Twice the carnage. Double the smash.
Hulk Vs. (2009) is a Direct to Video animated film from Marvel Animation and Lionsgate, featuring The Incredible Hulk two short film battles, one against Wolverine, the other against The Mighty Thor. Madhouse produced the animation for both shorts with South Korean subsidiaries DR Movie and Moi Animation.
Hulk vs. Thor
In Hulk vs. Thor, Bruce Banner (Bryce Johnson) is abducted by Loki (Graham McTavish) and brought to Asgard with the help of the Enchantress (Kari Wahlgren). Loki angers Banner to induce the Hulk transformation, at which time the Enchantress magically separates the Hulk (Fred Tatasciore) from Banner, giving Loki control over the Hulk. With his newfound pawn, Loki charges the gates of Asgard to try to claim Odin's realm during the week when he is resting. Only Thor (Matthew Wolf) has a chance of stopping him...
Hulk vs. Wolverine
In the segment Hulk vs. Wolverine, Department H sends Wolverine (Steve Blum) to hunt down a mysterious beast known by the US Military as the Hulk, who is rampaging across the Canadian wilderness. Tracking the beast by a distinctive toxic scent left at the wreckage of a small town, Wolverine soon finds Bruce Banner sitting and crying at the edge of a small lake. Noticing the same toxic scent clinging to Banner, Wolverine starts to violently interrogate him, ignoring Banner's warnings until... oops. Hello, Hulk. And this is only the beginning of Wolverine's problems.
This is the first time Deadpool has a speaking role in an animated appearance, as well as his first non-cameo role in an animation.
Both segments contain examples of:
- Popularity Power: Hulk vs Thor consists of Hulk going One-Man Army on Asgard, and Loki's army of frost giants without breaking a single sweat. Hulk vs Wolverine has what's close to a stalemate.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Shared Universe: Takes place on Earth-8096 in the Marvel multiverse, which is the same universe that The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) and Thor: Tales of Asgard take place.
- Versus Title: It's about Hulk fighting Wolverine and Thor.
The "Wolverine" segment provides examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: While not necessarily a very moral person, the Deadpool of the comics has standards he won't break. In this film, he's more Ax-Crazy than usual, even suggesting shooting babies, something comic!Deadpool would never do.
- Adaptation Distillation: Wolverine's origin from Weapon X is included through small snippets of every major scene and it's just as rich in horror as the original story.
- X-23's three second cameo ignores pretty much everything about her comic origin.
- Animesque: Jeff Matsuda, who did most of the character designs for Jackie Chan Adventures and The Batman, did the design for the Wolverine segment.
- Ass Kicking Pose: After Wolverine and Bruce Banner escape captivity, the Weapon X team all strike ass-kicking poses before running off to hunt them down. Deadpool lampshades this by shouting "Strike a pose!"
- Anti-Hero: Wolverine is Unscrupulous, in the height of his pre-X Men days. Hulk is Pragmatic. He saves passersby and only fights back when provoked, but Lord help you if you make him angry...
- Body Horror: People are stabbed, arms are ripped and sliced off, and other assorted not-so-Bloodless Carnage. Played for comedy when Deadpool spends about a minute re-attaching his Logan-severed arm pieces!
- Blatant Lies: Sabretooth slashes The Professor from behind due to both him and Lady Deathstrike wanting to kill Wolverine, which their boss wouldn't allow. When Omega Red and Deadpool find them after Wolverine's escape Sabretooth tries to claim that Wolverine was the one who attacked The Professor and that the last thing he said before passing out was for them to kill Wolverine. Neither one of them believes it, but both go along with it anyway because they wanted to kill Wolverine to begin with.Deadpool: Really? Hmm. You buy that? Y'know, I would think the last thing he said was, "AHHHH SABRETOOTH!"
- Bloodless Carnage: Averted. The Wolverine segment is the first non-comic appearance of the character to not use it.
- Child Hater: Deadpool states babies creep him out and expresses a desire to kill the infant Weapon X clones.
- Continuity Snarl:
- According to Word of God, the Wolverine short takes place in the same universe as Wolverine and the X-Men (2009). However, a number of things contradict each other. In the series, Wolverine doesn't remember Weapon X or Sabretooth when he runs into the latter, whereas in the short, he remembers his past and recognizes Sabretooth, Deadpool, Lady Deathstrike, and Omega Red. Also, on WatXM, Bruce Banner has no idea who Wolverine is, whereas in the short, Wolverine's first meeting with Bruce is while he's Bruce and Wolverine is the reason for his two main Hulk-outs in the short.
