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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
On the one hand, the inability to just make a Hulk solo movie has definitely limited what they can do with the Hulk. On the other hand, I definitely feel like they could have done better with what they already did do, especially regarding Infinity War and Endgame.
They definitely seem to be moving more towards Hulk speaking coherently. You can still have his speech be 'simple' and notably different to Banner's without going full Hulk Speak.
It doesn't help that it's not clear how big a role Hulk is going to have in the MCU going forward. It looks like Banner and Hulk's arm injury is perminent. And while Banner, Wong and Carol seem to be the avengers currently, Banner seems to be in an advisory role.
Edit:
Universal's Hulk film distribution rights seemingly have no sunset clause, or if it does, it's an outrageously long one given the last hulk film was in 2008.
I wouldn't be surprised if their distribution rights are to the "next X-number of Hulk films" rather than a number of years.
From what I understand the Namor film rights are even weirder. With a particular director given first refusal for directing or something.
Edited by Whowho on Jan 12th 2022 at 10:26:27 AM
The rights issues surrounding Hulk (and Namor) have always been weird because no one has any clue what the original deal is/what any new deals were and thus it's hard to tell what claims are actually right. There have been claims by at the very least Joe Quesada going back years, though the most significant development was the usual rumor mill claiming the reversion happened in 2020. It would certainly explain more persistent rumors that have involved the both of them since then.
Edited by Watchtower on Jan 13th 2022 at 11:03:28 AM
All of the copyright marvel deals are extremely nebulous. Punisher and Daredevil returned to Marvel simultaneously c. 2013, despite the fact they had last had films for wildly disparate amounts of time (Punisher 5 years beore then, Daredevil a full decade earlier), so the basics seem to vary wildly from character to character. A genuine headache also seems to be figuring out which characters belong to which franchise given how interconnected the Marvel Universe is.
For example Viper ended up in The Wolverine, but Madame Hydra (who is Viper most of the time) ended up with Marvel, in a bit of a comical overlap case.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Yeah, pretty much every company got different deals and if it's anything like the Spider-Man and X-Men deals then every individual noun got claimed separately, and that's not getting into the weeds of characters getting dynamically claimed over time and characters being shared with Marvel themselves. It's what happens when you got a company on the verge of bankruptcy and seemingly convinced that it would never amount to anything more than that.
If the Hulk and Namor rights have reverted then the film rights distribution is now the simplest it's been in decades, with Sony owning the Spider-Man corner and Disney owning everything else, with shared claim on Kingpin between the two.
Edited by Watchtower on Jan 13th 2022 at 11:51:39 AM
So Wilson Fisk is the man who can wade between Disney and Sony? Guess we better start calling him the Linchpin, lol.
It depends how you quantify. Namor had a failed appearance in the Motion Pictures Funnily Weekly magazine in 1939 that wasn't distributed outside of movie theaters, which was later repackaged and expanded into Marvel Comics #1 later in 1939, which featured the debuts of:
- Angel (not that one
, this one
), a non-powered costumed pulp detective. Think Marvel's equivalent to The Shadow or The Phantom. He punches nazis.
- The Human Torch (also not that one
, this one
), an android who catches fire and (fierily) punches Nazis.
- Namor the Sub-Mariner, the underwater prince who punches nazis.
- Ka-zar of the Savage Land
, Tarzan on steroids (who punches Nazis).
The last one would be "Marvel's first superhero" on a technicality (first appearence in pulp novel form being in 1937 and his comic serialization bringing him to Marvel). It depends whether you qualify pre-Marvel Mystery appearences in other mediums/limited distribution and whether you're stickling to the "super" part (Angel and Ka-zar were originally the birth of Marvel's peak human bullshit).
Edited by Gaon on Jan 13th 2022 at 10:49:14 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Marvel generally tends to consider the Human Torch as their official "first" hero, for what it's worth.
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonThere was a great miniseries called The Marvels Project that had the aforementioned Angel as the main character and attempted to tell a summarized, revamped story of the "first" Marvel heroes and how they progressed from guys in masks fighting mobsters, to fighting Nazis, to finally fighting outwordly threats.
Angel, Namor, Human Torch and Captain America were the central cast, but The aforementioned Angel was the main character and narrator, treated with a lot of respect and gravitas as the one of "the first generation" of Marvel heroes (in the miniseries he's positioned as the chronological first of that bunch, preceding Torch, Namor and Captain America) and the miniseries ultimately provides a nice, conclusive ending to his story. I thought it was a pretty sweet tip of the hat towards a forgotten hero.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Regarding Hulk Speak: I vote the next movie features Hulk Speak but with the Hulk maintaining super-genius intellect.
"Quantum physics too thinky for puny Thor. It okay. Hulk explain."
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 13th 2022 at 2:01:37 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The original Human Torch is generally treated as "the first Marvel hero" because he's the one smack on the cover of Marvel Comics #1.
◊
Of course comics back in the day were predominantly anthologies so Human Torch being the "first" was more of a lucky roll of the dice than anything else.
It was after all why they were called the house of ideas, odd ideas everywehre. While they only really kicked that into high gear in the legendary Lee-Dikto-Kirby era, they were always known for some odd cats of characters outside the mold.
From that original quartet I actually think the ones most outside of the marvel "mold" (as it'd become known afterwards) would be Angel and Ka-Zar. The former is a Two-Fisted Tales gun-wielding archetype that fell by the wayside once the golden age ended (and Marvel never really used) and the latter is a a jungle prince in the tarzan mold who fell off even quicker. Torch is a tortured android who is good despite fearsome appearance and powers trying to find his place in the world while people try to manipulate him to their advantage, Namor is a arrogant, hubristic jackass who rules his kingdom and must learn to have a basic moral compass. Both deal with Marvel's future bread-and-butter themes (tortured and flawed heroes).
A part of me is also moderately surprised that, to my knowledge, that specific quartet has never been a separate superhero team despite being "the original four".
It's a shame the MCU never really found a way to use this whole Golden Age-era gang all that much. I really wish we could have seen a The Invaders team of WWII guys fighting Nazis.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I think Golden Age Ka-Zar is actually not considered 616 canon, at the very least he has no in-universe connection to Kevin Plunder that I know of.
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonTo my understanding there's some kind of arcane rights issue, but I usually shrug and roll with the idea they're both the same guy in Broad Strokes. Of course it is entirely possible I simply do not give enough of a shit about Ka-Zar to differentiate.
Edited by Gaon on Jan 13th 2022 at 7:35:52 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Y'know, I actually prefer Hulk being able to speak coherently, like in EMH or as the Green Scar.
Hulk Speak has been done so to death.
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