Shazam! (1974)
With one word, Billy Batson becomes the World's Mightiest Mortal... but that's about the most believable thing in this series, which creepily featured the underage Billy traveling around the country in an RV accompanied by his "mentor" and occasionally talking to the gods who gave him his powers, who all happened to be badly-animated cartoons. Add in Billy or Captain Marvel helpfully telling you the moral of the episode at the end each week, and you've got a recipe for a dull show enlivened only by the size of Billy's hair.

Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl (1976)
I'm not really sure this one needs any explanation as to why it's on the list, once you've watched the video.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1977)
In which television revealed the truth about Marvel's favorite superhero: He looked kind of ridiculous. This short-lived series also missed the point of the comic book altogether by not using any of the character's famous supervillains, instead giving him ninjas and terrorists to fight. What was the point of that?

Legends Of The Superheroes (1978)
No expense was spared on bringing DC's biggest name superheroes to the small screen in this live action version of Super Friends - well, unless you count the money that would've been spent on a good script. Again, proving that bad writing and poor special effects can overcome even the best intentions, this two-part series (The second episode of which was a celebrity roast of the heroes led by Ed McMahon. No, really) also featured a villain more diabolical than Lex Luthor: A laugh track.

Those Terrible Captain America TV Movies (1979)
We can just imagine the pitch meeting for these two TV movies: "So, we have the rights to Captain America - You know, the guy who embodies the American Dream and fought in World War II against Hitler? I've got a great take on him: We turn him into Evel Kinivel. And let's get rid of that mask, too. Make it into a motorcycle helmet - That's much more hep." It could've been worse, we guess... We're just not sure how.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)
The original Hulk series was, if you ask us, one of the few superhero shows that worked - and that's because they didn't really treat it as a superhero show at all. When they revived the series a decade later and started pairing him with guest stars from the Marvel Universe, though...? Not a good idea:

(The Daredevil appearance in the next special, Trial of The Incredible Hulk, may be even worse; especially because they seem to have gotten the character mixed up with a generic ninja who happened to be blind.)

Superboy (1988)
An attempt to spin the Superman movies into a weekly format, the Superboy series had sincerity going for it - Sincerity and the seeming inability to not try and drastically rework the series between seasons every year (Including recasting the lead role after the original Superboy asked for a raise around the same time as getting arrested for drunk driving), leading to a schizophrenic, uneven show let down by shoddy special effects.

The Flash (1990)
The Flash comic book may be populated with colorful villains, but the television show didn't have the same luck (Mark Hamill's Trickster, in the clip below, aside), presumably for budgetary reasons. Add in a leading man as stiff as his ridiculously over-sculpted costume, and it's no surprise that this show only lasted one season.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993)
Secret identities, colorful outfits, super powers, fighting crime... These guys count as superheroes, right? Maybe it's our age, maybe our dedication to things like plot, dialogue and nuance, or perhaps it's just our aversion to cheap monsters in anything that doesn't actually involve Godzilla, but the long-running (and multiple-show-spanning: It's on its fifteenth different title right now) series always seemed... well, almost unwatchably bad to us.

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993)
It's a judgment call as to whether this show really deserves to be here. On the one hand, the Moonlighting-esque relationship between its leads was cute, and John Shea's Lex Luthor was a lot of fun... But on the other, it was a show that struggled to come up with good ideas each week and often failed, leading to an episode where Clark married a clone of Lois, who needed to eat frogs in order to survive. Or something. And what was with essentially writing Lex out after one season, anyway?

Generation X (1996)
A pilot adapting Marvel's X-Men spin-off, Generation X made it to air but never to full-series, meaning that the world was spared the low-budget high-concept struggle of teens having to live with their mutant abilities in a world that hated and feared them... because they couldn't act.

Justice League of America (1997)
Possibly the ultimate proof that TV and superheroes don't mix, this is another unsuccessful pilot that aired nonetheless, and features bad writing, bad acting, bad special effects, and some of the most literal - and most embarrassing - superhero costumes ever seen on screen. It's like a landmark of fail.

Mutant X (2001)
Marvel's short-lived television series about mutants that isn't related to the X-Men at all oh no please don't sue us Fox (They did, nonetheless) tried to swerve away from comparisons to the publisher's successful mutant franchise by underplaying everything to the point of boredom. Even Generation X would've been better than this.

