In my last few articles, I reviewed Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and X-Men. This time, I’ll be reviewing The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man.
The Incredible Hulk
This show was surprisingly good. Hulk has had a few shows before and most of them don’t have a great reputation. This show did a lot in its short run. This is something I’m going to say for most of the shows. This show introduced several characters such as Doctor Doom, She-Hulk, Wendigo, Abomination, Gargoyle, Doc Samson, The Thing, Zzzax, Leader, and Sasquatch. This show gives a lot of depth to him and makes Hulk more than just a raging monster. Although he is that, this show shows that Bruce Banner thinks it’s a curse and the Hulk ruined his life. Season 1 ends on a great cliffhanger with Hulk’s friend Rick Jones becoming Hulk and Bruce Banner turning into a gray Hulk.
The next season doesn’t introduce anyone new and is very She-Hulk centered. This season was a step down from the first but is still okay. Rick Jones does get cured, but then completely leaves the show. This season also had the return of Doctor Doom, who is always a delight to see. The story with Leader and Gargoyle never gets resolved as in one of the episodes they get defeated and run away, but never return. There really isn’t much to say about this show, it’s just good and there’s nothing notable to comment on.
Iron Man
For this show, I skipped the first season, as like Fantastic Four, the reviews were not good.
The second season is a pretty good definition of the word mediocre. This is the first show in this universe of shows that I would say is not an unappreciated gem. There’s never anything bad in the show, but nothing ever happens that’s actually good. The season starts with Iron Man’s team Force Works breaking up. The members of Force Works were Iron Man, War Machine, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Century. Force Works were the main characters in season 1, but they were dropped because the first season wasn’t good at balancing them. Force Works was actually originally the West Coast Avengers in the comics, and later developed into Force Works. This season has an overall plot with The Mandarin regaining possession of the Ten Rings to face Iron Man again, which doesn’t come into play until the finale. The finale is the best episode of the show, but it is just an average episode. This show introduced several characters such as Titanium Man, Beetle, Crimson Dynamo, Blizzard, Stilt-Man, Stingray, Super Adaptoid, Modok, Mandarin, Fin Fang Foom, Hulk, Leader, and Ultimo. None of these characters are cool or interesting.
The show itself is just really boring and felt like a chore to get through. If this season is considered miles better than Season 1, I don’t even want to see the agony that would be seen in the first season. I was quite happy to be done with it. In fact, once I finished this show I rewatched the Fantastic Four finale because I wanted to cleanse my head by watching something good. The next and final review will have reviews of Spider-Man Unlimited, Avengers: United They Stand, and Silver Surfer.
