I've been a Hulk fan since 1971 or so. I've seen comics, movies and TV shows starring one of my all-time favourite characters in a number of different takes - Smart Hulk, dumb Hulk, 1/2 Hulk, etc. Here we see a semi-smart Hulk without much Banner. Really, it seems to be an updated recreation of the 1990's Hulk cartoon right down to the choppy visuals and childish dialogue.
Let's be clear - Lou Ferrigno was the best, and only live Hulk. (The rest are digitized) The cartoon, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, was the best cartoon version of the Hulk and as well as the rest of the Avengers. The Hulk movies and the Avengers were fine for their time except the Hulk actually talks a lot and he says very little in those movies so the characterizations are slightly off. True, I did like Mark Ruffalo's Hulk better than his Banner but, again, too little dialogue. To rank them I would say that Eric Bana's Banner was good but too buff. Mark Ruffalo was better since he's shorter but he's a better Hulk. Finally, Ed Norton's was the best ever since he looks just like Banner should look and act. Better even than Bill Bixby's.
Everything else done since has one purpose and that is to sell children's merchandise. Which brings us to this cartoon. With the new "Avenger's Assemble" Marvel/Disney has yet again rebooted the Avengers/Hulk franchises. They took interesting characterizations and clear story lines and tossed them out the window for fun in the sun cheese. It's like they are making a sandwich by just picking things out of the fridge that should go together like beef and tomatoes and mayo but didn't cook the beef or slice the tomatoes or spread the mayo like they did in Avengers EMH. It's SuperHero Squad but with slightly more mature visuals. I also dislike the "reality show" popups during the show. Give us a cartoon not a reality show take off, please. What's interesting is that the Avengers: EMH really was more faithful to the Hulk comics than this Hulk show will ever be. Sure, they have great voice actors doing the show. Fred Tatasciore is a great Hulk voice and the rest of the cast are an all-star lineup to be sure. I'm just sorry the dialogue and story lines are so weak. It's like they don't even respect the children enough to give them something meatier than the choppy animation and stop sequences that constantly annoy the viewer because they think children can't appreciate continuity in a storyline. I'm almost sorry Disney bought Marvel after seeing this debacle. I almost wonder if someone slipped something into Kevin Feige's food and then made him watch episode after episode of this and Avenger's Assembly until he finally broke and OKed it ...
Here's my million dollar idea for Disney to bank on - Bring back Earth's Mightiest Heroes and truly honor the late director Boyd Kirkland's memory! Then sell the DVDs one season at a time instead of breaking them up into partial seasons no one wants to buy. I'm just sayin' ...
