Although his name may be unfamiliar to many, D'Esposito has been "President of Physical Production" for Marvel Studios since the beginning, overseeing the budget and timeline of Iron Man, Incredible Hulk and the upcoming Thor, Captain America and Avengers movies (Feige has called D'Esposito an "incredible friend and collaborator" in the past; we hope he still feels that way now that the two share job titles and responsibilities).

The most interesting part of this story is probably the questions it raises: Why does Marvel need a second Studio President now? Is Feige looking to take on more responsibilities elsewhere, or are we about to hear of an increased slate of post-Avengers plans already?

Marvel Studios appoints new co-president [Hollywood Reporter]

Announced at this weekend's Fan Expo Canada convention, World War Hulks: Alpha will introduce the Intelligensia, the evil equivalent of the company's "Illuminati" grouping of Iron Man, Professor Xavier, Mr. Fantastic, Black Bolt, the Sub-Mariner and Doctor Strange that's been active in the run-up to their Civil War, World War Hulk and Secret Invasion events. Writer Jeff Parker explains:

The collective are: The Leader. Dr. Doom. Modok. Red Ghost. Egghead. Wizard, and Mad Thinker... What they have in common is their super minds. Each are so smart that they tend to feel like a different thing altogether than the rest of humanity. Like the laws of man shouldn't apply to them.

And what brings them together? Well, that'd be what's happened to the Hulk recently... which, by the time Alpha is released, will include Bruce Banner's alter-ego's son and daughter living on Earth (One of them's more of a clone-thing than a sex thing, mind you), the continued existence of the still-mysterious Red Hulk and new and equally-mysterious Red She-Hulk, plus some suspicious goings-on surrounding old-school characters Doc Samson (gamma-powered shrink) and She-Hulk (gamma-powered lawyer). As Alpha leads into a story that'll run in both The Incredible Hulk and Hulk, it'll become, according to The Incredible Hulk writer Greg Pak,

the kind of insanely huge, no-holds-barred smashfest that could only be done in comics. For sheer, visceral, fun action, it's gonna be tough to top... All mysteries and character development of our biggest characters pay off in the hugest ways imaginable during this story. It's absolutely critical for Bruce Banner, the Hulk, and every member of the Hulk Family — and it'll set up an incredibly rich dramatic arc for future stories.

World War Hulks: Alpha is released in December.

Wolverine and The X-Men, the cartoon about Logan getting the team back together in the wake of a disaster, is finally coming to DVD July 21. And there's a previously unaired episode featuring a smackdown between Logan and the Hulk. Here are some exclusive pics:

And here's an exclusive clip from one of the previous episodes. The clip is entitled, "Wolverine Lugs Nitro," which sort of speaks for itself:

Here's more info about those DVDs:

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

This July, Marvel Animation and Lionsgate bring Wolverine fans an exciting new DVD from Nicktoons Network's hit animated series Wolverine And The X-Men. The new DVD arrives just after this summer's blockbuster live-action film X-Men Origins: Wolverine and just before the live-action DVD release this fall. In Wolverine And The X-Men: Deadly Enemies, the battles against formidable opponents have begun for Wolverine and the X-Men as they continue their fight to prevent an unspeakable future. Enter the fray with Wolverine and the X-Men in five all-new action-packed adventures including a heart-pounding showdown that pits Wolverine against fan-favorite The Incredible Hulk! The DVD will include an audio commentary from the show creators and will be encased in an embossed O-Card. Wolverine And The X-Men: Deadly Enemies will appeal to fans of all ages when it becomes available on DVD on July 21, 2009 for the suggested retail price of $14.98.

With 45 years of best selling comic books, a massive fan base spanning all ages and three feature films grossing over one billion dollars at the box office, the franchise is a proven phenomenon. The hit series debut of Wolverine And The X-Men was Nicktoons Network's highest rated original series premiere ever with kids and boys. Though the animated series is targeted to Boys 6-11, it also appeals to comic book fans of all ages! The DVD will receive heavy promotion on Marvel.com and Marvelkids.com while the 26 episode series will be supported by a $5 million broadcast promotional plan delivering over 350 million impressions. The DVD release is timed to Hasbro's Wolverine And The X-Men series toy line releasing in August.

SYNOPSIS

Wolverine and the X-Men continue their fight to prevent an unspeakable future as menacing opponents await in Wolverine and the X-Men: Deadly Enemies. The X-Men fight to save Storm's life after the parasitic Shadow King infiltrates her mind. And Wolverine teams up with Gambit to ‘steal back' a technological collar that inhibits mutant powers, before Senator Kelly can use it against them. On the high seas, Nightcrawler battles devious pirates, in the business of kidnapping mutant refugees for their mysterious master, Mojo. In order to protect his friends, Wolverine must face-off against the Incredible Hulk, but he soon discovers there is a new enemy lurking in the darkness. And in a shocking request from Professor Xavier in the future, Wolverine and the X-Men must return a young mutant to the custody of their most relentless adversary, the MRD.

Episodes include:

* Overflow
* Thieves Gambit
* X-Calibre
* Wolverine vs. The Hulk
* Time Bomb

DVD SPECIAL FEATURES

o Audio commentary with Supervising Producer Craig Kyle, Head Writer Greg Johnson and Writer Chris Yost

Why do the studios decide that scenes are strong enough to make it into movie trailers, but not strong enough to show up in the finished product? It's a mystery, but it shows how much last-minute editing and tweaking goes into movies nowadays. We're not the only ones to notice this — when I was almost done writing this post, I came across this discussion over at Cinematical.

Here are some examples from giant films of the past decade or so:

Incredible Hulk:

Star and co-writer Edward Norton famously clashed with Marvel over how long this movie should be, and a couple of scenes were featured prominently in the trailers but didn't make it into the theatrical release. There's this fireside chat between Bruce Banner and "Doc" Samson:

And then there's the whole opening sequence where Banner goes to Antarctica to try and kill himself, which supposedly includes a glimpse of Captain America's frozen body:

And also, the same trailer includes a bit where Bruce Banner argues with General Ross, saying there's only one thing that can fight the Abomination and "it's in me."

Terminator Salvation:

There seems to be a lot of stuff that was cut from the final print of the movie, where John Connor obsesses about how the future has been altered by all the time traveling in previous installments. "This is not the future my other warned me about," he says in one trailer.

In another trailer, his wife Kate says, "If you saved us in another future, you can save us in this one," or words to that effect. I get the impression all of Kate's stuff got cut out of the final print of the movie. That scene is included in this four-minute trailer:

Also, I can't remember Connor actually saying, "Win or lose, this war ends tonight" in the actual movie. Did he say that, and I just missed it?

We're also pretty sure that Connor putting his hand on his wife's pregnant stomach wasn't in the movie. (In fact her pregnancy hardly comes up at all.)

