Hulk Vs. Wolverine / Hulk Vs. Thor
Story(s) by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, and Frank Paur
Directed by Frank Paur

Pretend I’m a cooler comics blogger than I am and let’s say somebody at Lionsgate actually sent me this DVD, and that I didn’t buy it for $15.

Not sure why each movie is on its own seperate DVD.  …Vs. Wolverine is only 37 minutes long, and …Vs. Thor clocks in at just over 45 minutes.

Here’s the deal with …Vs. Wolverine: it serves as an introduction to the world of Wolverine and Weapon X, showcasing many of the characters who’ll be making their world premiere this summer in X-Men Orgins: Wolverine — Sabertooth, Deadpool, etc…  Purely coincidence, I’m sure.

It opens with a Hulk #181 inspired brawl that ends with both Wolverine and the Hulk captured by the Weapon X program.  Wolverine’s capture and sedation leads to a pretty faithful adaptation of Barry Windsor Smith’s Weapon X story, and it plays out pretty grusome on the smallscreen.  Hulk’s in this one very little, but he does break free at the end and goes ballistic on Weapon X and Wolverine.

The story is by X-Force scribes Kyle and Yost, and it’s pretty bland.  The animation isn’t bad, but it’s very stylized, almost to the point of distraction sometimes.

…Vs. Thor is better.

With a Thor movie on the horizon, its purpose, like …Vs. Wolverine, is to mostly introduce newcomers to the world of Thor and Asgard.  And while it does a good job, and still manages to be entertaining, it gets to be a bit much in spots as the writers really do try and put EVERYTHING in.  Check these off your Thor scorecard.

-Odin
-OdinSleep
-Loki
-The Enchantress
-Scourge, the Executioner
-Surtur
-Malekith (seriously)
-Balder
-Sif
-the Warriors Three
-Frost Giants
-Hela
-Fenris

Yeah, all of that in 45 minutes.  And honestly, it kind of works, but still, they somehow manage to never call Thor’s hammer Mjolnir.  Weird, huh?

Special features are okay.  A “Making of…” featurette for each, and some commentaries, which I didn’t get around to listening to.  …Vs. Thor has a featurette on Jack Kirby, which isn’t terribly informative and doesn’t offer anything to longtime fans, but its heart’s in the right place.

If you own the previous Marvel animated features, you’ll probably want to own these two.  But if you’re only mildly interested, you can probably hold off and catch them on Cartoon Network eventually.