Birds of Prey (2002)
It had so much potential - Batman and Catwoman's daughter teaming up with the former Batgirl to fight crime? Hello, high concept - but the execution let it down badly with shoddy writing, lack of direction and the mistaken idea that camp was better than character development. When something makes Smallville look subtle and nuanced, you know you're in trouble.

The Ones That Didn't Suck
Batman (1966)
Almost everything about it is wrong - The cheap jokes! The ill-fitting costumes! Replacing Julie Newmar with Eartha Kitt! - but it all works nonetheless; Batman's 1960s incarnation may not be the best translation from page to screen, but as a weird totem of the era, it remains a classic.

Wonder Woman (1975)
We love Wonder Woman as a character, and this show may be a lot to do with that. While the comic version was having identity issues at the time this series was being made, the TV show took her back to her heyday, added the "let me twirl into my costume" and fittingly made Lynda Carter the star she should've been all along.

The Incredible Hulk (1978)
As we said above, the Hulk show worked despite its title character - Riffing on The Fugitive with an occasional need for a giant silent strongman, the show offered a completely different take on the character from the comics, and one that was arguably better.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1996)
When it comes to television series about people with magical powers, we don't think we're alone in thinking that Joss Whedon did everything right. Mixing just the right amounts of humor and tragedy into the supernatural and superpowered stories, Buffy is everything that superhero shows like Smallville and Heroes should be trying to emulate... if only they could drag themselves away from the superficial special effects and overcooked dialogue.

The Obvious Exceptions
Anything animated
Yes, all of the above shows were live-action, and yes, we know that superhero cartoons have a long and proud history on television as well; we're partial to some Justice League Unlimited, especially if Darkseid is the bad guy. But as much as adding animated series in here may have ruined the grade curve, let's not forget things like this:

or this:

I think you know what I'm saying.

The Key Art Awards, held every year by the Hollywood Reporter, recognize the contributions made by the people behind the trailers, posters and other movie marketing efforts that often get taken for granted. This year's batch of winners was dominated by last year's Batman flick, which won eight awards including "Best Theatrical Poster", "Best Theatrical TV Spot" and "Best Teaser Print," but overall, comic book movies were well-represented, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Spirit and Wanted all coming away with awards. In addition, Spider-Man director Sam Raimi was recognized with a Visionary Award for being a filmmaker who inspires marketers (A dubious honor, perhaps).

(Non-comic book, but equally io9, Wall-E also picked up more than a few awards, including "Best Animation/Family Trailer," even if it was robbed for animation by Kung Fu Panda.)

While we're always excited to see comic book movies get their due, we're wondering whether or not The Onion's take on the importance of marketing is getting ever-closer to finally coming true... and also whether The Spirit should've just stayed as a trailer in the end.

'Knight' notches 8 wins at Key Art Awards [Hollywood Reporter]

We already knew that Tim Blake Nelson - who finished The Incredible Hulk with a jolt of gamma-irradiated blood preparing to turn him into the Leader - was eager to return for a sequel to the Louis Letterier reboot, but now Scifi Wire is reporting that Tim Roth wants to revisit his Abomination as well:

Yeah, they've got me for three [Hulk movies...] I liked working with Louis very much, so if he's up to anything, I'll probably jump in with him.

But is there actually another Hulk movie being planned? Sci Fi Wire reports that "[a] script for a sequel is still in the works," but Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said back in October that the studio wasn't planning a sequel anytime soon. We checked with Marvel Studios, and according to a spokesperson:

Of course Marvel is always open to looking at ways to work with The Incredible Hulk, but there is currently no script in development.

So, for now, the Tims will have to wait for another chance to turn green.

Tim Roth is signed for more Hulk films; after all, the Abomination lived! [Scifi Wire]