And there's a glimpse of a naked figure (or at least barelegged) reaching down and grabbing a Terminator's arm gun to blast the hell out of someone or something. Could that have been a rejected sequence featuring Arnie's T-800? I bet they shot a lot of stuff with Roland Kickinger, the bodybuilder whose naked body stood in for Arnie's:

Star Trek:

We know they filmed a decent amount of stuff for this movie, including some more of Kirk's childhood and the reasons he decided to trash that Corvette. But the main thing that shows up in the trailers is the birth of baby Spock:

There's also a sequence where Nero says "The wait is over," which is in a bunch of the trailers but not in the movie. I think this is right after he busts out of the Klingon prison.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine:

Actually, this doesn't seem like it would have been such a great scene, but one trailer includes a sequence where we meet Storm as a kid:

Wanted:

A poster at Cinematical says the whole great scene where James McAvoy asks Angelina Jolie "Are we gonna bond now?" and she says, "Would you like to?" isn't in the movie. I don't have the movie on DVD, and can't remember off-hand if they're right:

Armageddon:

As a commenter at Cinematical pointed out, the trailer for this film includes a whole inspirational speech from Bruce Willis, which never turns up in the movie:

I Am Legend:

This IMAX trailer (and some of the other trailers, I think) include some snippets of the film's original ending, which was replaced at the last minute. It's the bit where the plague mutant hisses right next to Will Smith's face, at around 2:20 in this video:

2046:

Another one the Cinematical commenters noticed. Apparently this film's trailers include a ton of futuristic scenes that aren't in the movie, including Maggie Cheung as a robot:

Reign Of Fire:

Annalee has been annoyed for years that this movie's trailer featured dragons fighting helicopters, but it didn't really happen in the movie:

True Lies:

And finally, reaching back quite a bit further, here's a trailer for True Lies that includes a number of scenes that aren't in the movie, or even in the DVD:

Indeed, Wolverine is in some ways a version of Rambo, with its ripped hero who has been abandoned by his government and forced to go mercenary for justice. And who would deny seeing glints of Apocalypse Now in Watchmen's war scenes with the Comedian? The two movies even use the same music in their soundtracks, to much the same effect: Brooding 60s protest music hovers over scenes of state-sanctioned violence, reminding us that all oppression spawns a counterculture.

Though the last few years have seen the release of a few stately war movies like Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, as well as some serious gut-punchers like Black Hawk Down and Jarhead. But these films treat war as historical drama, or as pure clusterfuck. There is little of the classic war film here, where the horror and madness of combat (or imprisonment) become an occasion to tell stories of loyalty and tragic sacrifice.

But if you want those themes, you can find them in Wolverine, which despite its cheesiness does make an effort to give us the soldier's eye view. And although he skirts madness, Logan is clearly focused on finding justice. Likewise, Watchmen shows us the way soldiers (in this case, the superheroes who work for the US government) transcend the horror of their circumstances through loyalty. Like many war movies made after the 1970s, however, Watchmen takes a jaundiced view of the soldiering life. Just as we do in Apocalypse Now, we see how a hypocritical government drives its troops mad and turns loyalty into a joke.

And if you want a truly brilliant war movie, check out Iron Man. Its ironic triumphalism reminded me of the underrated movie Lord of War, about the rise and fall of a big time weapons smuggler. Iron Man takes us back to classic war films of the John Wayne variety, but with a 21st Century liberal twist. Iron Man revels in weapons technology, and at many points suggests that the US needs to get more involved in Middle East conflicts. But it also delivers a requisite "war is hell" message, giving its defense industry magnate a change of heart when he realizes that his mega-weapons are falling into the wrong hands. (There's actually a similar set of scenes in Lord of War, which are truly intense.)

While the most recent Hulk film was uneven and ultimately unsuccessful, I'd still claim it as another war film - similar in tone to Full Metal Jacket (though nowhere near as good). Unabashedly liberal, its the tale of a man swept up by a war machine that uses him and finally drives him completely insane.

Later this summer, expect more another superhero war movie: G.I. Joe is coming in August.

Why has the superhero movie come to be one of the only places we can find intriguing stories about war? Possibly it's just coincidence: the US is at war, and we're also in a phase where comic book movies are incredibly popular at the box office. So naturally we tell comic book war stories. Moreover, it's a lot safer to tell war stories when they're safely cloaked in a fantasy: Often, we can convey emotional truths more clearly when they're hidden behind a mask (perhaps a superhero mask).

I also think there's something to be said for the idea that war itself - filled with robots, autonomous vehicles, smart armor, and high tech surveillance devices - has become more like comic books. This comes from an idea that Peter Singer suggested in his new book Wired for War, which is about cutting-edge weapons tech. Singer writes that new weapons tech removes soldiers from the battlefield, turning warfare into what feels like a videogame. And turning some soldiers into people with superpowers.

Perhaps, as combat technologies advance, we'll it will become almost impossible to distinguish between comic book movies and what used to be war movies. I wonder what we'll lose when that happens.

Okay, so here are the movies that blew us away and horrified us this year:

BEST:

10. Let The Right One In. This intense, beautiful Swedish movie about a 12-year-old boy's relationship with a vampire did the near-impossible: it almost made us forget the blah Twilight. It's a parable of the world-destroying power of adolescence, that stays with you long afterwards.

9. Teeth. This year saw a boomlet in feminist horror movies, between this film and Zombie Strippers. But the raw satire of vagina-dentata movie Teeth was sharper, and the story of how Dawn comes to realize her toothy mutant pussy is a superpower rather than a curse is a beautiful spin on adolescence.

8. Speed Racer. Pretty much everyone hates this movie except us — Entertainment Weekly listed it twice on its year's worst lists, even as the mag praised the bland Benjamin Button. But we really did love this film, for its crazy, surreal CG vistas and fun follow-your-heart storyline. Racer was the last thing you'd expect from the Wachowskis: a film about family values, in which Speed learns that love for family trumps everything else. (And Susan Sarandon and John Goodman, as Speed's parents, pretty much run away with the film.) This movie is a cult classic waiting to happen.

7. Cloverfield. Of all the movies on this year's "best" list, this is the one I can least imagine wanting to watch more than once. But that's okay, because the one time you watch it, you'll be blown away. At least in the theater, the movie's shaky-camcorder gimmick actually works: it's totally immersive, and you really follow these yuppie dorks as they fight their way through pubic lice and monster debris to save their friend.

6. Sleep Dealer. We called it one of the best small-budget science fiction movies in years, in our review back in October. Set in a future where Mexicans do menial labor in the U.S. via telepresence, Dealer is a commentary on immigration and racism. But it's also a brilliant thought experiment and a character piece. And it has the hottest cyberpunk node-installation scene since the flawed-but-fun Existenz.

5. Iron Man. This movie exceeded our expectations, delivering a mind-expanding story of the military-industrial complex instead of just a superhero punch-em-up. I was so excited, I wrote a giant essay instead of a simple review.

4. City Of Ember. It could have been just another young-people-discover-their-world-is-a-lie movie, but instead it becomes a post-apocalyptic masterpiece. Thanks to Martin Laing's gigantic sets and Gil Kenan's beautiful direction, the subterreanean city becomes a real place. You can actually feel the terror and claustrophobia when the lights start going out. And Bill Murray is in rare form as the corrupt, short-sighted mayor.

