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Harrison Ford's Red Hulk was in many ways the key figure in Marvel Studios' recent film Captain America: Brave New World. The idea of turning the iconic green Hulk to red might seem revolutionary, but its something that people have been pushing Marvel for for years - even before the Red Hulk debuted in comics back in 2008. In fact, an attempt to make the Hulk red was made way back in 1977.

Kenneth Johnson was the showrunner of CBS's The Incredible Hulk - first as two movies, and then into the TV series many fans fondly remember. He worked with actors Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno to create a live-action version of the Hulk, and as the show was being dreamt up, one of the big ideas was to change the Hulk's color from green to red.

"I called Stan Lee and I said, 'Man, what's the logic of green? Is he the envious Hulk? Is he green with envy or jealousy?,'" The Incredible Hulk showrunner Kenneth Johnson told IGN in 2006, referring to Hulk co-creator and then Marvel publisher Stan Lee. "The color of rage is red, which I was also pushing for because it's a real human color - you know, when people get flushed with anger. That makes sense, but the Hulk turns green."

According to Johnson, Lee explained how green wasn't the originally intended skin color for the Hulk at all - and was a printing error they ended up going with - something Johnson in another interview has described as "total nonsense."

"And Stan told me, 'well, actually he started out grey, and then our printer came to us' - not the publisher, but the printer - 'and said we can do a pretty consistent green, so we decided to go with green.'"

Johnson says he debated with Lee over the possibility of changing the Hulk's skin color to red for the '70s Incredible Hulk show, but he ultimately lost out.

"I said, Stan, that's not really very organic!," said Johnson. "But that was a battle I could not win; at least I got to change Bruce Banner's name to David, but I couldn't make the Hulk red because he was just too iconic already in the comic books."

30 years later, writer Jeph Loeb and artist Ed McGuinness created the first red Hulk - not a version of our own Bruce Banner, but as the alter-ego of 'Thunderbolt' Ross. And 17 years after that, he finally made his live-action debut in Captain America: Brave New World. It took 47 years, but we got a live-action Red Hulk.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters