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That's one of the things I do appreciate about Eric Bana's performance in HULk, was that he did a good job in evoking some sense of having repressed rage throughout the movie. Which was largely absent with Norton's and Ruffalo's versions. With the origin in the 2003 film, I guess you can say it was a balance of the Bixby version and the comic book origin. As Bana's Banner clearly has inner rage, and is oftentimes aloof and distant, but his gamma exposure isn't due to his own reckless mania, but in saving a fellow co-worker from what would be logically perceived as certain death. Giving Bruce a element of heroism without going full blown Lee/Kirby with it.

It must have been ten or fifteen years since I last watched Ang Lee's Hulk right the way through. It's high time I dusted off the DVD and reappraised it. From what I remember, Lee's approach also had a strong emphasis on psychology. I felt both the 2003 and 2008 movies did a decent job of keeping the dramatic focus on the title character's internal struggles, while also presenting super powered action scenes to entertain the popcorn crowd. Neither film, from what I recollect, strayed too far from Kenneth Johnson's approach. Had Johnson had more money and resources back in the 1970s and 80s, perhaps he would have occasionally featured villains like Abomination. The two-part story 'The First' was the closest the TV series came to something like that.

I've been on a Hulk binge over the past week. I've been re-reading Greg Pak's run on the comics. Currently I'm halfway through World War Hulk, which is better than I remembered. I've also replayed Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (right now I'm stuck on the final boss fight against Abomination at the dam). And of course I re-watched the 1977 TV movie. When it comes to my preferred Hulk media, I've noticed I tend to like stories that are either very grounded or very out there. My favourite Hulk comic is Planet Hulk, yet my favourite live action Hulk is the Bixby/Ferrigno version. Is there a contradiction there?

Not necessarily. Planet Hulk is less a story about Banner than the Hulk, and the Hulk fits in with the science fantasy setting of Sakaar – a world of monsters. In such a context, Banner serves to represent something in the Hulk's psyche. In comparison, the Bixby Hulk franchise was really about Banner, who obviously fits in better on Earth than he would on Sakaar. With the Bixby series, the Hulk represents something in Banner's psyche. In short, stories about Banner work better when grounded, while stories about the Hulk work better in a more fantastical context. The Bixby series focuses on Banner, so the grounded approach works. Younger comic fans who dismiss the TV show based on the lack of Hulk action are missing the point.

By virtue of being a part-reboot, part-continuation, old story beats are bound to be retread. Season 3 saw Kingpin taken out of the picture, but this season brings him back. I feel like the universe has much more to offer than just the Kingpin - as much as it makes sense to keep falling back on one of your most successful characters.

I like how Kingpin was handled in the second season of the Netflix show. He was still present, but biding his time in prison while other villains took centre stage. If BA s2 follows the Devil's Reign arc, as I'm confident it will, then it should end with a decisive defeat of Kingpin. That will leave room at the top for a new villain to take the crown. In the comics Byron 'Butch' Fisk became the next Kingpin, and I've a suspicion Daniel Blake might be in line for a similar role in the MCU.

There are still plenty of classic Daredevil comic villains they've yet to adapt in live action. One of the worst myths about DD is that he has a weak gallery of rogues. That was true in the Silver Age, but nowadays I'd argue he has the second best roster of enemies of any Marvel hero after Spider-Man. He's got Kingpin, Elektra, the Hand, the Owl, Jester, Bullseye, Muse, the Punisher, Echo, Mister Fear, Gladiator, Typhoid Mary and Purple Man, to name but a few.

The proof of this is the way Marvel Studios keeps taking Daredevil's enemies – and in some cases his stories – and using them in other heroes' TV shows. I don't begrudge Jessica Jones for using Purple Man, as he was the main antagonist in the original Alias comic, but I'm less tolerant of them using Nuke as well. Iron Fist made prominent use of the Hand in both seasons, and the second season adapted elements from Ann Nocenti's Typhoid Mary arc, including the title villain herself. Kingpin and Echo were used in the Hawkeye series, which also adapted plot points from David Mack's Parts of a Hole. Mister Hyde was used in the second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Leap-Frog was used in She-Hulk.

