MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*
Arguably, following the conclusion of MCU's Phase Three, the Hulk was treated even more shabbily than Thor. However, for whatever reason Marvel's animation division didn't stint on exploiting the Green Goliath's name value, and even relatively late projects like HULK: WHERE MONSTERS DWELL and the AGENTS OF SMASH series look much better than sad live-action bile like SHE-HULK. That said, of the two short features comprising HULK VS, appearing the year after the exemplary INCREDIBLE HULK movie, is all that impressive.
In HULK VS. THOR, two of the Thunder God's perennial opponents, Loki and The Enchantress, whisk Bruce Banner to Asgard. There Loki separates the Hulk persona from Banner and sets the Green Goliath on Asgard, with Loki himself pulling the Hulk's strings. Meanwhile, the evil duo consigns Banner to the realm of the death-goddess Hela.
The big problem with this routine outing is that for the menace to Asgard to be credibe, Bannerless Hulk must be a juggernaut who's far beyond Thor's capacity to defeat-- and that means that the video has to downgrade Thor. We're not really watching "Hulk vs Thor," because in every encounter, Hulk kicks Thor's ass-- and where's the fun in that? The video might've been titled, "Hulk vs. Asgard," except that the supreme power in the realm, Mighty Odin, is conveniently sleeping the Odinsleep during the crisis.
Thor does win the contest in a sense, for he browbeats Loki into chasing down the spirit of Banner in Hel, and convincing Hela (who is Loki's daughter this time round) to merge Banner with Hulk. This returns a measure of sanity to the rampaging goliath, and he goes back home, while Loki gets to suffer his daughter's less-than-tender mercies for a time. Other items of interest: (1) warrior-woman Sif gets a solo attack on Greenie, and scores a few good blows, (2) Enchantress is in love with Thor and resents the hell out of Sif, though the witch-woman seems okay with the possibility of Thor getting killed thanks to Loki's scheme, and (3) as in the later TALES OF ASGARD video, Asgard looks pretty good here.
In contrast, though HULK VS WOLVERINE is no deeper in terms of symbolic discourse, it's a helluva lot more fun.
According to the continuity mentioned in the commentary, this tale is Wolverine's first encounter with Old Jade-Jaws, preceding a second encounter chronicled in the series WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. The feisty Canadian still works for his native government and barely knows anything about the Hulk, much less the never-mentioned X-Men. Hulk is suspected of destroying a Canadian town, so Wolverine, aka "Weapon X," is sent on a search-and-destroy mission.
However, the real malfeasants are a team of four villains, three of whom are infamous Wolverine-foes. Lady Deathstrike, Saber-Tooth, and Deadpool are the infamous three, while the fourth is some low-grade X-thug, Omega Red, whom I do not know and who contributes next to nothing. The four super-fiends now work for the Weapon X facility, the same one that gave Wolverine his adamantium additions, and not only did they destroy the town, they're out to capture the Hulk. It seems their boss at the facility, the otherwise unnamed "Professor," wants to make more Hulks as part of an over-ambitious ordnance scheme.
The thing that makes this featurette so good is sharp dialogue and characterization. Wolverine is a testy hero, none too charitable with "weakling Banner," and the three good villains are also consistent with the traits of their comic-book originals. Deadpool's lines contribute most of the humor and are easily as clever as the best jokes from the live-action Fox films. It's practically one half-hour- long fight-scene and WOLVERINE'S take on the "Marvel heroes always fight each other" trope is one of the best I've ever seen in animation.
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