The SmarK DVD Rant for the Incredible Hulk (Animated)
– You may have noticed a bit of a flood of Hulk-related material on the DVD market lately, what with the movie coming out this weekend and all. Three of the DVD sets out there deal with the cheesy 78-82 live-action series with Bill Bixby that everyone knows. I’m not a huge fan of that show, so I instead stuck with my usual pattern of buying the animated DVD sets from Disney instead.
By the way, I loved the movie. People complained that the first 40 minutes or so were too dull, but it’s called “character development”. And there’s this other thing, called “plot”, that’s also in there, too. Daredevil’s producers might want to look into that before the second one comes out. And once everyone’s motivation was well-established (there’s basically 5 characters in the movie — six if you count Hulk — and they all have very well-defined goals and personalities) then Ang Lee lets loose with good old mindless violence and it makes the rest of the movie a blast. Especially with his goofy split-screen comic-panel framing and crazy camera angles.
Anyway, since Disney has never met a tie-in opportunity that it didn’t like, they quickly followed the release of the feature film with the animated version, much like with their releases of Spider-Man and X-Men animated DVDs. The result, as always, is very satisfying.
The Film:
Taken from the short-lived 1996 animated series on UPN, this DVD features the first four episodes of the 21-episode run of the show. Staying pretty faithful to the early comics for the first season before turning into utter pigshit with the Grey Hulk and She-Hulk material in the final 7 episodes, it’s a shame that the show wasn’t successful enough to avoid the tinkering that generally results from low ratings.
I’m sure everyone by now knows the story of the Hulk, a modern-day Jekyll & Hyde character created by monkeying with the forces of gamma radiation when you’re not supposed to. It’s also the standard Marvel outsider tale, as Hulk is persecuted by the government and considered a threat to national security. This makes for simple, but effective, stories where the theme is same for much of them: Banner tries to find a cure, he gets angry, HULK SMASH.
The episodes are as follows:
The Return of the Beast, Part I: In the debut episode, they jump right into things, as Banner is trying yet another radical experiment to cure himself when the army (headed by General Ross and Major Talbot) cut off his power supply and trigger his transformation into the Hulk. As usual, a huge war between Hulk and the military ensues, until Hulk can be calmed down by Betty Ross enough to listen to reason as Bruce Banner again. And since their goals are the same (get rid of Hulk) Ross & Banner agree to work together to try his new theory about a gamma blast changing him back to normal. However, the Leader and the Gargoyle both have other plans for the Hulk’s gamma-induced powers, and to stop the experiment from succeeding they unleash the Abomination.
The Return of the Best, Part II: As things go awry with the experiment, Ross decides to use the gamma-blast generator as a weapon against Hulk, while he battles the Abomination. Eventually he flees to the desert, where he meets a group of animals who were also caught in the same gamma explosion that turned him into the Hulk, and they form a sort of mutant freak clubhouse. However, the Leader waits for him to turn into Banner again, and kidnaps him in order to siphon off his gamma powers for himself, leaving Rick Jones & Betty Ross as the rescue team along with some gamma-mutated hired help, of course. A great opener, featuring the big Hulk villain, some HUGE battles with the rampaging Hulk just kicking the crap out of the army, and an introduction to his origin and the main players.
Raw Power: Hulk rampages into Nevada, where he comes across dorky wannabe-scientist Mitch, who sneaks him into the research facility where he works as an operations guy. Banner tries yet another far-fetched theory about preventing his transformation, but this one backfires and turns Mitch into a human power-source called Zzzax, and soon his friendship with Banner is forgotten as he goes (literally) mad with power and heads for Hoover Dam for the ultimate juice-up. Betty of course manages to convince Hulk that saving lives is the best way to go, and soon they have a showdown with Hulk needing to figure out how to stop a creature made of electricity near a giant pool of water hmm .
Helping Hand, Iron Fist. Our first guest-hero of the series features Iron Man (as you might guess by the title), when Bruce goes Hollywood and journeys to LA in search of Stark Enterprises. General Ross quickly follows him there, but Banner is under the protection of Stark, and Stark has a LOT of firepower (not the least of which is himself and War Machine), resulting in another huge battle that allows Hulk to smash some stupid robots. Hulk hates stupid robots. And of course, Banner’s latest experiment to make himself normal again is halted at the last minute by General Ross’ meddling.
Basically, just four fun, solid episodes of Hulk getting pissed off and smashing the crap out of everything in his way. In fact, the first two episodes will bear a striking resemblance to some of the shots in the new movie, mainly the desert battle. If you want the action and fun of the Hulk without the dialogue and plot dragging it down, this is the cartoon for you. Terrific stuff, that sadly would not carry on through the rest of the uninspired series.
The Video:
Much like the Spider-Man releases, this is a direct dump of the original video releases (these were all put on the VHS versions of the Spider-Man series as “bonus episodes”) with the colors brightened a little bit. Dust and scratches on the negatives is still there, but I doubt the target audience in Disney’s mind (kids under 16) will notice much. I really wish they’d put more effort into cleaning these releases up, however, ala Rhino and their awesome restorations of GI Joe and Transformers.
The Audio:
Check this out — instead of the 2.0 stereo of the Spider-Man DVDs, this is actually full Dolby Surround (3.0) and a pretty aggressive mix at that! The mono surround channel is used to full effect, as Hulk’s destruction carries over to the rears along with the music. It’s not 5.1 by a longshot, but for a cheaply-made animated series, you get some pretty impressive surrounds going. A nice surprise.
The Extras:
Yet another wrinkle is added to Disney’s treatment of these releases, as in addition to Stan Lee’s Soapbox (found on all the previous Marvel DVDs, although very abbreviated this time around) you get a trivia track! Yup, every time an icon of Hulk appears, you hit enter to get Peter David (one of my favorite writers, be it Star Trek or comics) dropping a bit of info about the backstory of the characters, differences from the comics, or just a general smart-ass remark about the situation. The DVD also boasts an “Exclusive interview with Peter David” which turns out to be literally 30 seconds long. Plus, as you’d expect, you get a bonus episode from the 60s of the original Hulk cartoon, which is so laughably bad that I had to turn it off after 10 minutes. Basically it’s still frames from the comics “animated” by moving the camera and altering the shape of the mouths (ala South Park). The theme song’s pretty catchy, though.
Again, I want a DAMN STAN LEE COMMENTARY one of these times, but they’re getting closer, I guess.
The Ratings:
The Film: ****
The Video: **1/2
The Audio: ***1/2
The Extras: ***