Between Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk and Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk, we've seen that the potential movie audience for potentially Marvel's third most well-known character (behind Spider-Man and Wolverine, although this summer's Iron Man may have changed that). But is that a failure of the movies, or the character itself? The two movies shared some similarities, but Leterrier for the most part avoided the lack of clarity (both in terms of story and, thanks to the murkiest final act ever, visually) of Lee's more cerebral approach - and yet, the more mainstream, action-orientated Incredible was just as (un)successful as its predecessor. Perhaps Marvel's apparent new plan of making the Hulk into more of an antagonist and less of a focus in future movies shows that they've realized one basic fact about the character: That he kind of sucks.
Okay, that's too harsh. But the Hulk isn't a character that many people really have a strong affinity for, for the most part. Yes, he has a great visual, and yes, there's a wonderful subtext to the concept... but as an actual character? There's not a lot of there there - and certainly not enough to base a movie around, if you want that movie to be more than just smashing and characters talking about how tortured poor Bruce Banner must be to have such a monster living inside him (which is to say, if you want the movie to be any good). It's the problem that the comic version of the character has suffered from since his creation, forcing the series to be reinvented over and over again in an attempt to keep up both the creators' and readers' interest (He's a crafty alter ego! No, he's a misunderstood monster! No, he's the rage of an abused child! No, he's a crafty alter ago again! No, wait, he's the psychoanalyzed hotheaded scientist made good! Now he's rage personified again! Now he's an alien gladiator! Now he's red! etc.): When it comes down to it, the Hulk is much more interesting as a look and an idea than as an actual character.

That's why, while we're not completely on board with the "All the heroes team up to fight the Hulk" idea, we're happy to see Marvel realizing that we don't need to see a third attempt at trying to convince the public that they really want to see a Hulk movie. Make him work amongst a community of peers, and then, if there's enough interest to try and spin him back out into his own franchise? Make sure that you put another hero with him, just in case.

Will The Hulk Be The Villain In ‘The Avengers’? We Take The Issue To Marvel’s President [Splash Page]

Casting the Hulk:

More Therapy For Bruce:

Tim Roth In Action:

Deleted Scene:

Talking to MTV's Splash Page blog, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus explains why he's rather see the Hulk cause trouble than any classic Avengers villain like Kang or the Skrulls:

You don’t want like 10 super-badass good guys fighting together. Where’s the fun in that? Let’s break it off a little. Friends or colleagues who become enemies is always an interesting thing because you know it’s based on love and friendship and that’s always the worst thing to have turn bad — is someone you actually care about and someone you actually believe in... Good guys going against good guys who both believe in an issue is way more interesting than a villain clearly into evil and I like when former friends become committed enemies.

The Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier is also onboard with the Hulk-as-villain idea:

I left the door open for whoever’s going to direct ‘The Avengers’ with our last shot. Edward [Norton] and I, we consciously decided to make the last shot of the movie when he opens his eyes and he smirks at the camera... Is he enjoying it? Is he malicious? That’s what’s great about Edward. You don’t know if he’s a good guy or bad guy.

First off, Ed Norton? Definitely a bad guy. Secondly, the Hulk being the first villain/monster/menace that the Avengers face comes as absolutely no surprise, because it's already two different shade of canon — both Marvel's Mighty Avengers and The Ultimates fought the Hulk before they fought anyone else (Although in both cases, Thor's half-brother Loki was the cause of much of the mischief — Spoiler alert, I guess). It also seems somewhat fitting, because Marvel Comics - especially in the Silver Age - has always loved the old "When Heroes Clash!" plot device as a way of creating dramatic tension in lieu of an actual plot. But the fact that we've seen it before is what was making us hope that we wouldn't be seeing it in the Avengers movie. Personally, I was hoping for the cinematic debut of the Space Phantom.

But what do you think? Should the movie go for the classic "We must stop the Hulk!" plot, or try to break new ground?

‘Iron Man’ Writers Want Hulk To Be ‘The Avengers’ Villain [Splash Page]

In the 145-second alternate opening for the movie found on the special edition DVD, Bruce Banner ends up hulking out in the Antarctic and causing an avalanche... that knocks free a particularly familiar hunk of ice:
(In case you don't see it, look for the shield in the left of that pic, towards the center of the height. Image courtesy Rope of Silicon.)
How this jibes with the shield appearing on Tony Stark's worktable in the earlier Iron Man, I'm not entirely sure - unless it's as simple as it being another shield - which may have been one of the reasons why the scene was cut. Alternatively, it may just be that wiser heads prevailed and decided that they didn't want to see such an important scene for Captain America appear anywhere other than his own movie, due in 2011.

The Incredible Hulk is released on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 21st.

Found: Captain America in The Incredible Hulk [FilmSchoolRejects]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of fans had a lot of questions about the upcoming Marvel movies, but answers weren't always forthcoming; when asked for a hint as to who will play Captain America in the upcoming The First Avenger movie, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige teased the audience with "You guys want to see Ben Affleck play Captain America?" only to be faced with a room full of boos. More seriously, he replied, "We've had ideas, there've been discussions, but we're going to hire filmmakers before we start making those decisions. But I guess it won't be Ben Affleck."