Despite all this, there are still plenty of classic villains the makers of BA could use in future seasons. The two villains I'd most like to see Cox's Daredevil face would be Mister Fear and Typhoid Mary. The Larry Cranston Mister Fear would be a good fit for the 'Out' storyline, which I think the next season of BA might lead into. As for Typhoid, I'm happy for Alice Eve to reprise the role provided they bring her characterisation more in line with the comics. Give her the twin samurai swords, the face paint and the multiple personalities, not to mention her powers of pyrokinesis and telekinesis. Mary Walker was Kingpin's bodyguard during the Mayor Fisk and Devil's Reign arcs, so BA s2 offers a good place to bring her back.

and Matt flippantly tried to kill a guy with no real buildup or repercussons. He had no idea Bullseye would be fine after pushing him off a building. That was sure lucky.

That scene was yet another example of BA repeating something they'd already done in the Netflix show. Season three ended with Kingpin breaking Bullseye's spine and Dex undergoing some kind of reconstructive surgery. Comic fans assumed his skeleton was being laced with Adamantium, as that's what happened in the comics after Daredevil dropped him off a roof in Frank Miller's 'Last Hand' (DD V1 #181).

If Bethel's Bullseye now has Adamantium like his comic book counterpart, that would explain how he survived being pushed off the roof. The question is did Matt know Bullseye would survive? The comic book Daredevil could detect the Adamantium in Bullseye's body using his super senses, and the MCU version should be able to sense it too. Or did Matt momentarily lose control and try to kill Bullseye? Was that breaking of his moral code the reason he retired?

The show wasn't terribly clear on this point. I'd like to see the writers revisit Matt's actions in BA season two and confront what happened in more depth. For other heroes this might not seem particularly important, but for Matt Murdock it's a significant enough moral issue to warrant addressing.

The Punisher subplot also comes off like it's chasing a trend from five years ago with the social media "controversy" of cops using the Punisher skull. To be fair, there was precedent for a heavy-handed paramilitary force appropriating the Punisher's image (from the first Punisher miniseries), but that's an example of a series that would have been better adapted on its own rather than portions added into a Daredevil series as an afterthought.

I would have liked the corrupt police storyline to have been more nuanced. Aside from the old commissioner, the cops in the BA were depicted as plain evil and psychotic. It's one thing to have them stepping outside the law because they think it's the only way to help the city. Getting their hands dirty to get the job done, like Malone in The Untouchables. But a lot of what they did was just torture and murder. And the way they stood around watching as Kingpin crushed the skull of their old boss undermined any sense of moral righteousness motivating their actions. The Netflix show also featured corrupt cops, but handled the subject in a more subtle and believable manner.

My first exposure to The Incredible Hulk's pilot movie was renting the VHS from the kids section of the video. Make no mistake that wasn't misplaced there or that it crossed with the family section. I could tell right away this was no kids show when it opened with Banner's nightmare about his wife being killed in an automobile accident. It's remarkable to me how compelling the story was to me at that age and a credit to Johnston how he elevated the material from the source.

That prologue still packs a punch now. It immediately hooks the viewer and makes us sympathise with Banner, similar to how the beginning of the first John Wick movie uses the title character's personal tragedy to get us on his side. The opening sequence also establishes the psychological foundation of Banner's drive to unlock the superhuman potential hidden in his DNA. We see how that drive is rooted in past trauma and his failure to save his wife.

The grief of the prologue is later heartbreakingly echoed in the film's finale. I love the extra twist of tragedy where Banner can't remember the Hulk's memories – Elaina uses her dying breath to profess her love for Banner, but he doesn't remember her doing so because he was in Hulk mode when she said it. Then in the final scene we see him conjecturing that she might have loved him, but now he'll never know for certain. That uncertainty adds an extra note of anguish to the film's already sad ending. You seldom find writing that good in modern Marvel films.

I know many fans criticise Johnson for downplaying the more fantastical elements of the source material. And while I'm usually one for embracing comic book excess, this is one instance where the more grounded approach clearly worked. Could they have made a more comic bookish show where the Hulk regularly fought super villains? Maybe. But it would've been pretty goofy and wouldn't have had the same emotional and psychological depth as what Johnson delivered.

