Was The Hulk's Cancelled '90s Film a Lost Classic?

 

A '90s Hulk film had big names attached, massive animatronics, and an unbelievable post-credits cameo. What happened? I revisit this week at CBR.

Spider-Man's Hollywood Issues Long Predate Sony

This week at CBR, I'm revisiting Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends for the first time -- an episode that also served as an Incredible Hulk pilot, and was inspired by a silly premise Stan could never let go of.

HULK #8 - November 1999

Death Match

Credits: Erik Larsen (writer), Ron Garney (penciler), Sal Buscema (inker), Steve Buccellato (colors), John Workman (letters)

Summary: Wolverine attacks the Hulk, temporarily blinding him, only to have the Hulk crush the claws on his left hand. During their fight, Tyrranus regains control of the Hulk, forcing him to grow more ferocious. Wolverine leads Hulk into an abandoned mine, where the Hulk inadvertently releases a gas that reverts him into Bruce Banner. Banner explains that Tyrranus is the person responsible for the Hulk’s recent rages, and Wolverine agrees to let Banner go in order to stop him.

Continuity Notes: Apocalypse’s newest Horseman of Death watches the fight via videoscreen. This is, of course, the real Wolverine. The mystery man standing next to Death mentions that Hulk once served as Apocalypse’s Horseman of War, and orders Death to take care of him.

Review: Hulk #8 ended up directly crossing over with Wolverine after Erik Larsen was given the job at the last minute. Former writer John Byrne and new editor Tom Brevoort had a mysterious disagreement (some of the rumors that went around online were hilarious), that ended with Byrne leaving the book. As I recall, Marvel’s official line was that Byrne quit, while Byrne claimed he had been fired. Regardless, Hulk was up for a new writer, and world’s biggest Hulk fanboy Erik Larsen eagerly campaigned for the job. He didn’t get it, but he was given one issue to fill in; I believe Wolverine was always supposed to guest star this issue, so it made sense.

The issue is, not surprisingly, an extended fight scene. Larsen does throw in a bit of human interest in two scenes, one that has a series of narrative captions describe the life of the fifteen-year-old girl the Hulk is close to killing, and a TV news montage that shows various reactions to the Hulk, but this is clearly all about the fighting. Hulk fans seemed to hate this issue, apparently because Hulk “wasn’t strong enough” (a complaint Hulk fans seemed to make a lot in this era) during the fight. Larsen allows Wolverine to hurt Hulk temporarily by stabbing his eyes and clawing him in the groin, which seems reasonable to me, but it certainly seemed to make people angry. What the fans chose to ignore is the overall flow of the battle, which often has Wolverine running away from Hulk and avoiding his giant fists.

The action is effectively rendered by Ron Garney (with great inks by Hulk legend Sal Buscema), so even if the fight feels a little long, it certainly looks nice. The main problem with the story is the ending, which not only has a mysterious gas conveniently reverting Hulk into Banner, but Wolverine casually walking away after Banner explains Tyrranus’ plan to him. Wolverine’s discovered that a bloodthirsty supervillain is mind-controlling the Hulk, and his response is to wish Banner luck and go along on his merry way? I’m not saying I want an extended, editorially mandated Wolverine/Hulk crossover, but surely Wolverine would’ve done something to help out.

X-MAN & THE INCREDIBLE HULK ‘98 - August 1998

Call of the Wild

Credits: Terry Kavanagh (writer), ChrisCross (penciler), Caesar, Keith Williams, & Hector Collazo (inks), Comicraft (letters), Mark Bernardo (colors)

Summary: Still enraged after the death of Betty Banner, the Hulk tears through the Southwest until he reaches the Grand Canyon. Simultaneously, X-Man reaches Stonehenge while touring Europe. Both hear messages from Thanos, who is trapped in another dimension. X-Man uses his telekinesis to reach through the dimensional gap and strike Thanos. Hulk, who’s considering Thanos’ partnership offer, jumps through the dimensional breach and attacks X-Man. When Hulk realizes that Thanos always intended to double-cross him, he joins forces with X-Man. United, the heroes send Thanos back to his shadow dimension and return home.

Review: Another forgotten team-up annual, this one pairs the post-Peter David/killing-time-until-the-John Byrne-relaunch Hulk with…X-Man. Sure, why not? Before Kavanagh gets to the plot, he spends several pages establishing the respective status quos of the heroes, which is rare for an annual, since scheduling demands usually force them to use “light” continuity. As Kavanagh is the regular writer of X-Man, and Incredible Hulk is stuck in filler mode, this story doesn’t have to take place in a generic “recent past,” because Kavanagh has a pretty good idea of what will be going on when the issue is released.

Kavanagh doesn’t give the Hulk a lot to do -- he talks to Rick and Marlo, gets mad when he thinks about Betty, then jumps around for a few pages -- but in one poignant scene, Kavanagh does toss out the idea that the Hulk is starting to forget Betty’s face. This isn’t the dumb, childlike Hulk who might forget those details, this is the Hulk who…well, no one seemed to know how to define the Hulk after Betty’s death. He appears to be the surly, angry Hulk of the early issues, with Banner’s intellect perhaps subdued by the rage he feels following Betty’s death. However, he’s still able to make jokes, which isn’t indicative of someone blinded by anger. (I don’t think Hulk’s state of mind is conclusively dealt with until Paul Jenkins’ run, over a year later.) X-Man, meanwhile, is bumming around Europe, dealing with the loss of his telepathic powers. These scenes are surprisingly readable, considering how poorly the idea was conveyed in the monthly series. Instead of throwing X-Man into pointless fight scenes, Kavanagh spends some time exploring how X-Man gets around Europe without his usual tricks -- instantly translating everyone’s speech and telepathically sneaking his way past the border guards. He also has to wonder now if everyone’s secretly laughing at his hair.

