The Incredible Hulk 1996 TV Series "Doomed" Review

 

Marvel fans believe it or not but it's been a whopping two years since I last spoke about an episode of this show. Well i've chosen an episode that would been more relevant to do back in August of this year but I just couldn't be bothered to do it then and well with the character of She-Hulk more popular now then it's ever really been I thought that now was the absolute right time to review the episode that introduced the character to alot of nineties kids and so then join me as I review the episode that introduces us to a legendary comic book character with the episode in question being called simply just "Doomed" enjoy.

The plot of this episode is when The Hulk is in Washington DC he finds himself the target of Doctor Doom and it's up to his cousin Jennifer Walters to help him out before it's far to late. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good with this episodes not only doing a good job of making Doctor Doom seem like a genuine threat but at also introducing us to Jennifer Walters and being a genuinely entertaining plotline as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this episode is Neal McDonough as Bruce Banner , Lou Ferrigno as The Hulk and Lisa Zane as Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk. Also starring in this episode is John Vernon as General Ross , Simon Templeman as Doctor Doom , Castlevania star Matt Frewer as The Leader and voice acting legend , Star Wars legend and Batman: The Animated Series legend the one and only Mark Hamill as Yuri Topolov / Gargoyle.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. Which really shouldn't be all that surprising given who is starring in this episode and it really does help that all of this films cast members are a bunch of some really talented actors and actress as well.

Doing the animation for this episode is the legends and the greats that are currently over at Saerom Animation. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good with all of the characters having some nice movements to them and there was no animation errors that I could see and while there are other shows from around this time period that had much better animation this episodes animation was also a pleasure to look at as well.

As I said at the start of this review this episodes features the debut of Jennifer Walters and while her origin in this episode is changed. This episode does remove alot of the struggle and heartache that Bruce goes through since in the comic book Bruce knows that he gave Jennifer even a small dose of his blood then she would ultimately get her very own Hulk powers and in this episode there's no internal struggle he just does it which was something that I really didn't like since Bruce as a character should always be weary of giving someone else there very own Hulk powers but at least this version of the origin was alot better then the one that we got in She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.

This version of Jennifer Walters does seem like a very well written character I say that because i've not seen any of her episodes from this show in quite literally decades. However just based of this one episode she does show alot of promise as a character since she is a character who does come across as being a bit of a hot head and who has self esteem issues and those are things that she does have to overcome and that really does make her seem like a very well written character and as such I can see why she became a very popular characters thanks to her appearing in this show so much so that the show changed it's name for it's second season to The Incredible Hulk And She-Hulk. 

I really did like how this episode portrayed Doctor Doom since in this episode he's portrayed as someone who is the smartest person in any room he's in. With the character even being very well spoken all of which oddly make the character all the more terrifying since this man really does know how to get people to do what he wants even to the point where he manages to convince The Hulk to go on a rampage just because of the fact that The Hulk doesn't want him to hurt or even kill his cousin because that's just how scary Doctor Doom is in this episode as well as being a very good example of just how creepy and scary that this kind of character could be when there done really well like in this episode for example.

Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly twenty one minuets and forty nine seconds. Which was a tad bit on the short side for my liking simply because of the fact that you could have gotten a lot longer running time out of this story which would have allowed you to delve into the characters a bit more which would have helped thew episode a bit more and it would have made the threat of this episode seem alot more epic and bigger in scale but as it is the episode just seems a bit rushed.

So now then since this is an action show that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. With this episode having some truly good action set pieces all of which where really exciting and all of which are really well animated in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall this was a really fun episode and out of the three episodes of this show that i've seen this one is quite easily the best one since this episode gives you everything that you'd expect to see in a Hulk story in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that means that this very episodereally does erns itself a grand old score of exactly a 7 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Hulk fandom wiki page , the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the actual images that are actually from this actual freaking episode being the official Hulk fandom wiki page this is simply because the official Hulk fandom wiki page actually has a wide variety of images from this actual freaking episode all of which are currently featured / up and on the official Hulk fandom wiki page right now / as we speak and plus all of the images that are currently featured / up and on the official Hulk fandom wiki page are all really fairly high in quality and as well as being fairly freaking high in freaking definition.

The Incredible Hulk 1996 Animated Series "The Return of The Beast Parts 1 And 2" Review

 

Marvel fans whenever people talk about the companies animated series there are a few shows that I see not being mentioned. One of those shows is the show that i'm about to take a look at the first two episodes of simply because this was a show that I grew up watching and it really does make me wonder why people don't mention this show despite having a really good cast and here is my review of the first two episodes of the 1996 animated series "The Incredible Hulk" with the episodes being called "Return Of The Beast Part 1" and "Return Of The Beast Part 2" enjoy Marvel and animation fans.