3. Synecdoche, NY. Charlie Kaufman gave us Being John Malkovitch and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, but this is probably his weirdest, most surreal movie. Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is suffering from a weird, nonsensical ailment that is making his autonomic functions shut down, and meanwhile his daughter is turning into an anemic fetish model. So he creates an ambitious, incomprehensible work of art — a recursive model of New York inside a New York warehouse, complete with actors playing real people. And it's a comedy. I laughed so hard at the stuff about Caden's therapist, and his attempts to make himself cry when his tearducts have shut down, I nearly choked on my popcorn.

2. The Dark Knight. This movie got us so worked up, we reviewed it twice. Sure, it was too long — and did the Joker really have to put explosives in the hospital and the boats? — but its ambition pays off, in the end. The story of Harvey Dent's fall from grace is epic enough to support all of the movie's endless incidents and action set pieces. And we're still debating the movie's politics (Pro-torture? Pro-surveillance? Anti-hero? Nihilistic or just anarchic?) months later.

1. Wall-E The only movie in years that I've wanted to watch again, right away. If I hadn't been starving and late for dinner, I would have watched it two or three times in one sitting. The first half hour, featuring the cute-bot in the post-apocalyptic abandoned Earth, is poetic and slapsticky. But then Wall-E gets into space, and it just gets crazier and more satirical, all without ever being mean or cheap. Plus it's a moving robot love story.

Even though 2008 was a pretty awesome year for movies, I still ended up with way more candidates for the "worst" list than the "best" list, sadly.

1. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. This is one of those movies that I was so-so about at the time, but it's gotten worse in my mind since then. Too much Shia, especially Shia of the Jungle. Criminally underused Karen Allen. Mostly, too much boring retreading of past Indy movies, and CG ants, and a totally crap alien head-melting ending.

2. Hancock. All we could think about were ways it could have sucked less. Like if it was really a comedy instead of a bland romp that turns melodramatic halfway through. It had one joke, and ran it into the ground like... like a drunken superhero who smashes into the asphalt when he flies. A couple of funny moments couldn't rescue this dud.

3. Doomsday. Actually, this one belongs on a special so-bad-it's-great list. You'll be getting drunk/stoned and watching this one on DVD long after most "good" movies are forgotten. Just for the cannibals who dance to Fine Young Cannibals, and Malcolm McDowell's SCA kingdom. Yes, it's pretty terrible, but in a wonderful way.

4. X-Files: I Want To Believe. Wasn't this a show about people who investigate things? Apparently not, or at least the movie turned into a dull relationship drama. Bleh.

5. Jumper. I liked the clips of the "jumpscar" special effect and the whole bus-attack thing, but it didn't make for much of a movie. Even with a script by David Goyer, the whole thing is underwhelming. You keep waiting and waiting for David (Hayden Christensen) to step up and become a hero — or at least become interesting to watch — and it never happens.

6. The Day The Earth Stood Still Unlike my colleague Nivair, I hadn't pre-judged this one. I really thought it could be a good film in its own right, even if it wasn't true to the original. I was horribly, eye-searingly wrong. It starts out great, but then Keanu goes on a boring road trip while droning about the environment and eating at Mickey D's. Giant robot Gort shows up here and there, but he can't stop the movie from standing still.

7. The Happening could have been an interesting film — people start killing themselves in horrible ways, for no reason. But then it had to turn into a horror film about trees trying to destroy us, until they change their minds. People stare in horror and despair — at trees. Ohh kay.

8. Meet Dave. With a script by MST3K's Bill Corbett and a cool concept (a tiny guy lands on Earth in a human-sized spaceship that looks like him), this could have been a fun ride. Instead, it's a showcase for Eddie Murphy doing funny voices.

9. Space Chimps We got one great animated science fiction movie, so of course Hollywood had to punish us with an avalanche of drek. Including this horrific Andy Samberg vehicle about monkeys in space. Probably Fly Me To The Moon belongs on this "worst movies" list too, but none of us saw it. It was too soon after Chimps, and it just looked like pure torture.

10.The Spirit could have been sorta great too — we love Will Eisner, and Frank Miller used to be one of the greats, 20 years ago. But Miller has turned into a self-parody, and he decided to go all-out with the crazy camp in this film. Weirdly, even though this film is a visual maelstrom and features an eyelinered Samuel L. Jackson dressing as a Nazi and torturing cats, the film's biggest problem is that it's boring.

And then there were a lot of movies that were neither "best" nor "worst," they just were. Like, say, Incredible Hulk. It wasn't a great movie, it wasn't a terrible movie, it was just adequate. Call it "the credible Hulk." Or Death Race, which I couldn't bring myself to hate despite the lackluster third reel. Or Wanted, which was as dumb as ten piles of rocks but looked purty. Or Star Wars: Clone Wars, which was a fun, if forgettable, TV show, which got put on the big screen due to George Lucas' hubris.

Avatar:

UGO collected everything that's known so far about the plot of James Cameron's space adventure film. Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully, a paralyzed former marine who goes through a procedure that lets him inhabit another body, as a 10-foot-tall blue alien, on the world Pandora. Sully occupies a genetically engineered biological body, which his human consciousness can operate. Sully ends up crossing over and helping the natives, the Na'vi, in their fight for survival.

Zoë Saldaña plays Neytiri, an alien whom Jake initially betrays, but they fall in love. Sigourney Weaver is Dr. Grace Augustine, a botanist and Sully's mentor. Michelle Rodriguez plays Trudy Chacon, a tough ex-marine pilot. Other characters include the passive-aggressive Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), Marine Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and anthropologist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore). The film's main villain is Lyle Wainfleet (Matt Gerald). [UGO]

Incredible Hulk 2:

I wouldn't start camping out for a ticket to a third Hulk movie any time soon. But producer Gale Ann Hurd does say that Edward Norton is signed on for a sequel already. [MTV]

Battlestar Galactica:

In the BSG finale, star Edward James Olmos takes "the show’s theme of 'endings' very seriously, and even to a disturbing extreme," says writer Michael Taylor.

Also, we'll be seeing those old-school Cylon centurions (that we saw in "Razor") again before the end of the show. And "all will be explained" with reference to why the final five Cylons were so late in gaining awareness, especially that crucial final Cylon. Boomer (as opposed to Athena) plays "a significant role" in the final batch of episodes. The Lee/Starbuck relationship "will not be fully resolved until the end of the series." As for Starbuck, she's kind of in denial about all the weird stuff that's happened to her lately. [Galactica Sitrep]

Chuck:

I got hold of a ton of script pages from episode 14, "Chuck Vs. Suburbia." Let's see... Chuck and Sarah go undercover in a suburban neighborhood, pretending to be a married couple. One of their new neighbors is a Fulcrum agent, so Chuck has to ake the rounds with a plate of weiners and meet them all, while Casey pretends to be the cable guy.

Meanwhile, Jeff and Lester decide to hook their Buy More boss, Big Mike, up with a girlfriend via an Internet dating site. They come across a "red hot mama" named Bolognia, and she turns out to be a sexy Latina who screws Big Mike's brains out. The only problem is, Big Mike lies to her and tells her he owns a big shipping company. When he comes clean at the Buy More, she thinks it's because he's discovered her secret. She wasn't entirely honest either: she has a grown son, who actually works at the Buy More. ("Please let it be Bartowski," Big Mike prays.) But no, it's Morgan, Chuck's bestie. Morgan watches in horror as his mom makes out with his boss.

