Edgar Allan Poe

An American poet and prose writer, born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809. He was the son of an actor David Poe, and shared as a child the vicissitude of his father's life.  His mother past away when he was still very young, and he was reared by Mrs. John Allan, the wife of a business man in Richmond Virginia. He studied abroad for five years in England and Scotland  before returning back to the United States in 1821. Where he attended the University of Virginia.  Where a series of drunken escapades and unpaid gambling debts forced Poe to leave school and work; that was of  his foster father's counting office. Giving a false name and age he joined the army in 1827, and served as a soldier for two yeas and as a cadet at West Point for seven months.

  In Boston he published his first poetry, Tamerlane.  In 1831 his volume  Poems by Edgar A. Poe, among which were "Lenore" and "Israfel" was published in New York.   In 1836, he married Virginia Clem, The following year the couple moved to the North, where Poe earned a bare living for himself and his young wife by doing hack writing. Pressed by the strain of his wife's illness of tuberculosis, Poe's melancholy and brooding nature led him to heavy drink. His works became more fantastic, and his imagination became more morbidly melancholic. Abnormal unreal characters became a feature of his work.
A haunting magic of words and an exquisite perfection of form characterized his writing of this period, as exemplified in "Ligeia".  It was about this time that Poe published one of the best adventure stories in American Literature, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. During the last decade of his life, he contributed greatly to the development of the detective story. In addition of being a creative artist, Poe was also an acute, if radical, literary critic.  His writings have generally been admired abroad than at home, and he influenced such diverse writers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Baudelaire.  He died Oct. 7, 1949.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Directed by Louis Leterrier whose known for his work largely as an action director for all three Transporter films and Jet Li's Unleashed.  Louis had pitched a more action oriented Hulk movie to Marvel, as Marvel  wanted to distance themselves from Ang Lee's interpretation.  Now with a 5 year gap between films and given writer Zak Penn who hand a long standing record with marvel comic based films. Leterrier was given the go ahead to make the movie. With the condition he had to completely recast; to give the impression of a new start and no ties to the latter.  Liv Tyler was the last actor to be recast as it was difficult to find an actress to replace Jennifer Connelly. Leterrier first choice for  Banner was Mark Ruffalo but producers wanted a more established name at that time. Edward Norton took on  the role with the agreement he could add more character development, but not disrupt the original script. The Norton cut would have several more scenes  making the film nearly two and a half hours long; Marvel had shot all those scenes and it would have given more exposition and depth to characters. But a decision was made to not pursue an over examination of the Hulk, and avoid any and all parallel's to Ang Lee's version. And thus not a single frame of Norton's work was used in the making of the final draft bringing the runtime down to 1 hour and 52 minutes.  This of course spark some speculation between Norton and the company and why Norton did not appear during any of the press and promotional tours.

Actor William Hurt and his character General Thunderbolt Ross would continue to make appearances in the MCU beginning 8 years later in Captain America:Civil War and most recently in this year's Black Widow with a help of a little De-aging technology as we peer back into the Black Widow's origin story.
As the Ang Lee film concludes somewhere in South America, we begin the Incredible hulk in South America at a pop bottle factory. Banner has been on the run from the military for a number of years, this failure to capture was a thorn in General Ross's side, that thorn drove Ross to do a brash decision of turning his top veteran soldier unintentionally into the Abomination. Knowing full well that previous subjects had gone mentally unstable from unsuccessful trials.  Tim Roth's Emil Blonsky as Hulk's Antagonist is one of the more standouts, as he is calm and tactical; Albeit the only survivor from a bunch of commandos claiming to be the best of the best of Ross' elite rooster; at the south American attempt to capture the Hulk .

Mark Ruffalo's most poignant lines in the 2012 Avengers movie are directly linked to the 2008 movie with the reference of the hulk spitting out the bullet from a failed suicide attempt, the unseen alternative opening that can be found on the blue ray disc  will show Bruce attempting to end his life and the hulk intervening. Conversely in the closing scene of the 2008 movie we witness Norton applying his breathing techniques as he can control his anger as he finally releases the Hulk without incident; which is mirrored in Ruffalo statement, 'My secret is I'm always angry' as Ruffalo's hulk is pointed in the oncoming direction of the Chitauri-Leviathan that gets stopped in a single punch.

