We’ve been promised a huge Marvel scoop for the Super Bowl, and I’d say @ElMayimbe of Latino Review has delivered! The same source the broke Darkside and the Justice League line-up –and has generally wrestled the domain of geek scoops back out of the hands of the usual deadlining and hollywood reporting suspects– has finally coughed up with his long-taughted major Marvel news…
And it all revolves around the Hulk.
Now, all this represents a pretty general yet major bunch of spoilers for the overall direction of the Marvel Phase 2 and Phase 3 films. So you’re warned.
In any event, the jist of the news is this: the shift from Phase 2 to Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will largely revolve around The Hulk, and it will involve incoporating both Planet Hulk and World War Hulk into the films!
Now, before we dig into specifics, remember that this writing was almost on the wall before The Avengers was released. It was well-reported that the Hulk was moving MASSIVE merchandise prior to the release of the massive blockbuster, way out of proportion to his fellow Avengers. The big green guy was obviously catching on in a big way with the kids, and his treatment in the film made him a standout star. Thus, Marvel’s priorities had to shift to incorporate the coming wave of love for Banner’s alter ego. It stands to reason that Marvel would have no issue taking the mandates from the merchandising divisions and setting up major Hulk action when the genral public is flipping their shit for the character after so many tries.
This is all stuff we were covering months and months ago, even as it was clear that a solo Hulk film was a ways away.
So now the specifics of El Mayimbe’s scoop, boiled down to its gooey center:
The Avengers 2 will see the Hulk getting up to some shit that causes the film version of the Illuminati to push forward the Planet Hulk scenario, and the big guy will end up in space. Solo film will happen, and The Avengers 3 will be some kind of take on World War Hulk once Banner returns to earth.
So there you have it. Logical AND mad exciting. With so many years between now and those films coming together, there’s every chance plans could be altered. Hell, they may be purely because this cat is out of the bag! Regardless, Marvel is also likely to come outright and say this is all bullshit, just in an attempt to maintain some control over what is known and assumed. I don’t envy their position- it must be frustrating to be working so hard to put cool shit out there only to have the details spoiled so far out in advance, but that’s the nature of the game these days. Besides, these films can’t and don’t need to operate on fanboy surprise boners any longer- it’s about putting the cool shit we want to see up on the big screen in as best a form as they can. Suprises are fun, but it wasn’t Thanos’ cheeky grin that sold 1.5 billion dollars worth of tickets globally.
The video of El Mayimbe detailing this discovery is below, and you can check out his Latino Review preface here.
Also –finally– I’d like to point ya’ll back to my big piece on The Hulk and his similarities to Superman (especially through the lens of their current cinematic standing) from last year. I think it just became more relevant than ever.