So... Chuck winds up in a sexy situation with Sylvia, one of the desperate housewives in suburbia. She handcuffs him to the bed, wearing only his undies. He manages to unlock one of the cuffs and escape, but then he finds a computer with secret stuff on it. He figures out the computer and looks at it — only to be bomarded with scary images, similar to the Intersect, the spy computer that he already has in his brain. Chuck finally escapes, running out into the suburban cul-de-sac wearing his undies and a handcuff.

But it turns out that every single one of those suburban neighbors is a baddie. They were all part of some spy program that was abandoned, and they're bitter. And Chuck is the first person to pass their "test" by looking at that bombardment of computer images without his head exploding. So they strap Chuck in a chair, with both Sarah and Casey watching in captivity, and they bombard Chuck's brain with the "Dark Intersect." (Really. The Dark Intersect. Yeah.) But it looks like Chuck can't take it after all, and he collapses, apparently dead. [Script pages]

Heroes:

We'll find out soon that Sylar's "hunger" was unnaturally provoked by another character. (Elle, I guess.) And as we've already seen, Sylar can control it. Also, he doesn't have to slice people's heads open to absorb their powers — he can absorb powers peacefully, the way his brother Peter does. And you shouldn't count on seeing Micah or Molly again any time soon. [E! Online]

Smallville:

Lana comes back as a different — and much stronger — person. And as we've mentioned, we'll learn her reasons for leaving via video message. Meanwhile, the Davis Bloome/Doomsday plot ramps up somewhat during November sweeps. [E! Online]

Sarah Connor Chronicles:

Riley the cat fancy girl is going to be having some emotional problems, says actor Leven Ramblin. "Towards the 13th episode, something very traumatic happens [with Riley]. She gets kind of depressed because she doesn't really get anywhere with John. She's upset that she can't emotionally get really attached to John. And he keeps wanting her to, and she just has this barrier." [E! Online]

Futurama:

In the "Bender's Game" DVD, coming soon, the Planet Express crew go from outer space to deep under the Earth, and find themselves in a medieval universe populated by dragons, knights and villains, some of which turn out to be very familiar. The film references Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Ender's Game. [Sci Fi Wire]

Life On Mars:

Here's the official description for the Nov. 13 episode of the time-traveling cop show, "Tuesday's Dead":

Sam Tyler finds it difficult to separate a life-and-death hostage situation taking place at County Hospital from his own strange circumstances. Stressed about a phone call where he seems to hear his mother's voice — in 2008 — begging him to wake up, he and the rest of the squad are ordered to diffuse a potentially explosive face-off in which a crazed gunman is trying to force a doctor to reverse a dangerous operation on the renegade's brother. Sam, Ray, Annie and Lt. Hunt are all targeted in the madman's cross hairs, but as Sam and the 1-2-5 attempt to resolve the confrontation, he suddenly realizes that the clock ticking on the gunman's demands parallels another deadline that could spell the end of Sam Tyler.

[SpoilerTV]

Oh, and we'll be seeing more of Sam's 2008 girlfriend (Lisa Bonet) in the Nov. 6 episode. [TV Guide]

Stargate Atlantis:

Here are the long-awaited stills from the show's penultimate episode, which takes place in Vegas and features a gambling Wraith. [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Katharine Duckett.

Here's what's really going on. Big science fiction franchises used to have incredibly complicated storylines. But nowadays, the storylines are simple but the differences between the stories are complex.

Take Superman: there used to be only one version of the Superman saga, stretching back decades and including a super-monkey and a super-horse. But now, you have pre-Crisis and post-Crisis Superman, plus All-Star Superman, Smallville Superman, Donner Superman and whatever new version will appear in the next movie. Each version has a fairly simple story, but you have to have a PhD in geekology to understand where they diverge.

This isn't just an accident caused by different creators wanting to put their stamp on a character. It's a deliberate attempt to appeal to mainstream audiences while giving hardcore fans something to geek out about. Ideally, the average Smallville viewer barely thinks about how the show's version of Clark Kent is different from Christopher Reeve's. But the die-hard minority can spend hours obsessing about the differences, like whether, and at what point, Pa Kent dies.

It's like dog-whistle fanservice, the fine art of sticking in references that will drive fans nuts but go over the head of regular viewers/readers.

When I mentioned pre-Crisis and post-Crisis above, you either nodded your head wisely and thought about Harbinger's ribbed crotch (it represents the striations of the timelines), or you just shrugged at the appearance of more super-babble. But the Crisis On Infinite Earths was arguably the beginning of our current era of faux complexity. In 1986, DC Comics decided its universe was both too silly and too complex, and decided to "reboot" it with a 12-issue miniseries that is now unreadable. (Seriously, it reads like the begats, with tons of random cameos and obscure references.) After the series was done, the universe nearly ended, but instead it restarted, with only one universe instead of a multiverse. But DCU 2.0 wasn't stable, and needed a patch (1995's Zero Hour). In the past few years, the creators have gotten a bit happy with the reboot button, hitting it over and over again in series like Infinite Crisis, 52 and Final Crisis. It's like the universe is constantly blue-screening.

But anyway, the idea behind CIOE was to make things simpler and more friendly to new readers. And at first, this worked reasonably well. Creators like Frank Miller and John Byrne put their stamp on the old-school DC superheroes, and everybody had a clear backstory. Until each new batch of creators wanted to put their own stamp on the characters, and you ended up with things like: "Hawkman is a Native American Egyptian archeologist from outer space."

More importantly, though, fans could spend hours discussing the differences between the pre-Crisis and post-Crisis versions of their favorite characters. The Platonic ideal of the Crisis-break is that it would be opaque to the occasional readers of Superman comics, who would have an easier time reading because they wouldn't have to worry about whether the Composite Superman was still a reverse antimatter proctologist. And the reboot would provide "jumping-on points" for new readers to start reading without worrying that they missed something. It would only be transparent to the detail-obsessed fans.

(A side note: I feel as though in the past, when there were multiple continuities, there was much more of an effort to have the "canon" continuity and the non-canon versions. So you knew the Superman in the comics was really canonical, and other versions didn't "count." Or the Star Trek movies counted but the books didn't. Or something. But now, when you have multiple movie continuities contradicting each other, it's become impossible to keep up with.

Probably the last franchise that seemed to be trying to have one unified continuity was Star Wars, which at least claimed that all of the comics, video games, books and now TV shows were in continuity. George Lucas even said a few times that he would never make any movies after Return Of The Jedi because the post-ROTJ story had already been told in the novels. But even the maniacal SW mono-culture has become a giant tangle, according to "continuity cop" Leland Chee, who laments that George Lucas has a habit of tossing out long-accepted facts when it suits him, and introducing new "facts" like "Anakin built C3PO" Says Chee, "George's view of the universe is his view... He's not beholden to what's gone before.")

So what's the problem? The casual viewers can ignore the differences between Ultimate Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man and Tobey Spider-Man, and the fans can obsess about them. And everybody's happy, right?