Johnson cited Victor Hugo's Les Misérables as an influence on the series, and the format also was clearly indebted to The Fugitive. I imagine Universal's Wolf Man movie series must have been an influence as well, as there are obvious parallels between Lon Chaney Junior's Larry Talbot and Bixby's Banner. The common factor with all of these influences in the emphasis on relatable human suffering – trauma, grief, loneliness, displacement – which I expect would've been diluted if the show had veered too far into FX-driven fantasy. The 1970s Hulk stands up precisely because it tried to be a serious science fiction show and not a goofy monster mash. It took a potentially ridiculous premise and made it frighteningly believable.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) offers us a glimpse of what a more comic bookish Hulk series might have been like. And while that movie is fun (I still have my childhood VHS copy), it's hardly on the same dramatic level as the 1977 film.

I'll parrot what's been said here, in that I too believe that Kenneth Johnson elevated the source material (along with Bill Bixby, as Johnson has stated several times that Bixby was absolutely adamant that Johnson stick to the original Hulk pitch, and not allow the network to succeed the show into a failure via meddling), and origin of the Hulk. Having Banner being a individual suffering from PTSD, survivor's guilt, frustration with one self, and subsequently becoming a cursed victim of his own unwavering mania, gave the origin of the Hulk a much more profound effect and way more of a hook for general audiences to grasp than the outright hilarity the original Lee/Kirby origin provided back in 1962.

Straying from the source material, oftentimes, is frowned upon more often these days, but there are examples where I think providing a divergence from the comic book-to-live action transition actually boosts the material for the better. This is one of them.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who prefers the TV show's origin to the comic book version.

It's very telling that when it came time to introduce the MCU Hulk they opted for the origin story from the TV show over the comics. Only in the MCU I don't recall them ever referencing Bruce being a widower. In the 1977 film, the initial spark of rage that sets him on the path to becoming the Hulk is rage at himself; anger at his lack of strength, his inadequacy and inability to save his wife. That's what drives his obsessive work ethic, pushing him to recklessly experiment on himself. That unchecked rage subsequently grows and manifests in the form of the Hulk. But it all begins with that tragic car crash that took his wife away from him. The MCU Hulk, as far as I remember, doesn't have that drive.

WB have waited around for Matt Reeves to the point of stupidity in my opinion. If he has personal issues or is just plain lazy it doesn't matter - momentum for this early years Batman story has been hit hard. Make Part II a conclusion or just move on right now.

Lately there was a social media spat between Grace Randolph and X-Men '97 showrunner Beau DeMayo concerning Matt Reeves. It sounds like he's battling serious health issues, with Randolph going so far as to compare his situation to that of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman. DeMayo called Randolph out for saying this, but in doing so seemingly verified that Reeves' health is in a precarious state. We'll just have to keep him in our thoughts and prayers and hope he pulls through whatever it is he's battling.

Unfortunately this means the Batman II script still hasn't been completed. WB CEO Pam Abdy recently said the following:

"We have a bit of other collaboration with Matt Reeves, but Peter and James know he is a writer-directing auteur in his own right, and that it will come when he's written his best Batman script and is ready."

https://movieweb.com/the-batman-part-2-cancelation-rumors-addressed/

It's also rumoured that James Gunn isn't too keen on the idea of multiple cinematic Batmen and would perhaps prefer for Reeves' iteration to be shelved. Whether that's true or not is anyone's guess. But given the overwhelmingly positive reception of The Penguin, some are suggesting the Reevesverse should continue on the small screen, focusing on TV projects instead of movies. That way it could forge its own path without competing with the big screen Batman.

All I really needed Gunn to do, is to get out of his comfort zone, and truly swing for the fences. If this is the start of your planned DCU, let's aspire to try something a little different, and not rely on playing it safe with MCU-style humor and quips (MCU-style quips is just beyond tired at this point, and with so many movies aping it, it's just killing movies altogether ... but the director is one of the main architects of this style of humor, so that's expecting waaay too much lol), smashing things together (we've seen this a lot and the fall out has been incredibly mixed), and having a overabundance of characters the movie seriously doesn't need.