Will the success of the movies mean that Marvel's publishing operations will move to the West Coast? Joe Quesada isn't sure:

I never gave it any thought, I don't know. There are so many people key to us in publishing... to relocate several hundred people, you'd probably end up losing lots of key people. But the weather's nice out here, so you never know?

Marvel's publishing president Dan Buckley:

I'm not saying anything's impossible, but I don't think it's just an operational or business decision, but it would affect the books, New York is such a character in our books.

In a less physical sense, will future movies stay as close to their comic sources as Iron Man? Kevin Feige says yes, kind of:

We always try to stay true to the comics, but we do make changes. I mean, Obidiah Stane didn't work for Stark Enterprises in the comic books. We try to stay true to the core aspects of each character.

On a similar note, Carla Hoffman, a Southern Californian retailer, asked why none of the Hulk comics out at the time of the release of The Incredible Hulk seemed to reflect what people could see in the film. Joe Quesada admitted that that had maybe been a misstep:

If you look at our track record, we normally do a good job of that. We can't bat a 1000 all the time.

Dan Buckley was less forgiving:

With Iron Man, we didn't have to change a lot with what we were already doing, and we thank Matt [Fraction, writer of The Invincible Iron Man] for that. With the Hulk, we've been publishing that kind of story for years and years, so we'd point people back to the trade paperbacks for that... We don't want to get to the point where we're corporately dictating to people what they're writing.

Did The Incredible Hulk movie live up to expectations? Feige:

It did, it absolutely did. We were very pleased with the response. We always said that if it made one dollar more than the last one did, it would be a success, and it made more than one dollar more. The Hulk will return.

Will he return in the Avengers? And, more importantly, who else will show up in The Avengers movie? Feige wasn't sharing:

We have [all the cast lined up], and you'll see them pop up together. That's the idea.

Could anyone confirm Jon Favreau was definitely working on Iron Man 2? Feige:

I can't comment on that. But it comes to, do we want fans back for Iron Man 2? There'll be an announcement soon.

On the comic side on things, apparently suggesting that Spider-Man made a deal with the Devil to retcon his marriage away in One More Day isn't something that makes people at Marvel happy. When a fan brought up the subject, Dan Buckley interrupted:

I think it's unfair to burden this all on Joe. I think it was incredibly brave of Joe to [draw it]. First of all, that story's not over... The consequences of happiness versus unhappiness haven't been dealt with. He didn't do a deal with the devil, [Mephisto] isn't the devil, he's a supervillain in the Marvel Universe.

Joe Quesada disagreed:

Go back and reread One More Day and tell me who made the deal with the Devil. Peter didn't make the deal with the Devil, Mary Jane did. This was a story that we HAD to do to get Peter to a particular place. The idea of a Faustian pact... This is a classic part of literature. I think it's great to bring up a conversation, if you have a 5 year old, it brings up a great conversation. They're all morality plays that bring up different ideas for you to deal with as you raise a child. I think it's a matter on how you deal with it.

For people looking forward to the upcoming Wolverine And The X-Men cartoon, producer Craig Kyle was happy to talk it up:

It's 21 episodes of continuity and five specials. The pay-off lasts four episodes, it's a really, really big show. I'm very proud of the show, it works the only way the X-Men works: Like the comic book. My plan was to kick the hell out of [the '90s cartoon].

The last question of the panel also proved to be the biggest surprise to the audience; asked if the Thor movie would play up the Norse God aspects of the character more than the superhero trappings, Kevin Feige said that, well, Thor isn't actually a god at all: He and all the other citizens of Asgard are actually just interdimensional beings. So now you know: According to Marvel, neither gods nor devils are anything more than interdimensional beings in supervillain outfits. I expect the new Mighty Marvel Age of Revised Aethiestic Morality to overwhelm America immediately.

The Wasp
Why we want to see her in the movies: There’s no way that Janet Van Dyne shouldn’t be in any Avengers project; one of the founding members of the team in the original comics, she’s stuck around during their entire history, even leading the team on occasion. There’s more to this society-dame-cum-fashion-designer that just being a lame Ant-Man-wannabe, you know.