At the conclusion of Iron man 2, Tony Stark was deemed not suited to be team player for the avengers initiative, and was given the status of a consultant with SHIELD.  The post credit scene of Tony speaking with General Ross ties in with the Marvel One-Shot: titled 'The Consultant', referring to Tony himself as his meeting was to indirectly persuade Ross to keep Blonsky (The Abomination) under lock and key and not loose as a potential candidate for the Avengers initiative; with consideration of  tech genius charisma and charm would annoy the General to no end.

Hulk versus Thor

From a fan boy perspective 'Hulk vs'  is one of the better received animated movies. It opens up a playground in which these characters could have a school yard fight without ending on a 'moral of the story' scenario that plagued many well known animated series from the 80's like He-man or G.I. Joe. It scored an audience rating of 67% fresh on rotten tomatoes and banked just under 8 million dollars domestically on video sales.
The idea was taken from the 1963, first ever issue of the Avengers, where Loki manipulates the Hulk to defeat Thor; that plan backfires and inadvertently forms the alliance of earth's mightiest super heroes. The difference being this battle is not on earth, but Asgard, the home to Thor and the gods.

It was the first medium besides comic book pages to reveal  more of the landscape that is Asgard by way of architecture, landscapes,and how Kirby's creation interconnected with one another. The movie is bookend with a colorful montage of Asgard  with easter eggs of various characters like Frost Giants, Dark Elf Malakai, and the Destroyer just to name a few.
The color scheme also serves as a motif, beside giving the gods a sense of light that surrounds them,  animators intentionally made the color green to represent an enemy of Thor. Characters consisting of Loki, Enchantress, Hela, and Hulk are at some point opponents to Thor.  Actor Graham McTavish who provides the voice for Loki, also portrays a menacing character on the now concluded television series Preacher. A live action comic book adaption that aired on AMC,  playing The Saint of Killers.

As far as being shown on a celluloid medium this is the fourth time these two characters fought in battle. The first was the Incredible Hulk Returns (1988), followed by Mortal Bounds (1996), and then Ultimate Avengers (2006). Of course battles five & six occurs in the MCU with Avengers (2012) and Thor Ragnarok (2017). . .  all videogame match-ups excluded.
This movie was released on January (2009) and has a run time of 83 minutes and shares a second story of Hulk vs Wolverine; both have a rating of PG-13 for animated action violence. By definition the film, if not combined with a second story would be considered a short as both run at about the 40 minute range.

Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)

Six years after the conclusion of the television series , Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno returns with a made for television movie. The film brings fans of the original series up to speed with David Banner after the series concluded. It deposits the idea that David has managed to keep the Hulk without incident for the past two years.  In that time reporter Jack McGee's newspaper has given up following the story as all leads have finally dried up. David Bannon the name he has gone by for over a year,  has helped build a new device in the field of study with gamma radiation; as an anonymous  research developer.  While in the final stages of using the device to cure him of his condition a former student Donald Blake recognizes him and brings his own set of problems in the form of a Norse Viking named Thor on the same night David stages his experimental cure.

The movie blends a light hearted fare of action and suspense as this marks the first time the series and of Marvel films (not yet rebranded Marvel Studios), to have a teaming up of characters on the screen.  Donald Blake was the character to whom for a period inhabited the power of Thor as means for Odin to teach Thor humility in the comics.  The premise remains true here, Blake is not a doctor but an archeologist and discovers the hammer while on expedition. That discovery made him become fated to be an emissary for Thor so he may one day be worthy to enter the gates of Valhalla, as he was been deemed unworthy.

The movie was pitched to NBC as a backdoor pilot for Thor;  Sadly it did not get picked up as it had received mediocre reviews. The movie was co-directed and written by Nicholas Corea; to whom Bill Bixby had brought on board, for his long standing work with the original series, and kept the lonely man theme song to end in its traditional closing credits.