Progression in recent years, seems to be not to not get rid of the poison pill, but to simply get better at coating it in sugar. Still, the end result remains the same.

Many pop culture commentators are saying we're in the age of cinematic slop. We've gone through the age of cinematic woke, and now we're in a new age of bland, anodyne CGI-filled slop that doesn't do anything new, fails to engage the viewer emotionally or intellectually, and is best experienced as background noise while doing something more productive. I watched both Black Adam and Morbius last year, and they're perfect examples of slop.

My main concern for this film is that it could turn out to be slop like WB's other recent DC adaptations. That it'll tick a lot of technical boxes without engaging me intellectually or making me care about what's happening. I remember how upset I felt as a kid watching Superman relinquish his powers in Superman II, knowing what a mistake he was mistaking. I remember how distressing it was seeing him get beaten up in that diner, and then having a feeling of hope when he returned to confront Zod in Metropolis. Then feeling that hope falter as he fought the Phantom Zone criminals to a stalemate, sighed with frustration and fled the battlefield. Then the feeling of elation when he outwitted his foes during the finale. I want to feel emotionally hooked like that when I watch the new film.

So far we know very little about the movie's plot. All of the marketing has been structured around conveying a certain feel, but hasn't really told us much about the kind of story we can expect. I don't want too much to be shown in advance, or to have the plot ruined, but it would be nice to know something about the direction the story's heading in. Just a one-line elevator pitch would suffice. The story really is a deal breaker for me. There are so many great stories in the comics they could adapt, there's no excuse for giving us a retread of one we've already seen adapted.

Seems to me that if anybody was ever going to do up a proper comic book Batcave, it would've been Joel Schumacher. If you pay close attention, the Batcave scenes in B&R take place on a lower level, implying that the upper level was still being repaired after the destruction caused by the Riddler in BF. As a teenager, I hoped that if Schumacher ever made a sequel to B&R, that he'd include the dinosaur, the giant penny and all that stuff. Maybe Robin's BF costume on display in a glass case.

Schumacher also showed the river running through the cave where the Batboat was kept. And in Batman & Robin Bruce alludes to a training simulator. We never see it, but I like to imagine that somewhere in Schumacher's Batcave there's an area similar to the X-Men's Danger Room where Batman and Robin train. Perhaps a Holodeck-like VR chamber.

There's also the raised Titanic, statues of Superman's various allies, the vault of truly dangerous weapons/technology, various incomplete maps of sections of the Phantom Zone, a portal/viewer into the Phantom Zone, samples of various types of Kryptonite for Superman's research into a cure/antidote/vax, a memorial to Krypton as part of the Jor-El/Lara statue thing, a science lab and probably other stuff I'm forgetting.

Grant Morrison managed to incorporate a lot of these things into his All-Star run. And since Morrison's stories appear to be the primary influence on this film, hopefully that means we'll see some of them in the new movie. It would be very cool to see Superman and Lois having dinner on the Titanic.

My earliest memory of The Incredible Hulk is watching the pilot movie back in the late eighties and being terrified by the scene where the girl's sitting on the riverbank and turns to see the Hulk towering over her. I must have been three or four when I first saw that, and for years afterwards I was terrified of the Jolly Green Giant.

I've just re-watched the 1977 TV movie and I think it's aged rather well. It's easy to dismiss it as just a pilot, but it has a more filmic quality than the episodes that followed. It feels more like a movie than a TV episode and in some countries it even received a theatrical release.