Wonder Man
Why we want to see him in the movies: Really, it’s just that outfit. Yeah, you could get some pathos out of the story of a man whose attempt to get superpowers placed him in a death-like coma for years, making his brother become his own arch-enemy through misplaced grief, but I just want to see a superhero movie star a guy in a bright red safari jacket. I admit it.

Hawkeye
Why we want to see him in the movies: Handsome, cocky, a bit of a ladies man and even more of an asshole, he’s Han Solo with a bow and arrow. As an added bonus, if they rush the movie into production, he could spoil similar DC hero Green Arrow’s movie debut in Supermax.

Black Widow
Why we want to see her in the movies: The former Russian spy turned superhero didn’t lose any of her alluring wiles when she turned to the (American) good side. Pistol-packing and mysterious, she could be the perfect femme fatale role for budding actresses who aren’t Scarlett Johanssen, Frank Miller.

Starfox
Why we want to see him in the movies: The ideal comedic foil for the movie, Starfox is part of a race of genetically-altered humans called The Eternals, and his superpower is to make women fall in love with him. Sure, there’s more to it than that (It’s all about affecting the chemical balance in the brain, making people happier and more susceptible to suggestion or something), but come on. Who doesn’t see Adam Sandler in a bad wig already?

Tigra
Why we want to see her in the movies: She’s a half-cat, half-woman who fights crime wearing a bikini. Put her in the movie and finally we can judge the size of the furry portion of the movie-going public.

Beast
Why we want to see him in the movies: The rights issue may be a problem, considering he showed up in X-Men: The Last Stand, but just as Dr. Henry McCoy jumped teams in the comic books to become a star in his own right, so should his celluloid version. It’s not like Kelsey Grammer has anything else to do these days, anyway.

Mantis
Why we want to see her in the movies: Of all of Marvel’s characters, Mantis may have the oddest character arc – From Vietnamese prostitute to cosmic goddess “The Celestial Madonna” who ends up marrying an alien possessing and reanimating the corpse of her dead lover. I’d just want to see them try to make that into a movie.

Black Panther
Why we want to see him in the movies: There is absolutely no reason not to have him in the movies. The Panther – who was briefly renamed “Black Leopard” when Marvel became aware of the Black Panther Party – is the scientific equal of Iron Man, the physical equal of Captain America, and man enough for the X-Men’s Storm to fall in love with him. Basically, he’s Marvel’s Batman. Never mind Avengers, he should have his own movie.

So there you have it – Nine potential replacements for whichever big-name actor doesn’t sign on for the ensemble Avengers movie when it goes into production next year. Take that as a warning, Ed Norton.

In an interview with XSI Base Sims explained that Hulk's director, Louis Leterrier, had him chugging away at Hulk concept art even before there was a script.

Sims said he "started with a more basic human look, but still keeping with the iconic Hulk, and it grew from there. After that, I went really over the top to see how far we could push it, and then pulled it back to what you see in the movie."

The Abomination was very different from the comic and Sims explained that they wanted "it to look like it was growing from within and the bones and muscle would break through the skin."

[XSI and Concept Art World]

Is the rest of the world more ready for depressing ecological dystopias that fail to scare or thrill than the US? That would appear to be the message from this weekend's international movie box office results, where - unlike in the United States - M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening outgrossed rival The Incredible Hulk. But, just like Public Enemy once said, don't believe the hype. There's more to this clash of titans than meets the eye.

While it's true that The Happening made $32.1 million to Hulk's $31 million, Marvel's less-than-jolly green giant actually played in less theaters across the world and in each of those theaters, outperformed Shyamalan's dour eco-drama (The actual numbers: Happening played in 5714 theaters across 88 international markets, while Hulk was shown in 3165 theaters across 38 markets). In countries where both movies opened on the same day, Ed Norton's love letter to Bill Bixby outshone 91 minutes of Mark Wahlberg Vs. Trees on a fairly impressive level:

"The Happening" topped $1 million in 10 markets and scored first places in France with $4.7 million, in Spain with $3.8 million and in Italy with $1.9 million — with no competition from "The Incredible Hulk." It finished third in the U.K. with $3.4 million as "Hulk" easily won with $6.3 million and the third frame of "Sex and the City" took in $3.7 million.

"Hulk" generated socko Mexican biz, with $4.6 million, 86% higher than "The Happening," and Universal's biggest launch ever for that territory. The superhero pic also scored in the booming Russian market with $3.7 million, including U's biggest opening day ever on Thursday.

