Planet Hulk

February 2010 is bringing Planet Hulk to DVD and Blu Ray, in an animated movie. While Planet Hulk is an amazing story and one of my favorite stories in comics, this feels wrong for a few reasons.

First, the Illuminati and why he is sent away. So, in the comics, what happened was that Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Strange and Black Bolt decided to send Hulk to another planet. After fighting the FF in Vegas, Maria Hill asked Stark why he didn't do anything. A SHIELD agent asked her when Spider-Man could be blamed for the Green Goblin's crimes, after Spidey beats him up, then leaves him in jail where he breaks out, then kills more people, and Spidey beats him up, etc. Iron Man decided it would be a good idea to send Hulk away to a planet where there was no sentient life, and he could finally be left alone and not hurt anyone. Iron Man wanted a choice that large, though, to be discussed, so he brought it up with the Illuminati, minus Professor X, who was in space at the time. Namor was the main one opposed, but the rest agreed that they should send Hulk into space. So, they tricked Bruce Banner into going into space to stop a rogue satellite, then told him what they were doing and sent him away. By going crazy, and smashing the equipment, the ship went off course and landed on Sakaar. In the trailer, which is at the end, you can see Iron Man and Dr. Strange clearly, but not the other two. One looks like it could be Mr. Fantastic, but I'm not fully sure, and the other is impossible to determine. Plus, as opposed to just being on board, they apparently locked him up on there.

Second, his allies. First, let's start with Korg. Korg is a tribute to Lee and Kirby, by bringing back the stone guys Thor fought in his first appearance. In Journey Into Mystery 83, Donald Blake was on vacation, saw an alien ship, hid in a cave, and found a stick. By striking the stick against a boulder blocking the entrance to the cave, he was turned into Thor, who easily lifted the boulder, and tossed it away. Then, he fought the aliens, who retreated when they fought Thor, thinking all humans to be like him. Korg is one of them. There was an issue, where they went over their origins, and Korg, as a young rockling, was included in the invasion. How will that be referenced, or will it be? Second, we've got No-Name. No-Name (which isn't actually a name, as much as it is a reference that the Brood drones don't really have names) was on the Brood homeworld when it blew up, but being encased in some crystal thingy, survived, along with some of his brethren. Her brethren died in the initial fight, but she went on to fight with Hulk. Okay, so in this, is the Brood going to even mention humans, and having fought the X-Men. Are they just not going to be brought up? How are they explaining how No-Name got there? From looking at the trailer, it looks like No-Name isn't even there, but Arch-E is instead. Sigh... Then, we've got the Silver Surfer. I'm sorry, the Silver Savage. The end of the first arc of Planet Hulk ends with Hulk and the gladiators going up against Silver Surfer, known to Sakaar as the Silver Savage. After Hulk pounds him hard enough, the obedience disk on Surfer is broken and he is able to use the Power Cosmic to free the rest of the slaves in the arena. Because of that, Hulk becomes free and goes on to do things. Is Surfer going to be in this, which would be amazing, or are they going to skip that and give some other explanation as to how they break free?

Third, the length. So, Planet Hulk was a year's worth of issues long, just as a stand-alone story, disregarding all the continuity beforehand. It was broken up into 4 parts, 3 4-part stories and a 2-part finale. In other words, it is long. Think of Watchmen, which was 12 issues. Sure, Watchmen in arguably deeper, and requires more time, as its issues are deeper, blah, blah, blah. Planet Hulk is a long story that has a lot to cover, and to force it into a film could be bad. Breaking each part (except the 2-part which can be included in the 3rd section) into its own hour long movie could work. Otherwise, I think it would be 2.5+ hours to tell the story well.

Fourth, the ending. At the end of Planet Hulk, after he is made the king of Sakaar, the ship he crashed into Sakaar in gets displayed in the main city as a tribute to Hulk, but when the warp drive gets compromised, the ship explodes, damaging the already weak planet (which Hulk had to shift the tectonic plates back together by force), and killing all the people in the capital city, including his wife, Caiera, and his unborn son. He is upset about the situation, and wants to just sit there and die, but his Warbound convince him to take his fight to Earth to fight the Illuminati who sent him there and who put the ship, with the exploding warp drive, on the planet. This leads directly into World War Hulk. In the movie, they can do it like in the comic, leading into a World War Hulk movie also, or they can ignore it and do...what? Does he just stay there as the leader forever and ever? I mean, sure, it works as the movie in that they don't need to make more in the series, so having him lead a planet peacefully works better in a one-shot, but still...

Fifth, continuity in general. Okay, this isn't specifically about Planet Hulk, but about comic book movies that try to take a certain storyline into account. Something that the comics have that the movies don't is lots of continuity behind them. Unless you start all the way at the beginning, a movie about a specific storyline is going to be missing out on something. Even then, in a shared universe, you need to take every comic in that shared universe into account. For example, if a character crosses over from another comic, you probably don't have to do the whole origin and motivation and powers for that character in the comic, but if all you have is the single story, well, let me put it this way. If you want to do the first arc of New Avengers as a movie, you'd have to take Avengers Disassembled into account. Also, you have Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage and Sentry to take into account. Oh, and all the villains from the Raft, along with Daredevil, along with SHIELD. If you did it exactly as the comic, then so much would be confusing to people who hadn't read comics.

Okay, aside from that, I think it can be cool. There isn't a lot of continuity to take into account, despite a lot of what is written above, and you can easily just explain things in different ways. The sending him away doesn't need to go into depth. Korg's origin doesn't need to be explained as much. No-Name can be replaced with someone else. As long as it keeps the general idea and feel for the original, I think Planet Hulk can be amazing. Anyway, here is the trailer.