#and Samson is impressed that the Hulk could use that kind of reasoning

[daydreamerdrew]

The Hulk! (1978) #24

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The Incredible Hulk’s Diminished Legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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Love it or hate it, one of the things that makes the Marvel Cinematic Universe work is the long term synergy. With Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, over a decade of movies came together to pull off one of the most entertaining spectacles of our time. It’s a universe that, for the most part, feels consistent and it builds on itself as each movie feels like an essential cog in a larger machine.

Some cogs are bigger than the others, though, and when it comes to “the others,” one can’t help but notice that 2008’s Incredible Hulk is something of a black sheep in the Marvel movie roster. These days, they’re just starting to dust it off as a property with the return of Tim Roth’s Abomination in She-Hulk and William Hurt’s General Ross’ gradually increasing role in the universe itself (he’ll appear in Black Widow and possibly other projects soon enough).

Now, there are plenty of reasons why Incredible Hulk is the green-skinned stepchild of the MCU. It made the least amount of money (about $42 million less than Captain America: The First Avenger, which was the second worst showing), the lead actor was recast afterwards, and its status as a Universal co-production meant that it would be the only movie in the first three Marvel phases that would not get its own sequel, no matter how popular Hulk was in the Avengers movies and Thor: Ragnarok.

It’s not like the MCU acted like Incredible Hulk never happened, but the creators definitely had a tendency to shove it into the corner and be somewhat vague about its existence. It became easier as the MCU became rich with more and more properties, but early on, it was very much the rage-filled elephant in the room.

The Hulk Design

There were a couple of ads for Avengers: Endgame that included shots from all the previous MCU movies in chronological order. For one, when it came to Incredible Hulk, all it had to show for it was Hulk’s fist bursting through the wall. In another, they just used shots from later movies and hoped nobody would notice. That’s because CGI or not, Ed Norton’s Hulk and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk were two very different beasts. Not only did they roughly resemble their actors, but Norton’s Hulk was more of a giant, angry bodybuilder with green skin while Ruffalo’s came off as more Cro-Magnon, like a shaved gorilla.

It means that while they could talk about Hulk’s exploits, they could never really show any flashbacks, as it would just look awkward. Similarly, Incredible Hulk filmed a cut opening where Banner tried to shoot himself, but the Hulk wouldn’t allow it. While it was a bit too extreme to show, Banner at least got to talk about it happening in Avengers.

The Effect on the World of the MCU

When you look at the events of Incredible Hulk, it keeps things focused on the characters and not the world at large. Sure, it would have been bigger news if the Abomination defeated the Hulk and went on an even bigger rampage, but that problem was nipped in the bud. If you’re a citizen of Marvel Earth, all there is to know is that some soda has been recalled and there was a monster fight in Harlem.

In the movies themselves, the only time the Harlem fight is brought up is in the background of Iron Man 2, where Nick Fury’s map signals it as a place of interest.

With the exception of the Hulk straight-up existing, the most lip service his movie got early on was the scene in Captain America: The First Avenger where Steve gave blood for further study. They needed something to give Emil Blonsky down the line and turn him into an angry Ninja Turtle.

Speaking of…

Whatever Happened to the Abomination?

Of Marvel’s Phase 1 villains, one died, a couple vanished confusingly into space only to come back later, and three were taken into custody. Ending up in custody means you’ll be back soon enough because prisons usually can’t hold the type of enemies who can throw down with the Avengers. Usually.

In other words, it’s pretty damn impressive that the Abomination has been kept off the grid since the Hulk choked him out in Harlem. She-Hulk will be his first real appearance since then, but his name has been on the tongue of Phil Coulson on Agents of SHIELD a few times.

The scene of Tony Stark appearing at the end of Incredible Hulk to confront General Ross is something that came off as a big deal at the time, but afterwards didn’t make too much sense. Piggybacking off the Iron Man post-credits scene, Stark was seemingly trying to recruit the Hulk into the Avengers. That didn’t exactly jibe with what they were going for afterwards, so they released a short film to make sense out of everything.

The Consultant featured Agent Coulson and Agent Sitwell discussing the unfortunate decision by the World Security Council to demand the Abomination join the team. After all, Blonsky is a decorated veteran and the Harlem incident could easily be blamed on Banner. Fury wasn’t in a position to refuse the Council, so the only hope was that General Ross – the guy in charge of Blonsky’s captivity – turned them down. And so, they sent Tony Stark. That final scene in Incredible Hulk was reframed as Tony Stark obnoxiously asking for the keys to Abomination for the Avengers and Ross being so annoyed by his antics that he straight-up refused.