When the story really begins, we’re expected to believe the Hulk is willing to join forces with Thanos in order to gain control of the vague “power” that’s being offered to him. Presumably, he wants to use this power to revive Betty, which would work as an understandable motivation. The story never explicitly says this is his goal, though, and based solely on Thanos’ spiel, it could be interpreted that Hulk is joining him on a “rule the world” quest. Either way, the Hulk looks foolish for siding with him. When X-Man senses Thanos’ evil, he’s adamant that the Hulk can’t join him, which leads to the obligatory hero vs. hero fight. This lasts until the Hulk realizes that Thanos was using him all along (!!!!), the heroes team up, and the bad guy is defeated. No surprises there, but ChrisCross’ kinetic art suits the fight scenes perfectly, and I have to admit that I like the sheer ridiculousness of X-Man creating “psionic armor” for the Hulk during the final battle. Clearly, this isn’t profound, but it works as a “big fight” comic, and the artist is perfectly suited for the material.

ONSLAUGHT Crossovers Part Four – September 1996

Green Goblin #12 (DeFalco/Hood/Fisher/Novak/Wright) – This is a very old-school superhero story starring Phil Urich, the short-lived “slacker” hero Goblin. Like many of the crossover issues, the Onslaught storyline is simply used as a setup for having the hero fight Sentinels. In this case, Green Goblin faces off against just one Sentinel, and spends several pages before the fight debating over whether or not to even get involved. The Goblin predictably overcomes his fears and defeats the Sentinel, but the story does acknowledge that his victory is ultimately futile, and the battle also damages the mask that gives him his powers. It’s capably written by DeFalco, although the hip, young dialogue is occasionally grating. The art is a goofy McFarlane/Madureria pastiche, which also dates the book badly.

Incredible Hulk #445 (David/Medina/Riggs/Starkings & Comicraft/Oliver) – The Hulk and a few of the Avengers launch a failed attack on Onslaught, in a story that could’ve come across as pointless time killer, but David manages to pull off. As Hulk and the Avengers approach Onslaught, he creates a mental illusion of a fight where Hulk defeats him, but only after his allies are killed. Onslaught connects everyone to the Hulk’s mind, revealing that Hulk’s concern for his partners’ lives is overshadowed by his joy in defeating Onslaught. It reinforces the Avengers’ belief that the Hulk really is a heartless monster, which is exactly what he was trying to disprove. David makes the futility of their mission an actual plot point, which is one creative way to deal with an intrusive crossover.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK #444 – August 1996

Cablevision
Credits: Peter David (writer), Angel Medina (penciler), Robin Riggs (inker), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (lettering), Glynis Oliver & Malibu (colors)

Summary: Storm chases the savage Hulk, who leapt away with Cable. They land inside a warehouse, where Hulk prepares to finish him. Before he delivers the final blow, he sees a Bettie Paige poster on the wall. The name reminds the Hulk of his wife, momentarily distracting him and giving Cable a chance to enter his mind. On the Astral Plane, Cable faces a giant boulder with the Hulk’s face. He’s knocked down by the boulder and forced to return to the real world. A weakened Cable asks the warehouse employees for help, but they run away. Cable flashes back to his childhood and remembers a wounded enemy soldier who asked him for help. Cable ran to get help, but was too late to save him. He wonders if some part of him wanted his enemy to die, so he didn’t make a real effort to help him. Back in the present, Storm and Cable devise a plan to jolt the Hulk’s brain with electricity as Cable enters his mind. The end result apparently kills the Hulk. Storm encourages Cable to leave him behind, but Cable refuses. He once again enters the Hulk’s mind and faces the giant boulder. He breaks it apart and frees Bruce Banner, who was hidden inside. Storm uses lightning to restart the Hulk’s heart, which revives his true personality. The Hulk leaves with Storm and Cable on their jet, swearing revenge on Onslaught.

Continuity Note: Storm is wearing the wrong costume on cover, but the interior art uses the right reference. For some reason, I seemed to recall she wore the wrong costume for the entire issue, but I must’ve confused this issue with another comic.

Review: This is another all-fight issue with Cable and the Hulk, but David attempts to turn it into more than just an extended fight scene. One of the methods he uses is to have Cable narrate the story. David has solid grasp of the character, pulling off the “jaded soldier who wants to move beyond violence” angle that became Cable’s focus after Liefeld left. He also uses a flashback to give the issue some sense of depth, making it a story about finding the courage to preserve an enemy’s life. The flashback does feel a little tacked on (this supposedly pivotal moment in Cable’s life is just given a few panels in the middle of a page), but the ending calls back to it in a nice way. While the previous installment of this crossover was content to let large images and relentless action sell the story, David is more ambitious and the story is better off for it.

Medina’s art can’t handle the action as dramatically as Churchill did in the previous chapter, so David’s decision to give Cable an internal conflict is just as well. The storytelling remains clear throughout the issue, but Medina’s attempts at adding cartooning to more traditional superhero art look bland and fairly unattractive for the most part. The art style also seems to change within the issue itself, as Cable is initially drawn with somewhat realistic proportions and lots of detail lines, but ends up with a giant block chin and a more angular design towards the end. The Hulk himself is ridiculously oversized throughout the issue, but I think this was the standard method for portraying him by the mid-90s. Speaking of the Hulk, I imagine fans of his series were likely disappointed in this issue, since only one subplot receives brief attention and the star himself remains a mindless pawn for the entire issue. As a continuation of a Cable storyline, this isn’t bad at all, but I’m sure this was a needless distraction for Incredible Hulk readers.