The plot of the two parter is Bruce Banner thinks he's finally come up with a way to rid himself of the Hulk and when he tries his experiment out at an army base under the watchful eye of General Thunderbolt Ross something goes wrong and so it's up to Bruce , Betty and Rick Jones to find what happend , who caused it and why. I'll admit that the plot of this two parter is perhaps it's weaker aspect since there's barely enough story to cover one episode let alone two as such I strongly believe that this story should have been told in one episode , not helping things is the fact that the story is pretty thin which makes it hard to work what the actual plot of the episode actually is.

Starring in the episodes are Lou Ferrigno as The Hulk , Neal McDonough as Bruce Banner and Genie Francis as Betty Ross . Also starring in the episodes are John Vernon as General Ross , Matt Frewer as The Leader , Mark Hamill as Gargoyle , The late Luke Perry as Rick Jones and Kevin Schon as Major Talbot and The Abomination. Yeah there really isn't that big of a cast list for these episodes literally every single person who appears in part 1 appear in part 2.

In terms of what I thought about the acting in the episode it was honestly so much better then what I thought it was going to be. Which for me is a good because I saw the cast list and thought that the acting was going to be pretty bad but no the acting at least in these two episodes is actually really good with all of the actors doing there best to make there roles there own which for this reviewer at least is a very good thing.

In a rather odd move there's no company listed as doing the animation for this show on the show's official IMDB page but after checking the IMDB page for both the episode I found that the animation at least these two episodes was done by Saerom Animation. I have no idea what Saerom Animation have worked on and after seeing these twp episodes I don't want to know because yeah the animation in these two episodes was at best OK.

On top of that there are really noticeable animation errors which no one bothered to check and fix with the most obvious being in the above picture where for one scene instead of having Bruce with brown hair he apparently died it blonde for a few moments. There are alot more errors in not only part 1 but also part all of which I feel could have been fixed if someone either at the animation studio or where ever the show was being produced actually did there job.

I like i'm assuming many other people had no idea that Mark Hamill was in this show and i'm not going to lie he was perhaps the biggest reason for me checking the show out this time around. He actually does I think a rather solid Russian accent altho to say it's an accent would be a bit of lie because all he does is heavily accented English with a Russian sounding voice but it's a really good voice in my opinion.

Fir some reason these two episodes don't deal that much with the relationship between Betty and Bruce which is a shame because the intro to the show makes that aspect seem really interesting. I would have liked it if either of the episodes devoted a small amount of time to the Betty and Bruce relationship since that's Bruce's way of transforming himself back to normal and so it would have been nice to get some insight about there relationship but hey we most likely get that in later episodes of the show of the first season or somewhere in second season.

These two episodes aired on September 8th 1996 and September 15th 1996 respectively with the episodes and thus the whole series airing on UPN. What I find to be weird is that from what I can gather the first season was pretty good and yet for some reason UPN thought that the first season was two dark and so for season ordered that She-Hulk be added to the main cast as a way to make the show seem more female friendly which to me is just dumb because surely making the show actually good would in turn make more people want to tune in it goes without saying but the show didn't get a third season with it's final episode airing on November 23rd 1997.

The villain of these two episodes and the show as a whole is The Leader who as mentioned is played by Matt Frewer. I honestly didn't mind the character in these two episodes since he has a good if somewhat confusing plan and is actually very proactive in getting done what let's the character down tho is we don't get that much time with him in these episodes with alot of the screen time being spent with Bruce and friends dealing General Ross.

Now then since this is an action show that does mean that we have to talk about the action that's in these episodes. To me the action in these episodes was honestly really good i'm not going to say that they were great because i'd be kidding myself but when you compare to alot of the things that are wrong with the episode the action comes of looking better plus it's always fun seeing Hulk smash things and blow things up.

Overall these two episodes are really good and are a really good representation of what to expect from the first season of this show. That being said these episodes are not even close to being perfect since they have alot of issues with them all of which i've covered in this review and what's worse is all of these issues are things that could have been fixed very freaking easily as such I these episodes get a combined score of a 5 out of 10 from me.

All images that I used in this review were gathered from either the official Hulk fandom wiki page , the Marvel Animated Universe fandom wiki page or Google Images. I honestly cannot say which is the best website to use for images either from these episodes or from this show because they all are roughly the same when it comes to quality which given that this show came out in the mid-nineties makes alot of sense.