Afterwards, Abomination was namedropped a couple of times in Agents of SHIELD, which is par for the course considering early Agents of SHIELD was about reminding us about stuff that happened in the movies and saying, “We’re part of all that!” According to the show, Abomination was kept in a special prison in Alaska that only a select few know about. There was an episode where SHIELD’s main prison lost power and one of the writers realized that they probably needed to note that Abomination wasn’t going to be an issue in this situation.

But hey, at least he finished his story. The Leader on the other hand…

Samuel Sterns and the Fate of the Leader

At the time, it was the right play. Tim Blake Nelson played the kind of surprise villain you’d find in your average CGI animated Disney movie. As Mr. Blue, he existed as Bruce Banner’s potential salvation, only to be revealed to be kind of over-the-line and sinister in terms of his gamma experiments. After turning Blonsky into the Abomination, Sterns was knocked to the floor and a sample of Banner’s irradiated blood dripped into the open wound on his head. Sterns seemed especially jazzed with a crazed expression as his head started throbbing and increasing in size.

And then…nothing! Not even a mention in a different movie or Agents of SHIELD. That’s what happens when you set up a villain for a sequel and then have legal reasons keeping you from making that sequel. That said, there is a follow-up to what the hell happened with Sterns.

Back in 2012, a prequel comic was released to coincide with the first Avengers movie. The Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week showed that the events of Iron Man 2, Thor, and Incredible Hulk all happened over the course of a few days. We got to see those storylines from the perspective of SHIELD, especially a very overwhelmed and fatigued Nick Fury. That makes sense for the stuff with Tony Stark in Iron Man 2 as well as Mjolnir and the Destroyer in Thor, but what of Incredible Hulk?

As shown in this story, Black Widow was in the background of its events, keeping an eye on everything and realizing that she was way in over her head. She played clean-up on the Sterns situation by coming across his giant, mutated head in the aftermath. Sterns was quick to figure out her homeland from traces of her accent and thought to bribe her in some way, but she stonewalled him with a couple of bullets to the legs.

A year later, Sterns was shown floating in a tank, unconscious, as various SHIELD scientists studied him.

Will we ever see the Leader pop up in the MCU? I can’t imagine Tim Blake Nelson is too busy to appear on She-Hulk at some point.

Betty Ross

Bruce Banner’s old flame is now nothing but a footnote. Considering Banner moved on to another relationship and then another planet, there was never a reason to reintroduce Betty. The only nods to her were Tony Stark naming his Hulkbuster armor “Veronica” (get it?) and the Russo Brothers saying in an interview that Betty was one of those turned to dust by Thanos.

Maybe one day we’ll see Red She-Hulk. Don’t hold your breath, though.

Thunderbolt Ross

General Thaddeus Ross does the heavy lifting for keeping Incredible Hulk relevant. The guy came back for Captain America: Civil War, a movie that didn’t even have the Hulk in it! But it did give him the Henry Gyrich role in a time when Gyrich was probably off-limits since he was considered part of the X-Men corner of Marvel (he already had a very minor role in the first X-Men movie). A familiar face, Ross got to be the government liaison type who spoke with logic, but came off as an antagonistic killjoy.

Right or wrong, Ross’ insistence that the Avengers sign with the Sokovia Accords ruined the team in the face of Thanos’ rampage against the cosmos. He still got to show his respects as Tony Stark’s funeral at the end of Endgame.

Yet, that’s not the last we’ll see of him. In Black Widow, Ross is shown in the trailers. We don’t know his role quite yet, but there’s a lot of fan speculation that Ross might tie into the next roster of the Avengers. Maybe a team that’s government sanctioned and controlled. Maybe a team that’s an awful lot like the Thunderbolts.

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It does seem that as the MCU reaches further and further outward, it looks back more and more on the events of Incredible Hulk. Then again, I doubt we’ll be seeing Ty Burrell’s Leonard Samson turn into a gamma-irradiated psychiatrist with long, luxurious hair any time soon.

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Pumping Iron at 40: The Classic Bodybuilding Movie

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It’s hard to overstate the impact of director George Butler’s 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, not just on bodybuilding, but on society. For one thing, it introduced the world to pre-Conan Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose incredible success might not have been possible without his breakout performance as himself in P.I.