Universal noted "The Incredible Hulk" had easily outperformed 2003's "Hulk" in markets including South Korea, where it took $3.3 million, 88% up on its predecessor. "Hulk" grossed $113 million overseas by the end of its run. "Incredible Hulk" expands next weekend into Italy and Spain and won't face another superhero pic until Sony opens "Hancock" in early July.

The moral of this story for studio bosses? Perhaps it's "Rushing out your spooky-ooky movies worldwide before the big summer movies get released is a good idea," or maybe it's just "South Koreans apparently really, really wanted to see that new Hulk movie." Nonetheless, look at the combined grosses for the two movies and just imagine how big a movie version of Hulk vs. The Rain would be.

Happening beats Hulk overseas [Variety]

In its second weekend, Batman Begins only lost about 44 percent of its box office take, compared with a 63 percent drop-off for Batman And Robin. (And Superman Returns had a 58.5 percent drop-off.) So a lot depends, for the Hulk, on word-of-mouth and reviews. Can the Hulk crush Maxwell Smart this weekend? Few reviewers seem to be saying the Hulk is as great as Batman Begins, and it's possible most of the die-hard fans have seen TIH already. My guess is Hulk will end up doing almost as well as Superman Returns, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The other big surprise success of the weekend was M. Night Shyamalan's much-maligned The Happening, which scored $30.3 million, better than Unbreakable and Lady In The Water. The film will probably make back its $50 million budget, but its success may just hasten the slow death of Shyamalan's career, if the people who saw it decide never to brave one of his movies again. [Box Office Prophets and Box Office Mojo]

If Iron Man was about America's power overseas — specifically in Afghanistan, where much of the movie takes place — then the Incredible Hulk is about what happens to our soldiers when they come home. It's about the impossibility of transforming young men into "super-soldiers" and then expecting them to blend back in. Banner is on a hair-trigger not just because he's pissed off, but because he's traumatized by being under attack and on the run — and because military-sponsored experiments have made him fit only for battle. The whole movie is about Banner's rejection of his fighting-machine identity, and his fight against Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who embraces that same identity.

Actually, the new Hulk movie reminded me of nothing so much as Kimberly Peirce's underrated film Stop Loss — both in its depictions of post-traumatic stress, and in the frustrating opaqueness of its actors' performances. Stop Loss dramatizes over and over again how the Iraq war has left a group of soldiers basically unfit for civilian life. They hear gunfire everywhere, they jump at anything, they get fucked up and destroy private property, and they get into fights. In the end, the only environment they're suited for is one where people are constantly trying to kill them. PTSD isn't just an injury to the psyche, it's actually a feature of the constant readiness for shit to go down. PTSD is part of what makes you a better killer.

The idea that PTSD plays a role in Bruce's struggle with Hulkdom is nothing new. In the early Hulk comics, Bruce Banner is repressing tons of unfocused rage, which explodes out of him when he becomes the Hulk. But starting in the early 1980s, writers like Bill Mantlo and Peter David started exploring the idea that Bruce was really struggling with a lot of childhood trauma (from his abusive dad) and this was making him have multiple personalities. (The Hulk being a separate personality that just happens to be able to manifest physically.) And then, of course, Ang Lee decided to take the "abusive dad" backstory and make it into the front-story of his 2003 movie — with disastrous results.

One reason I can buy that Bruce Banner is traumatized, rather than full of repressed anger, is that Ed Norton doesn't seem repressed at all. He seems constantly pissed off and yet wounded at the same time. Sure, we spend a lot of time on his various efforts to control his anger — everything from a metronome to a cute dog — but the main emotion Norton projects is pain and frustration. His Banner is Jesus and Buddha rolled into one — he meditates a lot, he wanders through South America, homeless and scruffy, depending on alms, and he learns purely defensive martial arts so he can avoid having to fight.

We learn early on in the movie that Banner became the Hulk as part of a military experiment to create a new generation of "super-soldiers" — like the boy-scouty Captain America but a zillion times more destructive — and Banner was an early failure. The military wants to capture him so they can experiment on him and make better killers. But Bruce Banner isn't interested in becoming the ultimate killing machine — and that's why the military hates him.