Sort of. The problem is that the distinction between casual and intensive consumers of geeky culture is breaking down. Take comics: They're meant to be read by kids, especially tweens and teens, and then discarded. There's supposed to be immense turnover among comics readers, so that people reading Zero Hour would never even have read CIOE. The die-hard fans would be aware of the older stories, but not the fickle readers, who were only in it for a few years. The same goes for TV and movies to some extent: superhero and space opera shows and movies are supposed to attract a young, Ritalin-addled audience, who tune out after a few years, because they've started a garage band or gone to college.

But that kind of churn among consumers of escapist entertainment isn't happening the way it used to. Instead, things like Trek and superheroes are going "mainstream," which means it's cool for people to follow them longer term. As regular people stick with these narratives for longer periods, they're likely to become more aware of the endless reboots and revamps and divergences and reinventions. And to some extent, it may be exciting, like a revamped brand — the 2009 Mazda Miata or New And Improved Bounty — but over time, it may start to get annoying. (Which is why I think, in spite of the cruddiness of Spider-Man 3, Sony did the right thing bringing back Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi instead of trying to reboot Spidey.)

The other problem with this endless proliferation of alternate versions is one I alluded to earlier: it's fake complexity. Instead of having stories that are complicated and multi-layered, we can have lots of simplistic stories. You can distract yourself from the limitations of these one-track stories by thinking about how they differ. But that only works for a while. After a time, you get tired of facile storylines with tons of version numbers, and you start to crave one single storyline that gets more elaborate, satisfying and addictive as it goes along. Let's hope Hollywood can take its greasy fingers off the reboot button long enough to give it to us one of these days.

Note: So we're assuming the TIH script we got hold of is genuine. (Thanks to io9 reader The Ugly aka HowlingMan for passing it along!) It certainly seems pretentious enough, starting with a Joseph Campbell quote and including references to great literature. After reading the whole thing, here's the bottom line: the second Hulk movie should have been a good 10 minutes longer, including a few crucial scenes that beef up some of the Hulk's character and flesh out his backstory. But the vast majority of the scenes were cut for very good reason, if this 2007 draft is at all close to the shooting script.

Here's our rundown of the deleted scenes from the script, including whether you can glimpse them in the movie's trailer:

1) The famous Arctic scene.

A helicopter drops Bruce Banner off in the tundra, and he shambles off alone. He drops his backpack, stopping only to retrieve an object and jam it into his waistband, then trudges off under the Aurora Borealis. He has a brief, almost indistinguishable flashback of a woman's body on the ground, and flames. The object he grabbed turns out to be a gun, and he tries to shoot himself, but turns into the Hulk instead. He catches the bullet in his palm, flattened. Then he jumps into the Arctic sea and we see a monstrous green form underwater.
Featured in the trailer? Yes. Briefly.

2) Bruce meets Samson.

After Betty spots Bruce at the pizza place where he's hiding out, she confronts him, and introduces him to her new boyfriend, Samson Adams. It's awkward. Bruce promises to meet them back at Betty's house, but then splits. That leads to the scene where Betty drives after him in the rain.
Featured in the trailer? No.

3) Samson jokes about being a shrink.

This scene is a bit painful, to be honest. Bruce, Betty and Samson have dinner together (Samson cooks) and they talk about Samson's worst psychiatric patient:

SAMSON
...and I said “Miss So-and-so, I’ve been analyzing your ‘condition’ for nearly three months and I think I can say conclusively that your issues are more Caffeinated-UnCaffeinated than Manic-Depressive... They all laugh, even Banner chuckles.

BETTY
...You’re not so much Multiple Personality as Spoiled Brat...

BANNER
Your problem isn’t ADD so much as laziness.

BETTY
It makes you sound cruel. But Samson takes a few of these to pay for all the
free work he does.

SAMSON
Pro-whiners to pay for the pro-bono...

And then Bruce suddenly starts crying. No, really. Bad shrink banter makes Brucey cry. Actually, it's because "It's been a long time since I felt... light... about anything." Awww.
Featured in the trailer? No, thank goodness.

4) Samson discusses Raymond Carver.

After Betty goes to bed, Bruce and Samson have a man-to-man talk, and Samson brings up a Raymond Carver short story he read once, which has important literary lessons that Samson's not quite clear on. And then Samson delivers a giant speech:

I’ll confess something to you if you’ll clear up some things for me...First, I confess, as a man...as Betty’s lover... that I have always hoped you were dead. Not because I didn’t like you but because I love Betty and I’ve known that unless you were really gone, or she believed you were, that there would always be three of us in this relationship. I’ve dreaded the thought of you walking through the door. But now that you’re here... I have to admit that I’m very happy about it. Because I’m also a psychiatrist. And I’m very committed to putting light into dark corners, so to speak, and I’m very good at finding my way into the places people hide their secrets. I do it primarily because I think it helps them but also frankly because I’m interested in what
people have to hide. Betty has a very dark corner that I have never found my way into, despite considerable, careful effort. And the only thing I know about her dark place is that you are in it. And I’m wondering if you’ll be honest enough to tell me: why are you something that she won’t talk about?

And then Bruce says this thing about how there are "aspects of my personality that I can't control." And he says he'd rather die than hurt Betty again.
Featured in the trailer? Yes.

5) Betty and Bruce discuss scientific ethics.

It's pretty brief, but Betty and Bruce have a whole discussion about what they thought they were doing when they created the Hulk, which I don't remember from the theatrical release. Bruce says General Ross may be the only one who was honest about what they were really doing. And humans evolved over millions of years, and maybe it was a mistake to try and tinker with human biology overnight.
Featured in the trailer? No. And at this point, it's probably been an hour since we last saw the Hulk.

6) If I could Hulk with the animals...

In Sam Sterns' lab, after they do the treatment that is supposed to cure Bruce of being the Hulk, Sterns reveals he's been doing experiments with Bruce's blood sample. But instead of just seeing vials of blood like in the theatrical release (as far as I remember), we actually see tons of rhesus monkeys and rats, including "Hulked-out versions." I'm pretty sure we didn't see this in the final movie, probably because nobody wanted to remind viewers of the Hulk-poodles from the first movie.
Featured in the trailer? No.

7) Bruce takes charge.

There's a lot more of Bruce in the helicopter, when he's a prisoner of the army and the Abomination is starting to trash New York. Bruce pushes his way to the front to look at the monitors, and a soldier tries to stop him. Bruce dares the soldier to try and shoot him. And then Ross and Bruce argue over what to do about the Abomination. Bruce says the only way to stop the Abomination is to unleash the Hulk. And Bruce explains why he thinks being tossed out of a helicopter will jumpstart his transformation: he tried to kill himself before (in the Arctic) and the Hulk wouldn't let him. Ross, Bruce and Betty argue:

ROSS
Forget it. If I put you down there, you won’t fight, you’ll run.
BANNER
We made that thing, you and I!! We’ve got to try something! I think you were right, it’s still me. I heard you on the table calling to me and I held on...
BETTY
You think you can control it?
BANNER
No but maybe I can aim it.
ROSS
What if you just double my problem?
BANNER
Have you got a better idea?

Featured in the trailer? Yes.

8) Harlem comic relief:

After Bruce gets dropped into Harlem and becomes the Hulk, a "Harlem loudmouth" sees the Abomination and reacts:

LOUDMOUTH
...tired of this shit! Show me some motherfuckin’ fifteen foot monster buggin’ out in the WHITE man’s neighborhood, somebody’d be...