Then there’s the mainstreaming of gyms that can be traced to the  lm’s release. Beginning in the late 1970s and well into the ’80s, the health club industry saw massive growth, with chains popping up throughout the U.S., then the world, and with them, a surge in gym memberships. Pumping Iron is the reason many of us, myself included, got into working out in the first place, so it’s with great pleasure that I wish George, Arnold, and the rest of the film’s cast and crew a happy 40th anniversary.

PUMPING IRON:

The film that almost wasn’t.

With the exception of the brothers Weider, few people have had as much of an influence on the popularization of bodybuilding as George Butler. As the engine that conceived, directed, and then brought the film Pumping Iron to theaters 40 years ago, Butler has given bodybuilding fans the world over a visual touchstone that still serves as everything from historical reference to motivational guide to celluloid bible.

M&F: What was your  first professional experience with bodybuilding?

George Butler: Charles Gaines was assigned by Sports Illustrated to write an article on a bodybuilding contest for the July ’72 issue. He asked me to take the photographs.

What was the contest?

It was the Mr. East Coast, which was held in Holyoke, MA, and was won by a wonderful bodybuilder named Leon Brown.

Were you familiar with bodybuilding at the time, or was it a new experience for you?

I had grown up in Jamaica and the West Indies, and I used to work out in a gym in Jamaica, and bodybuilding was a big sport down there. I saw my first bodybuilding exhibit actually at a political rally in a church in Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica.

SEE ALSO: Arnold's Anniversary Workout at Muscle Beach

How did that come about?

A friend of mine was running for parliament in Jamaica, and he had a political rally in the parish church, and part of his rally included a bodybuilding exhibition with a guy named Samson. The power went out in the middle of it, so they lit it with kerosene flares.

After the Sports Illustrated article came the book. I understand that you faced a few obstacles in attempting to get it published. Hadn’t Doubleday given you an advance to do the book?

Right. We did the entire book and turned the manuscript in to Sandy Richardson, who was editor in chief at Doubleday, and he wrote us a letter saying, “I want my money back. No one will ever read this book, and no one will ever be interested in Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

So then you shopped it around in New York?

Yeah. We ended up at Simon & Schuster.

That was in ’74?

Late ’74.

And was it a success?

Yes. It made The New York Times Best Sellers list.

How many editions have there been?

I think about 20 printings.

SEE ALSO: The Golden Era of Bodybuilding

Your book is what inspired me to take up bodybuilding. When I was about 10, I remember thumbing through a copy in a department store and coming to the picture of Arnold with a topless girl on his shoulders, and I thought, “That’s what I want to be.”

Well, bear in mind that the woman on his shoulders was the top woman bodybuilder at the time. I took those photos for a Playboy article, and Arnold was supposed to be the male bodybuilder, and Heidi was supposed to be the female bodybuilder.

So after the book comes the movie. What was it like trying to bring the  film to the screen? Was Charles involved?

Charles decided he didn’t want to be involved in the movie. Pretty much everyone deserted by this point.

Did you have funding at this stage?

Well, funding came in very erratically and with great difficulty. I actually went to 3,000 people one by one to  finance the  film.

3,000?!

Yeah, it’s really true. I’m not exaggerating.

So you then went out and shot some footage?

We shot a test  film, and I screened it in New York for 100 investors, and [actress] Laura Linney’s father [playwright Romulus Linney] got up and said, “George, if you ever make a movie about Arnold Schwarzenegger, you’ll be laughed off 42nd Street.”

That kind of negative attitude still astounds me.

What you’ve got to understand is that back in the early ’70s, bodybuilding was the least glamorous sport in the world. The prevailing view was that it was purely homosexual, that body- builders were totally uncoordinated, that when they grew older their muscles would turn to fat, and that they had no intelligence whatsoever. Charles Gaines said that it was like trying to promote midget wrestling. It was so tawdry...everyone we knew was laughing at us.

How big a crew did you have for the filming?

Well, the way I shoot  films, my crews expand and contract. For instance, when I was shooting at Lou [Ferrigno]’s gym in Brooklyn, it was really just half a dozen people. When we were shooting at Gold’s Gym, we had a bigger operation. It was probably 12 people, which included the cinematographer, gaffer, the assistants, and me, and some electricians, etc. Basically I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve always worked with a small crew. When we were filming in South Africa at the contest, we were running about six cameras, and with South African assistants we probably had 30 people.

It’s amazing not only how far bodybuilding has risen since then but how far it seems to have fallen at that time. Back in the ’40s and ’50s, guys like Charles Atlas and Steve Reeves didn’t portray that image. 

