ve looked like completed via concept art featured in the book.

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In another excerpt, Meinerding’s art reveals his design for Throg, the frog variant of Thor, who was cut from Disney+ series Loki. We also see early designs for white Vision, played by Paul Bettany in WandaVision. Meinerding originally designed the look for Avengers: Infinity War in the event the filmmakers wanted to include the character in their story. When this white Vision was repurposed for WandaVision, the older design didn’t quite fit.

Designs for Throg in ‘Loki’ and Steve Rogers in ‘What If…?,’ excerpted from ‘Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding’.

(C) 2024 Marvel Studios


Designs for white Vision and ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ from ‘Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding’.

(C) 2024 Marvel Studios


“He doesn’t look villainous enough,” Meinerding says in the book of that early design. “He needed to have been affected by more human technology via S.W.O.R.D., too. Phil Saunders did a wonderful job landing the right kind of white Vision for WandaVision.”

EW can also reveal excerpts showing designs for Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan‘s Bucky Barnes for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as well as the Steve Rogers of the Captain Carter universe on animated series What If…?

Cover art for ‘Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding’.

(C) 2024 Marvel Studios


Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding is available for $65 through publisher Abrams and features art from Meinerding’s career that dates all the way back to the first Iron Man movie (2008). A deluxe edition — limited to only 500 copies — retails for $175 and features a foil-stamped cloth case, a slipcase with tipped-on art, and an archival quality matte print hand-signed by Meinerding and sealed in a numbered envelope.

Meinerding will also sit with authors Bennett and Terry for a New York Comic Con panel this Sunday, Oct. 20.

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