- It gets worse as The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is apparently in the same universe with no proof except Wolverine having sporadic appearances. ...Well some of the staff say that, whether or not they all agree is up for debate.
- In the DVD commentary for the short, they explicitly say at the end that Sabretooth is dead.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Hulk versus most of the characters he fights - some put up a decent fight at first, but once Hulk gets a single hit in they are very soundly and brutally beaten down. Omega Red gets the worst of this.
- Empathy Doll Shot: A single lonely teddy bear is left behind after the Hulk's rampage... though it's shown later that it's thanks to the Hulk that the girl and her father weren't made into Swiss cheese by Deadpool.
- Darker and Edgier: Than almost all other Marvel animations, what with all of Wolverine's semi-mild cursing and not-so-Bloodless Carnage...
- Evasive Fight-Thread Episode: We never do get to see who wins the titular match in Hulk vs. Wolverine.
- Feed It a Bomb: Deadpool tries this on the Hulk. It ends badly.
- Fragile Speedster: Lady Deathstrike can run circles around the Hulk. He ends the fight with a single Shockwave Clap.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: A very good thing for pretty much all of the major characters.
- Hulk Speak: In typical Hulk fashion, he gives short nicknames to several characters:
- Wolverine: "Little man".
- Lady Deathstrike: "Ugly girl".
- Deadpool: "Talking man".
- Improbable Infant Survival: X-23 survives the Hulk ripping the Weapon X facility apart.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Anytime somebody shoots at Wolverine, though he's shown to be Immune to Bullets when Deadpool shoots him in the head at point blank, though that would be a given since he could also get back up after a beating from the Hulk.
- Laughably Evil: Deadpool, as a result of Adaptational Villainy (sorta).
- Lean and Mean: Deadpool's incarnation in this short is noticeably thin.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: After Logan receives a major asskicking from the Hulk, he wakes a few seconds later and proceeds to open his own can of whupass.Wolverine: Okay, bub. Let's try that again.
- Moment Killer: Deadpool in general, really.
- Mythology Gag: The entire premise of the short is a throwback to Wolverine's first appearance as an anti-heroic enemy of the Hulk. His costume even harkens back to the original design. At one point, the short recreates the iconic cover
◊ to Incredible Hulk #340 with Hulk being reflected in Wolverine's claws◊. - No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: It's the only way Wolverine can get an even fight with Hulk.
- Orgasmic Combat: Lady Deathstrike seems to orgasm as she's tearing into Wolverine.
- Only Sane Man: Ironically enough, the Hulk. Considering that everyone else is a Ax-Crazy Blood Knight (Wolverine included) who is in it only for the sake of violence or revenge, the Hulk looks positively saintly in comparison, given that he goes out of his way to save people from Weapon X. The worst thing he does is attack Wolverine, and given that Wolvie threatened to gut him and stabbed him in the chest, it's hard not to argue that he had good reason.
- People Jars: The Weapon X cloning program.
- Screams Like a Little Girl:
- The normally deep-voiced Sabretooth gets a noticeably higher voice when being charged by the Hulk.
- Deadpool when he loses half an arm courtesy of Logan.
- The Starscream: Sabretooth expresses lasting distaste for The Professor's decision to keep Logan alive, which eventually leads him to betray him to take over Weapon X himself, in part because he really wants to help Deathstrike kill Logan. Amusingly, when he attempts to lie to the others about who attacked the Professor in order to deflect blame onto Wolverine and keep their loyalty they don't buy it for a second, but join up with him anyway because they really like the idea of killing Wolverine.
- The Stinger: After the credits, it is shown that Deadpool survived the destruction, only to be crushed by the Hulk when he jumps on him.
- Shooting Superman: Deadpool tries shooting Hulk with his guns, which works as well as you would expect.
- Unknown Rematch Conclusion: After their first fight gets interrupted by the Weapon X squad, Hulk and Wolverine get to go at it again at the end of the film. The winner of the fight is unrevealed and since both have very powerful healing factors, Hulk stomping on Deadpool in a post credits scene doesn't necessarily mean Hulk won.