This is a significant departure from the comics, where the military attacks the Hulk because he's constantly going on rampages and endangering innocent people. The comics stick pretty closely to the Godzilla paradigm: the Hulk is a giant monster, and the army has to try and stop him. He Hulks out for all sorts of reasons, and things get ugly when he does. In the movie, by contrast, Banner never, ever turns into the Hulk except when the army attacks him. If the army would just leave him alone, we're told in no uncertain terms, things would be fine.

And the Hulk isn't a particularly great killing machine, even apart from the fact that he only Hulks out when you fire a rocket launcher at him. He pretty much only fights in self defence in this movie, and never just goes on a tear. Even in his totally apeshit Hulk mode, he's pretty happy to live and let live. And he's mopey as often as he's angry — I lost count of how many times the Hulk looked sad, or tired, or just sort of emo, in the new movie. That's not to say the Hulk doesn't get super-violent in the new movie — he does, as you've probably seen in the trailers. He does the thunderclap-hands, he smashes a sonic-weapon truck, he rips a car in half and uses it as brass knuckles, etc.

So the military wants to turn the Hulk into a weapon, and make a ton of slightly more intelligent Hulks, to go and thrash anybody who fucks with America. The army, as personified by William Hurt's General "Thunderbolt" Ross and Roth's Blonsky, are green with envy (sorry) when they look at the Hulk. They don't see a menace to be vanquished, they see a world-beating ubermensch that could be them. And there are various moments when both Ross and Blonsky express disdain for Banner's pacifism and disgust at his unwillingness to revel in his power.

And it's not much of a spoiler that Blonsky embarks on a quest to turn himself into the Hulk's equal. There's a weirdly unconvincing scene, after the Hulk first trounces Blonsky's soldiers, where he's talking with General Ross. Blonsky remarks on the fact that Ross sent his team in cold, without telling them what they would be facing, and didn't equip them for the situation they were going into. The next logical statement ought to be, "so screw you and your suicide missions." Instead, Blonsky gets a twinkle in his eye and says he'd like another crack at the Hulk. And that's when Ross offers Blonsky his first shot at becoming a super-soldier himself.

About the only character development Blonsky gets is when we learn that he's at an age where he should have a desk job, but he just wants to keep fighting. The only thing he's good at is mayhem, and he wants to stick to what he knows. He's willing to pay the price — including some hideously painful injections, and a full-body fracture at one point — to keep kicking ass. The contrast between Blonsky's masochism and Banner's anguished trauma shows us the difference between a man who embraces his inner murderer, and one who rejects it.

There are two meta-issues that are hard to ignore when you're watching The Incredible Hulk. Ang Lee's Hulk movie only came out five years ago, and the new movie sort of acknowledges this by saying that Banner has been the Hulk for five years. It also retells the Hulk's origin very briskly in the opening credits, making some changes from the Lee version but mostly just establishing the basics. The other big meta-issue is the fight between star/co-writer Ed Norton and Marvel over the movie's edit. I went into the film thinking Marvel had probably saved us from a tedious angst-fest by slicing some of Norton's favorite scenes out of the movie, but then I was struck by how weirdly choppy it was in parts. I saw the film with someone who hadn't heard about the dispute, and she remarked afterwards that it felt as though some crucial scenes were edited out. (In particular, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) ditches her boyfriend to go off with Bruce, and it's never dealt with. We never even see the two of them talk about it at all. There are also a few individual scenes which feel jumpy.) I have a feeling the Ed Norton cut might actually be a lot more satisfying and interesting. And as fun as it is, TIH might be worth waiting to see on DVD, if your TV is big enough.

It's almost impossible to avoid comparing the Hulk to Iron Man: they're both about a guy who creates super-weapons and feels remorse. They both feature heroes whose bodies become the ultimate weapons. And they both show their main actors shirtless for long stretches as they obsess about their hearts — though Ed Norton is trying to keep his heart from speeding up, and Robert Downey Jr. is trying to keep his heart from stopping. Both heroes try to prevent anybody else from wielding the weapons they've created. And they both end up fighting an enemy who's similar to them, but more ruthless and bloodthirsty.

There are a few big differences between Iron Man and Incredible Hulk, though: Iron Man is more fun. (Iron Man has a heavy-metal score, I can barely remember Hulk's score but it was pretty standard orchestral music.) Iron Man is fairly pro-military and includes a sympathetic military character, Jim Rhodes, while the military characters in Hulk are pretty much all assholes. Iron Man transcends its comic book source material, while Hulk does justice to its comics origins without improving on them. Hulk has more random fuck-yeah moments than Iron Man, and they feel a bit more calculated — but that doesn't stop them being awesome. Bottom line: Hulk is better than 90 percent of superhero movies, but not as good as Batman Begins, Iron Man, Spider-Man 1 or 2, or the first two X-Men movies.