Yeah, but there were limited pockets of bodybuilding. If you look at Charles Atlas, he wasn’t really much of a bodybuilder, and Steve Reeves made it in the movies and was very handsome. Look at it this way: Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived in America in 1968, and when we met him in 1972, the Mr. Olympia contest was held in a tiny little auditorium in Brooklyn and the prize money was something like $1,000 and only Arnold and Franco were making it as professional bodybuilders. Everyone else had another job. Leon Brown worked at a Laundromat in Staten Island.

I know that Steve Michalik was a graphic artist.

Steve had to have a full-time day job, and he was Mr. America. It was a joke it was so bad.

It feels like a larger production, though, especially the competition scenes in which you go from backstage to the audience’s perspective to onstage. What kind of a budget did you have?

I raised $400,000 to make the movie.

Amazing that you could  film for so long on such a small budget. You shot for about three or four months, I figure.

Yeah.

And so when Pumping Iron was released, was it straight to the art houses, or did it have a wide release?

Actually it began at the Plaza Theatre, which was a regular movie theater in New York, and it broke every box office record there was at the theater.

Were the reviews generally positive? Are there any memorable stories related to the  film’s release?

Oh, yeah. Well, it got fabulous reviews, and through a friend I got Jacqueline Onassis to come to a lunch for Arnold and that sent people through the roof. And I put Arnold before that in the Whitney Museum and in a ballet studio, and I got Jamie Wyeth to paint him.

Now, I remember the movie from PBS. It was before VCRs, so I used to run to the TV with my audio tape recorder and tape the audio for later listening. When did PBS start airing it? Probably, I would say, in late ’77. So pretty soon after the release.

Well, it was released in January ’77. So probably in October/November, it went on PBS. Even that was exasperating. The distributor, which was a company called Cinema 5, which was like the Miramax of its day, sold Pumping Iron to PBS for 30 grand. About a week later, ABC came to me, and Tony Thomopoulos, the president, asked me if he could buy it. I said, “Well, how much?” and he said, “$1,000,000.”

And by that time it was too late?

Yeah.

Now among the bodybuilding set, there is a lot of speculation concerning a few of the scenes in Pumping Iron. I’ve talked to others who have wondered if some of the  film is documentary or maybe a little bit of the guys acting for the camera. One case in particular that everyone talks about is the “missing T-shirt/crusher scene” and the on-screen friction between Ken Waller and Mike Katz. How much of that was real?

The only tricky thing involved there is that Waller evidently stole Katz’s T-shirt because we got on  film Katz saying, “Where’s my T-shirt? I bet Waller took it.” And so we  filmed the before after.

With him tossing the football around with Robby and Roger talking about how he was going to do it?

Exactly.

What about Arnold? He told so many great stories that are still debated, like whether he really missed his father’s funeral (as he states in the film).

That’s true. He did not go to his father’s funeral.

And when he made his analogy of a pump feeling like an orgasm, did he clear that with you  first or was it just extemporaneous?

No, that was extemporaneous.

Were there any things that didn’t make it to the screen that were great, funny, or remarkable?

[Laughing] Thousands of things.

Any that you can share?

Yeah. I’ve got Louie saying on  film, “All I want to be is the Hulk,” and this was several years before he became the Hulk.

Amazing. Now you’ve got four main protagonists in the  film, and each one was pretty different from the others. I’d like to get your thoughts on each. What was your impression of Mike Katz?

I adored him. He was authentic, and he always wore his heart on his sleeve, so you could tell on his face what was going on in his mind. The most amazing thing I know about Mike Katz is that he was a high school teacher. We  filmed him at his high school, and I watched him playing touch football, and he began on the zero yard line, and he ran 100 yards down the  field. There were a lot of good high school athletes there, and no one could touch him. I mean he went so fast, and he was so agile. You’ve got to remember, this was a guy who played track, hockey, and football. Three sports, All-American in college. You know, he was a New York Jets lineman, and I’m pretty sure he could have played professional hockey or could have thrown the discus or something like that. I mean, he’s an astonishing athlete and a great human being.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak with him and found him to be a thoughtful and considerate person.

He’s a  fine human being.

What was it like shooting the scenes with Lou Ferrigno and his dad?