- The Reveal: When Logan initially surveys the destroyed town the Hulk passed through, the evidence of gunfire and destruction is initially taken to be evidence the Hulk went on a rampage and killed the residents despite their attempts to fight back. When it is revealed Weapon X's taskforce was gunning for the Hulk for weeks, Logan realizes what actually happened was the Hulk was ganged up on in a public space and was trying his best to protect the people caught in the crossfire.
- The Worf Effect: A rare variation where it's the villains and not Wolverine who suffers from this. Probably helps that he can actually stab people. Wolverine is shown to kick Deathstrike, Sabretooth and Deadpool around with relative ease, whereas in the comics one is normally enough to slow him down at least, with Sabretooth especially regularly besting him and the only thing that keeps his fights with Deathstrike from being complete stalemates is her lack of a healing factor. Omega Red is the only one really capable of holding his own, but that's at least true to the comics.
- Would Hit a Girl: Wolverine attacks Lady Deathstrike with the same ferocity as the other Weapon X team.
- Would Hurt a Child: Initially it seems like The Hulk killed multiple civilians in his rampage, including a young girl. The Reveal shows Weapon X's agents were actually responsible, and the Hulk was trying to protect the civilians. The echoes of a child's scream unfortunately implies the Jade Giant was unsuccessful.
The "Thor" segment provides examples of:
- Balancing Death's Books: Hela eventually sends Bruce Banner back to the mortal plane after claiming him and takes Loki instead, since he tricked her in the first place.
- Bloodless Carnage: Compared to "Hulk vs. Wolverine", the "Thor" segment has relatively little blood and no gore.
- The Cameo: You can spot classic Thor villains like Malekith and Surtur in the hordes attacking Asgard.
- Did Not Think This Through: After his connection with the Hulk is severed, Loki kills Bruce Banner after getting fed up by the latter's warnings about the Hulk being uncontrollable. But because Banner died in Asgard, Hela claimed his soul and thus cannot merge with the Hulk and stop his rampage.
- Even Evil Can Be Loved: Downplayed with Thor and his adopted brother Loki. While Thor states he will fight for Loki's soul when the latter is imprisoned by Hela, he ultimately decides that freeing Loki from Hel is not worth the fight and that his adopted brother had to pay for his crimes.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Played straight with Amora, originally joined Loki to get back at Thor for him rejecting her in favour of Sif, but she ultimately decides she still loves him and can't let him die
- Zig-zagged with Loki and Hela. Hela is Loki's daughter but the two seem to have no love for each other (like in the comics), Loki is a mischievous and selfish trickster who is happy to manipulate her to achieve his own ends while Hela is perfectly happy to imprison Loki in her realm and frozen in a And I Must Scream situation. At the same time, she admits that his stay won't be permanent because they are still family.
- Intimate Healing: Amora heals Thor with a kiss.
- Jobber: All of Asgard takes this role.
- Magic Pants: The Hulk always has these, but this time it's taken to an extreme: When Banner and the Hulk are separated, both are wearing the trademark purple pants. Of course, gods and magic were involved.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After Loki's connection with the Hulk is broken, the Hulk proceeds to deliver one to Thor that leaves the God of Thunder at death's door.
- One-Man Army: The Hulk, who proceeds to tear through most of Asgard's forces like wet tissue paper. This is why Loki chose to take control of the Hulk, but he ends up biting off more than he could chew.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Even with the Hulk's strength, Loki can't claim Mjolnir for himself.
- Smoke Shield: Following Thor's only major attack.
- The Worf Barrage: After getting the crap beat out of him repeatedly by the Hulk, Thor finally decides to get serious and launch a powerful lightning attack complete with a hammer throw. Unfortunately, this only severs Loki's connection to the Hulk, leaving an uncontrollable monster that knows only rage and violence, and proceeds to wipe the floor with Thor.
- The Worf Effect: Thor is stated to be Asgard's greatest warrior who can crush entire armies and if he cannot defeat something then the rest of Asgard doesn't have a chance. In both his battles with the Hulk he barely fights back and in the first literally lays there as the Hulk SLOWLY pounds on him before trying to fight back and once again starts running into the Hulk's fists forgetting the basics of fighting. He fares much better in their rematch in Hel but is ultimately overpowered even with Loki's assistance.
- Worf Had the Flu: In fairness, part of the reason why Asgard fared poorly against the Hulk was that they had already spent seven whole days fending off other threats. By the time Loki enacted his scheme, their forces had already been thinned down.