He turns and sees HULK...stops cold...Looks back at Abomination...

LOUDMOUTH (CONT’D)
Oh, I see...it’s a family thing. I’m gonna let you all work this out.

Featured in the trailer? What do you think?

10) Betty dumps Samson:

After the giant rumble, Betty figures out that her boyfriend Samson is the one who let the Army know that Brucey was crashing at their house on campus, and she kicks his ass to the curb. He says he was frightened and he made a mistake, and she says she's not coming home. For a while, anyway.
Featured in the trailer? No.

Other differences: Instead of Stan Lee drinking the Gamma-laced guarana drink, it's a young mom. Instead, Stan Lee is an old fisherman who takes Bruce and Betty into New York on his boat.

We see more of the tough Major Cabot, a woman soldier who got a purple heart in Iraq, on the team that tries to capture Banner in Brazil. (She gets a great line later, when they confront the Hulk on campus: "They should not put this in the recruitment video.") Cabot also lets Ross and the others know that the Abomination is Blonsky, something they never seem to find out in the movie.

And we learn a bit more about General Ross' backstory: he had an accident in a "black box" R&D that injured his arm, and now he's stuck running a desk. Ross is way more of a bastard in some of the cut lines, including one after the soldiers have captured Bruce, and he says keeping his daughter close to Bruce is the best insurance against Bruce Hulking out, since Bruce knows he'd hurt Betty if he did. Also, there are hints that Ross proposed an unethical cover-up to Bruce after his first Hulk-out injured Betty. [Thanks To The Ugly]

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The secret to successfully taking superheroes into other media, according to everyone on the panel - Lee, Penn and Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus - was to treat action as secondary to character; a lesson learned by Lee during the 1970s Spider-Man TV show:

That was the worst thing ever made! When I saw the first episode, I called a meeting at CBS and said "There's no characterization, there's no way you can care about the characters," I said, "There's no story there!" The next day, the director sent me a note and said "I very much appreciate the things you said, but I cannot fly by the seat of Stan Lee's pants." And the show got cancelled. You have to believe in the characters.

Sadly for moviemakers, Penn still thinks that the comics get it right more often than the movies - One comic in particular:

I have to be honest, when I read The Ultimates, that really changed my thinking. When I read that stuff, I thought, wow, we're really not giving this stuff enough credit. There's a whole other level of realism that we're not getting at. I thought Mark Millar had somehow tapped into what Stan was doing all those years ago and made it real.

Millar may, in fact, be helping out on the next few Marvel movies; Penn made reference to a group of Marvel writers that he couldn't name (but were "the guys who I admire who are writing the great comic book stuff") that are working with him and Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige to plan the story arc lacing through Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers, which are being planned with a strong continuity and storyline running through them. Such experiences, he explained, are unusual in an industry that still, for the most part, doesn't understand comics:

It's incredibly frustrating to deal with some studios who don't like the comic books, who don't like the fans, who don't like me... Or themselves. In Hollywood, when you talk about comic books, they think you're talking about Archie. A lot of these people think that comic books are silly, and they think they're supposed to be silly. And then you get people like Sam Raimi who come along and say, that's comics pre-Stan Lee, you obviously haven't read comics in the last thirty years. It's just stupid, they don't really know the form. And if they did, they'd know that they could make it as smart as possible because the comics are smart.

The ever-enthusiastic Stan Lee, however, sees the future of comic book movies as being very bright:

People ask me, how long will there be superhero movies. As long as there are writers like these two guys who write this stuff like it's Citizen Kane and not like some silly fluff, there will always be superhero movies.

'Nuff said, Stan.

The categories in the chart should be pretty self-explanatory. But here's some explanation anyway:

We love our heroes to be super rich, and to have an excuse for self-pity. If your fabulously wealthy parents got killed in front of you when you're a kid, so much the better. (Seriously, a tragic past seems to be a crucial ingredient for many escapist heroes, because it lets you project all your own real-life pain onto your hero, even as you're imagining rising about that pain and becoming a mega-adventurer. )

And it makes us happy when our heroes have two or more devoted acolytes/sidekicks, who follow almost without question, and awesome gadgets. Superhuman powers means what it says. "Gets laid" doesn't just mean your hero hooked up one time.

"Marked for greatness" requires slightly more explanation. If your hero is the subject of a prophecy (like Starbuck), or is "the One" like Neo, then he/she is marked for greatness. Captain Kirk wasn't marked for greatness on the original Star Trek TV show, but we have a strong suspicion that the new Trek movie, by revisiting his origins, will show that he was marked for great things from the beginning.

"Not tied down" doesn't just mean being single: it means that you get to roam around having adventures. And at the end of an adventure, you jump in your spaceship and zoom off to the next adventure somewhere else. Captain Kirk wasn't tied down, but Captain Sisko was.

"Becomes a god or king" means your character ends up with a lot of people looking up to him/her. The Hulk, for example, is destined either to become a ruler, the Maestro, or the last survivor of Earth. Captain Kirk becomes an admiral, but more importantly he becomes a legend in his own time. The Doctor becomes the last of the Time Lords, and gets called a god a lot. Neo turns into the blind buddha Jesus monster, or something.

According to the Reuters piece,

After four weekends, the Louis Leterrier-directed "The Incredible Hulk" has earned $125 million, the same as what "Hulk" had pulled in at the same time in its run. "Hulk" finished with $132 million, and its successor is unlikely to do much better... Despite the similarity of the Hulk films' theatrical runs, industryites suggest the lighter tone of the second film makes it more the vehicle to generate sequels, and some suggest the remake will prove a more lucrative DVD title than the Eric Bana-starring original. On the other hand, production costs and marketing expenses were steeper the second time around, totaling more than $200 million. The first film cost about $150 million to make.

More expensive but not more successful? Is there anything that could save Bruce Banner's franchise potential?

"Hollywood is always about perception," said David Davis, managing partner and entertainment analyst at Arpeggio Partners in Los Angeles. "The first Hulk (movie) had such high expectations after the NBC-Universal merger and was supposed to be critical-favorite Ang Lee's breakout commercial blockbuster.

"Then with the new Hulk film, Marvel was able to underplay the importance of the success after the great success of 'Iron Man' this summer," Davis said. "So the new one overdelivered, relative to its underpromise."

On that logic, expect to hear that The Incredible Hulk 2: This One's A Stinker, It Won't Even Make A Dime announced by Marvel any day now.

