You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry!

I love comics. I love super-heroes.

Hulk is one of my most favorite super-heroes. Sometimes on the side of angels, sometimes not. Always looking out for himself.

Hulk has gone through so many incarnations, so many vastly different looks, it can be difficult to decide which one to do a particular movie on.

Most people know the iconic Lou Ferrigno Hulk from the television series, The Incredible Hulk. I loved the series while growing up, even if Hulk was too skinny, too short, and not green enough. Compared to my beloved Hulk comics, that is.

They got one thing right, however ... the facial features. Savage Hulk is my absolute favorite look for the Emerald Giant. Lou captured the bestial Beast-Within appearance I have always felt Hulk was best suited for.

The 2003 movie, Hulk, used pure CGI to create Hulk's face (and body), though it did seem extrapolated from actor Eric Bana's actual facial features.

I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but felt Hulk's portrayal was overdone in a few ways. The biggest of which was his growing to huge, tree-sized proportions. It makes sense in a way. He'd need a massive frame to carry and utilize the correspondingly massive musculature. He did keep to the Hulk maxim of growing stronger the angrier he got. His face was very humanized, less bestial which gave him a humanity for the audience to relate to, but detracted from the overall monster-inside-us counter-point director Ang Lee seemed to be trying to make.

The fight scenes, excepting the final battle, were fantastic. Pure super-hero beauty on screen, pure Hulk. I was even excited to see they kept Hulk's leaping miles at time in. The middle of the movie was the best, while he fights the Army and escapes from the underground bunker. I even enjoyed the comic-style transitions between scenes Ang Lee utilized.

Unfortunately, Hulk didn't do as well as hoped, and was panned by many critics, both film and comic buffs alike.

The upshot is a new, Hulk movie is going forward. Not a sequel, but a re-start. A re- imagining of the Verdant Behemoth with new cast, and radically different look for the eponymous title character, The Incredible Hulk. I'm stoked after seeing this clip from Comic-Con!



Edward Norton will be playing Bruce Banner, with Liv Tyler as Betty Ross and William Hurt as Gen. "Thunderbolt" Ross. Tim Roth will be playing Emil Blonsky, which means we may actually see some hero vs. villain action in this movie with Hulk going up against the Abomination!

The Incredible Hulk is currently slated for a July 13th, 2008 release.