Well, when you make a  film like Pumping Iron, you’ve got to put a good story together, and I had a keen insight into Louie’s relationship with his father. I knew that he was the perfect bodybuilder to set up as the guy who could, or might, knock off Arnold. And the contrast was perfect. Louie worked out in a small, dark gym in Brooklyn that was actually R&J Health Studio, which was owned by a man named Julie Levine. And Gold’s Gym in California was the exact opposite. Louie would work out in these tiny little rooms with one person around him and his father, and Arnold would work out in a gym in California that had its doors open, was wide open, right on the beach. And it was light and airy, and Louie’s was dark. Louie was dark and brooding. Arnold was blond and big and beachy and stuff  like that. But both men are sons of policemen. I found that very interesting, and I’m sure Arnold subconsciously registered that. So the  film set up this wonderful contest between these two men, and of course Louie was 6'5" and he’s a giant, really. But here’s something interesting not many people know. Nik Cohn wrote a movie called Saturday Night Fever. He wrote the screenplay for it, and the whole Italian family, John Travolta’s family, is modeled on Louie and his family.

You’re kidding! Actually, I can see it. Like the scene in which Louie’s family is sitting around the kitchen table...

Yes! It’s all John Travolta’s family. With his sister and brother and the Catholic Church and everything else. It was modeled on them in Pumping Iron.

That’s too funny! Moving on to Franco. He seemed like a lot of fun to be around.

I was always very fond of Franco. It was my idea to go to Sardinia and  film there. That’s when we were really doing seat-of-the-pants  filmmaking because three of us went to Sardinia: myself, Bob Fiore, and his girlfriend, who was Marshall McLuhan’s daughter. I did sound and lighting, and Bob did lighting and camera work, and we were able to do key scenes for the movie in Sardinia with literally a two-man crew. And it worked. And we got stopped by the police in the mountains. It was very exciting stuff  because Franco’s mother and father were real shepherds, and I’m not even convinced any other Americans had been to his village before us. It was way, way up in the mountains in Sardinia, and it was so remote, and it was so high up that there was still ice in June on the lakes. At one point Franco chopped a hole in the ice and caught some trout, which he served us for lunch. On another occasion Franco’s family put me in the only available bedroom, which was his sisters’ room. Five of his sisters were going to sleep in the room with me, so this was quite wonderful. Then I realized Franco’s father was sitting right outside the window at the foot of my bed, watching me all night long.

How long were you in Sardinia?

Probably a week.

That’s fun footage. The movie is so international, and it’s amazing how you did it on such a small budget with such a small crew and yet it’s this globe-hopping excursion. Well, we filmed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Montreal. We  filmed at the Whitney Museum in New York. We  filmed in Connecticut. We  filmed in Massachusetts. We  filmed in Paris, and we  filmed in South Africa.

Now I’d be hard-pressed to figure out exactly which scenes were shot where.

Well, where Franco blows up the hot-water bottle is in Massachusetts. Mike Katz was  filmed in Connecticut. The movie actually opens in San Francisco.

Is that the ballet scene?

The ballet scene was New York City. That was another location I forgot to mention. It was shot in Joanne Woodward’s dance studio in Manhattan.

Another interesting tidbit. Turning now to Arnold. We all know that he is this self-made man. What was your impression of him? Did he just seem like a guy who was born to be successful?

Yeah, well, the reason I made the film was because I thought he was very charismatic and interesting and smart. But initially, when I met him, he had been in America four years and virtually nothing had happened. You know, he wasn’t in other movies. We were the first people outside of bodybuilding to interview him.

Yeah, he did Hercules in New York and then kind of laid dormant for awhile.

Hercules Goes Bananas.

With Arnold Stang.

[Laughing] Yeah. And even his voice had to be redubbed in that movie.

That’s probably the best aspect of it: the overdubbed voice.

And I’ll tell you another little sidebar. When I was trying to get Pumping Iron going, I was very short on money. So I went to this lab in New York, and I had just come back from shooting the initial part of the  film. I asked them if they’d give me some credit, which is the kind of thing they normally do when you get going on a movie. This was a place called DuArt Film Lab, and the owner of it was someone named Irwin Young. So I went in with my hat in my hand and asked him if he would give me $15,000 worth of credit. He said, “Tell me what you’re doing,” and I said, “Well I’m making a movie about bodybuilding.” Then he said, “Does it have anything to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger?” and I said, “Yes.” So he said, “Forget it. I won’t give you any credit. I had a movie in here called Hercules in New York, and they never paid a bill, and they owe me 30 grand.”

That’s a riot! What a coincidence.

[Laughing] It was an unfortunate one.

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