Marvel Comics leads the movie tie-ins with a couple of Hulk-related books. The wonderfully-named Hulk: Raging Thunder brings back Thundra (A superstrong Amazon who hated anything with a penis but had a crush on the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm, making you wonder about his particularly rocky manhood, and no, I promise I’m not making this up) and gives her a large green specimen of the less fair sex to beat up on. Gender issues have rarely been this violent, true believer! Luckily, the second gamma-irradiated launch this week deals with much more traditional superhero fare, like absent fathers and aliens having stupid names: Skaar, Son of Hulk spins out of the year-long “Planet Hulk” storyline and stars the half-alien bastard son of Bruce Banner’s alter ego, a teenager with green skin and smashing on his adolescent mind as he deals with life in outer space. How can you resist?

(Marvel’s really concentrating on the SF this week – They’re also putting out an anthology of Secret Invasion-related shorts called Who Do You Trust?, the first issue of a new series based on Jack Kirby’s awesome Eternals, a trade of the first half of Kirby’s run on that title, and a collection of the recent, zen, Silver Surfer series, In Thy Name. There’s also a hardback collection of the last Marvel Zombies series, as well. Yes, they are trying to bankrupt you.)

Dark Horse are also concentrating on the tie-in dollar, with a raft of Hellboy product. If the first issue of a new series starring Hellboy’s (former) employers, the BPRD, isn’t enough for you (It’s called War on Frogs, which should really be all you need to know), then there’s also a set of three miniature plastic figures of characters from the series. There's also the Hellboy Book and Figure Set, putting together a Hellboy action figure and hardback digest version of Hellboy's first adventure to make the perfect gift for the Guillermo Del Toro fan in your life.

DC, meanwhile, are throwing their weight behind The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told (a collection of stories from the history of Heath Ledger’s favorite Bat-villain.) Plus the first issue of the comic book version of NBC’s Chuck, proving that… well, they’re not really all about the multimedia this week after all. Much more interesting from Superman’s home team is the hardcover collection The Question: The Five Books of Blood, bringing Greg Rucka’s lesbian noir hero into her own for all of you faceless fetishists out there. She used to be on the Batman cartoon, do you think that counts…?

As ever, the full list of this week’s releases can be found here, with your very own low-tech comic store GPS being found here. Just remember, make sure that you're only buying something that has at least an option taken out on it.

As if you needed another reason to go and see The Incredible Hulk outside of the possibility of another gamma-irradiated box office bomb and a cameo from Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark, director Louis Letterier let slip a pretty big, previously-unknown, potential guest shot this weekend. One that ties in with both Iron Man and also two future Marvel movies. Spoilers after the jump.

According to an interview on G4's Attack of the Show, next weekend's Hulk movie may feature the first movie appearance of a certain star-spangled Avenger. Letterier explained:

Did you know that in Iron Man, there's the Captain America shield? Okay, good... In Hulk, you might see Captain America himself.

It's already been announced that we're going to get a movie tentatively called The First Avenger: Captain America in 2011, ahead of that summer's The Avengers team-up between Iron Man, Thor et al. Does the possible Cap cameo in Hulk mean that the Marvel movies are going down the Ultimates route of having the creation of the Hulk come from an attempt to duplicate the formula that created Captain America in the 1940s?

Expect all to be revealed this weekend.

Louis Leterrier Talks 'Hulk' [G4.com]

Tony Stark, ladies and gentleman. Robert Downey Jr. makes one of the many Marvel cameos that are slowly linking the movie versions of the Marvel Universe together. So who else is going to be cameoing in this movie, I wonder. And if this trend keeps on going, who will appear in the future Marvel picture The Avengers? [Moviebox]

[IESB]

Deflecting bullets and taking down a helicopter with one toss, the Hulk protects his lady love Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) who just happened upon the military attack in the park.

It speaks! Blonsky, in his altered state, chides the Hulk during their big-city throw down.

See a few seconds of Edward Norton changing.

Update: 5th Hulk Clip

Blonsky, when will you learn bullets and bombs are no match for the Hulk.
[Yahoo, MTV , IGN and Moviefone]