Latest "Hulk" may not spawn a sequel [Reuters]

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Incredible Hulk 2:

If there is an Incredible Hulk sequel, it's not a slam dunk that Sam Sterns (the Leader) will be the main villain. Another school of thought has Leonard Samson, the psychiatrist who was dating Betty, becoming the bad guy. He occasionally clashed with the Hulk in the comics, although mostly they're friends. And Samson might be miffed that Bruce stole his girlfriend Betty. Director Louis Leterrier says he'll ask the fans at Comic-Con whom they'd like to see as the villain of TIH2. [Underwire]

Wanted:

Here's this guy's list of a dozen or so weird/wacky things that happen in Wanted. They're pretty much spoilers we've already covered, but his write-up is pretty entertaining and he puts his finger on some of the more ludicrous things in the zany actioner. [XLBBQ]

G.I. Joe:

Here are a couple more character posters from G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, which show the Baroness and Snake Eyes looking sultry and snakey, respectively. [IESB]

Heroes:

Here are more set photos from Heroes season three, showing Future Peter meeting regular Peter. And getting all grabby with his niece Claire, who's gotten the too-much-makeup bug from Ali Larter. I guess this is right before she shoots him? Are they actually going to get together on the show, now that the actors are dating? Is Peter the character who will turn out to be also adopted? (So they're not blood relations any more?) Or is it just going to be one huge tangle of ick? Either way, it looks like a community college production of Grease. Oh, and is that a painting predicting some kind of future Earth-crack? [TheBadandtheUgly and Heroes The Series and Gilmore Girls News]

And now that you're all pumped up for a new season of Heroes (you are, aren't you?) here's some more news: Kristen Bell's electrosex kitten Elle will be in only about five episodes of the season, give or take. But Mama Petrelli will be in every. single. episode. Because she has "lots to do."

Meanwhile, Sylar and Claire's daddy H.R.G. will have lots and lots of scenes together, because they will be working together. As a team. (This could be related to that rumor that Sylar gets a change of heart?) [E! Online]

Smallville:

Smallville season eight will be more about Metropolis and the whole Lois-and-Clark thang that we used to love back in the 1990s. Plus lots and lots of Green Arrow, with sprinklings of Justice League. [E! Online again]

Doctor Who:

Based on the new trailers, plus some filming that was observed earlier, Planet Galifrey has pieced together more spoilers for Saturday's new Doctor Who, "The Stolen Earth." It starts with the TARDIS still red and cloister belly. And then it catches fire! The Doctor finds that Earth has been stolen, and goes to visit the Shadow Proclamation to find out what's going on. The Proclamation has been offering a refuge to all the races that have lost their worlds already, like the Adipose and the Rexicorocofallipatorians.

And the thuggish Judoon are keeping order for the Shadow Architects, who are skinny and have weird blond hair. The Doctor takes the floor, talking a mile a minute and being clever, but it doesn't go that well. Then he goes back to the TARDIS and has a moment of being happy that Rose is coming back — before he gets another message that shocks him again. The rest of it is spoilers we've covered before in some depth. [Planet Gallifrey]

Stargate

The direct-to-DVD Stargate: Continuum takes advantage of its feature-length format to give more little "moments" to its characters, including Mitchell going back to the farm, Carter going shopping and Daniel going to the bookstore. And later, there are scenes where the world has to adjust to "a world not their own." Carter is an astronaut who brilliantly sacrifices herself and saves her crew. Ben doesn't exist because he literally acted out the "grandfather paradox." And Daniel phones himself and reads his own book. He gives himself a pep talk, saying things like, "Trust your feelings." [Sci Fi Weekly]

Meanwhile, in case you haven't seen it, here's a promo for Stargate: Atlantis season five that's been airing lately.

True Blood:

Here are episode synopses for the second, third and fourth episodes of True Blood, HBO's science-vampires show:

"The First Taste". Sookie suspects Bill is behind the murders of the people who almost ended her life; Tara deals with family matters; and a new church threatens the vampire world.

"Mine". Tara visits LaFayette seeking comfort from her woes, Sookie meets some of Bill's rowdy friends and saves them from harm from a human among them, and, Sookie and Hugo visit the Church of the Fellowship of the Sun.

"Escape From Dragon House." One of the barmaids from Merlotte's is murdered and all signs point to Jason as her killer. Also evident is the fact that she had been around vampires, and Sookie knows just where to go to find out who the girl had been with. Bill introduces Sookie to Fangoria, the biggest vampire bar in Shreveport, and Eric, the oldest vampire in Shreveport. Her search could lead her into territory she never thought she'd cover.

Thanks to Lauren Davis for research help.

The latest Hulk movie involved 147 sets, double the usual number in a big film. That's because Incredible Hulk is a "road movie," with Bruce on the run through lots of different locations. Plus all of the sets had to have visual effects stuff, especially explosions, stuck through them. "We were shooting two or three sets a day," says Petruccelli.

Rio:

• At the start of the film, Bruce is in Brazil, allowing for that huge chase across the rooftops of the favela (slum.) But it was almost Thailand instead. "We were thinking about, 'where would a person want to be an ant in an anthill,'" says Petruccelli. "[Director] Louis [Leterrier] came up with Thailand," and found a cool-looking picture of a Thai slum. But then Petruccelli went online and found a Rio slum that worked even better. "The images we found were just these unbelievable compressed anthills of humanity and that got everybody excited." That way, you got the shots of the soldiers chasing Edward Norton on foot and via helicopter across the rooftops, with the whole vista of the Favela behind him." I mentioned to Petruccelli that it reminded me of the shantytown chase from Jackie Chan's Police Story, and he said, "You find those once in a lifetime, those places are real."
• 
  
• The only parts of the Rio storyline that weren't filmed in Rio were Bruce's apartment, and the area just outside it, plus the bottling plant. Petruccelli worked hard to match the look and feel of the real buildings in the Favela where they were shooting. And that bottling plant was an abandoned warehouse in Toronto. They hunted for a space where the Hulk could move around freely and yet lurk in the shadows. "There was lot of conveyor systems, glass, and machinery," says Petruccelli. "You put it into a slum, so you don't make it a very clean environment, you make it very archaic, of the streets, hot, sweaty, steamy."

Smashing

• In general, a lot of the production design for The Incredible Hulk revolved around finding environments, and things, for the Hulk to smash — sort of the way a video game designer creates lots of objects for players to interact with. Petruccelli worked side by side with the creature designer, Kurt Williams, and his team to imagine how the Hulk would look in different environments. "It's all impact," he says. "This film is all about smash." They had to imagine everything the Hulk could crush, from objects to buildings. Plus how the Hulk would work for that romantic scene in the cave during the rainstorm.
• 
  
• Similarly, imagining the sequence where the army attacks the Hulk in a university quad, the designers thought about what sort of objects the Hulk could use as weapons, including statues, trees and whatever else he could get his hands on. Plus they had to plan out how/where military hardware would be able to move around the University of Toronto campus, where they shot.

Harlem:

• None of the New York sequences were filmed in New York. Instead, a section of Yonge Street in Toronto was transformed into 152nd. street in Harlem, near the Apollo Theater. Both streets have a lot in common, including four lanes of traffic going both directions, small two-story or four-story structures. "Louis fell in love with Yonge St. because of the available light." Ed Norton and the design crew came up with a chase that went through Columbia and up into Harlem.
• 
  
• Petruccelli's team built "many backlots" to create an impression of the poor section of Harlem, which is super-gentrified now. "I wanted to take it back to the 70s," says Petruccelli. "We turned it into a mean streets Taxi Driver version of New York... a representation of what Harlem was rather than what it really is."
• 
  
• Originally, Leterrier wanted to have the giant confrontation between the Hulk and the Abomination in Times Square, but it would have been too difficult to film there or simulate it. "It's a massive undertaking," says Petruccelli. But Norton and Leterrier came up with a different spin on the story. "If you really want two mean-spirited brutalists, creatures fighting each other, the sheen of Times Square wasn't the right place to do it," Petruccelli adds. "Everything in this film was mpre about impact. I would rather see them throw themselves through brick and steel than glass and light structures. Having five foot concrete for them to go through makes it that much more impactful."