Comic fans hoping for lots of action and super powered fight scenes will be disappointed. Writer and director Kenneth Johnson took the basic premise of the Hulk comics and then built his own version from the ground up. The result is a psychological horror film that's got less in common with typical superhero fare than it does with Cronenbergian sci-fi thrillers such as Scanners (1981) and The Fly (1986). It's a dark drama exploring themes of PTSD, bereavement and survivor's guilt. It begins and ends with tragedy, and the pathos evoked in the final scene exceeds the emotional depth of any of the modern Hulk movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEizV2_gdPo

The Hulk's origin in the comic, where Banner survived a gamma radiation bomb, was always a bit silly. I like how the TV movie takes a more thoughtful approach to his transformation. Here he's studying rare displays of superhuman strength and identifies a common genetic trait in the test subjects. Banner himself possesses the same DNA trait, but not the strength. He looks deeper and discovers a correlation between the special DNA pattern, the occurrence of superhuman strength, and higher amounts of gamma radiation resulting from solar activity. To test his theory, he exposes himself to gamma radiation in an attempt to awaken his genetic potential and access his latent super strength.

I find this a far more interesting back story than simply having him survive a bomb blast. Exposing himself to such high levels of gamma radiation, without supervision or safeguards, and without first consulting his colleagues, is clearly a foolish thing to do. But I can believe Bixby's Banner would do it, given the psychological and emotional context of his bereavement and the effect it had on his research. In the comic he was exposed to gamma radiation by accident while saving Rick Jones, but in the movie he intentionally did it to himself and must live with the consequences of his mistake. This rewrite of the Hulk's origin story shifts the TV movie away from the science fantasy of Stan Lee's comic and into the realm of more mature science fiction.

The 1977 movie is also very well made. The first transformation scene during the storm is particularly well shot and edited and remains a very creepy sequence. The acting is good too, and it's not hard to see why Bixby became so iconic in the lead role. It's also interesting to see Banner interacting with Jack McGee in the film, as throughout the television series he'd consistently avoid contact with him. McGee comes off as particularly slimy in the movie, with the tragic ending being a direct consequence of his actions. I don't recall him ever being held to account for Elaina's death, but he should have been.

The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989) remains my favourite Hulk movie (no prizes for guessing why), but if we're discussing which Hulk film is objectively the best I'd say it's a toss-up between the 1977 TV film and the 2008 theatrical movie. I also think the 1977 film ranks favourably on the overall list of 1970s comic book movies. I wouldn't rank it as high as Superman (1978) or Tales from The Crypt (1972), but it would still make the top five. Even if you're not keen on watching the rest of the TV series, the original film is worth checking out.

This review pretty much sums up my feelings about BA s1, and why, despite its flaws, I'm still hyped for s2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLSOBm4BRk

And here's a charming video that came up in my YouTube recommendations. It's a short clip of Charlie Cox interacting with a fan at a convention. Today's actors are generally an unlikeable lot, but Charlie stands out as a major exception.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_dhFyzDZp44

I understand your concern. But I've wanted a movie/television Fortress for a long time that functioned as the Pre-Crisis comic book version was meant to function.

For better or worse, Donner reimagined the Fortress less as Superman's getaway/home away from home and more as a mausoleum for Krypton. And that conception of the Fortress has endured to ever increasing levels since.

Gunn's Fortress seems like it's a lot more in line with the Pre-Crisis Fortress with all the exotic tech and robots running around.

It's the same situation with the Batcave. So many movies, yet we've never seen the giant penny or dinosaur. The closest any live action depiction has come to the wackiness of the comic book Batcave would be the Adam West show, and I'm sure Dozier would have included the dinosaur and penny in that series if he'd been able to. But every other live action version of the cave has opted for a more grounded take, where it's basically just the Batcomputer, the armoury and the Batmobile workshop. Hopefully the next cinematic Batcave will break that trend.

With the Fortress, I'd love to see some of the more traditional comic book elements make an appearance. The statues of Lara and Jor-El, the Phantom Zone projector, bottled Kandor, the zoo of endangered aliens. Earlier in this thread we speculated about Solaris making an appearance, which seems very plausible given the obvious Grant Morrison influence. If Solaris does show up, that would present the perfect opportunity to reference the zoo and have Superman use a Sun-Eater to defeat the Tyrant Sun.

At any rate, I like the way the robots look in this footage. They're like Frank Quitely's designs come to life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5LyXG8m2U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJfR1MXOMos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcua7DfuZOM

Here are some variant covers featuring Corenswet's Superman.