  I mentioned that I Am Legend was able to film in Times Square, for the moving scenes where Will Smith walks through a destroyed and abandoned New York. "It's amazing that they were able to do that," Petruccelli says. But the Incredible Hulk shoot was looking for something different: "It's the world's biggest barfight in the world's toughest neighborhood between the world's toughest fighters, rather than a poetic version of what life would be like after the end of the world.

• I asked about whether there's still a post-9/11 taboo on showing New York destroyed, now that Legend and Cloverfield have both trashed the city in different ways. "New York takes a beating in most films," says Petruccelli. "It's because it really is one of the greatest metropolises on the planet, it means so much to so many people. To have a rumble in Cleveland couldn't compare." And New York has a special significance in a Marvel movie: "At the heart of Marvel's history, most of the characters come out of New York."

Antarctica:

• One of Petruccelli's favorite sequences didn't make it into the Hulk movie: the original opening sequence where Bruce Banner is in Antarctica, trying to kill himself, which "pushed the limits of storytelling... It was a really powerful moment, so much so that it was chosen not be a part of the film." Petruccelli was up in the helicopter during the shooting of the sweeping ice fields, the huge emptiness standing in contrast to the crowded scenes of Rio and New York. "Do I miss it?" Petruccelli says. "If the movie works, I don't miss it. [But] that was the shot I really really was excited about."

Incredible Hulk 2?

• Petruccelli hasn't had any conversations yet about a sequel, but he's gung ho to work on any future Marvel projects. "When Hulk ended I raced right into a new project," (the comedy When In Rome.) As for the Marvel crew, "their edit schedule was so massive and so intense, I don't think they've come up for air."

The Avengers:

Could the Hulk be the villain of the Avengers movie? Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier thinks so. Just look at Ed Norton's green-eyed evil grin at the end of the Hulk film — he's someone who could potentially enjoy his mayhem a little too much. [Comics2Film]

Wanted:

Here's a new clip from Wanted that cropped up on Entertainment Weekly, involving Angelina Jolie in a giant train crash. [Entertainment Weekly via Comic Book Resources]

Transformers 2:

Want to know what happens in Transformers 2? Do you not care if what you're reading has any conceivable relationship to the truth? Then check out this allegedly leaked treatment for the Transformers sequel, which is probably a fake. In a nutshell, Sam goes to NYU and gets drawn into the world of street racing. And Megatron gets resurrected thanks to Soundwave's "mystic healing" harmonizing his particles. It turns out that Las Vegas' glittery lights were powered by the Allspark, and there's still enough stored Allspark-energy to power Vegas for generations — but the Decepticons and Starscream are coming to claim Vegas' power source for themselves. There's a massive battle for Las Vegas, and specifically the Luxor casino, which is the gateway to the remaining Allspark energy. The U.S. Army tries to trigger an EMP, but fails, and Vegas is trashed. And Sam's girlfriend Mikaela is killed. The movie ends on a downer note, with our heroes in disarray until the third movie... but Mikaela miraculously comes back to life at the last moment. [Scribd via CobaltSS]

G.I. Joe:

UGO has one of its patented spoiler round-ups for the G.I. Joe movie, and this time there's a fair bit of info we haven't reported, maybe because we weren't covering this movie much until recently. The main villains are Destro and Baroness, with Cobra Commander as a shadowy manipulator behind the scenes. Cobra Commander is played by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, and it's rumored he's General Hawk's best friend and a former G.I. Joe who fell from grace. (He and Hawk went on a mission to stop Destro, and Cobra Commander was scarred horribly and turned evil, the way people do when their faces get scarred.)

The rivalry between the two ninjas, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, forms the heart of the movie — it's rumored they studied with the same sensei and fought for two days without landing a single blade. But Snake Eyes made a mistake and was deafeated, so he went to Brazil and learned a new weapons-free discipline. The evil organization Cobra enlists the aid of the mercenaries known as Dreadnoks, led by Zartan and his brother and sister, Zarana and Zandar. Zandar has the ability to change his skin color to blend in with his surroundings. There's more at the link. [UGO]

The Descent 2:

Here's the first look at the Crawlers from The Descent 2, in which a traumatized Sarah emerges from the caves covered with blood. The police force her to go back into the caves to help them look for her five missing friends, but she starts having flashbacks and remembering more of the horror she endured there, as the group gets closer and closer to getting trapped in the dark with those monsters. [Fangoria]

Battlestar Galactica:

In the remaining 11 Battlestar Galactica episodes, airing next year, we'll see the relationship between Bill Adama and Laura Roslin deepen. And we may get more of a sense that Laura has been grooming Lee Adama as her successor all along, despite their disputes. And Roslin actor Mary McDonnell definitely seems to think they just found Earth. In the rest of the season, she says, "whatever has been complicated becomes more so." [Zap2It]

We haven't seen the real reactions of our characters to their discovery in last Friday's episode yet. "Revelations" and the next episode fit together closely, like a two-parter, and they're meant to be seen a week apart, says writer Jane Espenson. [TV Squad]

Lost:

Actor Cynthia Watros (Libby) accidentally refers to her Lost character as Annie. Was this a slip of the tongue... or did she let slip something by accident? And apparently we may see more of Libby at some point, and have some of our lingering questions answered. [Spoilers Lost]

Heroes:

It turns out Claire isn't the only character on Heroes who's adopted. And the discovery of another adopted character will change... everything! We'll see more of Monica and Nana Dawson (Nichelle Nichols) in episodes focusing on their relationship with Micah. But we probably won't see any more of Claire's beau West. [E! Online]

Chuck:

In the fourth episode of Chuck's second season, an old high-school friend of Sarah's named Heather shows up at the Orange Orange, Sarah's new job. And Heather blurts out Sarah's real name, shocking Chuck, who has fun almost blowing Sarah's cover and finds out more about Sarah's background. Heather is married to another high-school classmate of Sarah's, a nerd who turns out to be more than he seems when Chuck meets him and "flashes" on him.

So Sarah and Chuck have to go undercover at Sarah's high-school reunion, to foil the sales of high-tech bombs to evil Russians. Chuck manages to look like a hero while Casey fumes, and Sarah confronts her high-school demons. Meanwhile, Lester teaches the nerds at Buy More about "friendly negotiations" with customers, with unexpected results. [Chuck TV]

The Middleman:

Says Middleman star Matt Keeslar of upcoming episodes:

We have a Peruvian flying pike that, when it injects its venom into a victim, the victim turns into a trout-craving zombie. We have several different aliens from different planets. From one planet they happen to look like people on Earth who have had a lot of plastic surgery. From another planet they're a boy band. From another planet they embody a 14-year-old. And then there are, of course, other more fantasy-type characters, like an ancient terra cotta warrior who comes back to life to find and bring the heir to the Xing Dynasty to the underworld.

Just a wild guess, but I think he meant Qing Dynasty, not Xing. [Comic Book Resources]