BEFORE: I started reading Marvel comics full-force with the crossover called "Secret Wars" back in 1983, which took all of the main Marvel heroes and villains off to a distant planet, where a cosmic entity called the Beyonder made them fight. It was sort of like an all-star concert, but with comic-book characters - the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the Hulk vs. Dr. Doom, Galactus and a bunch of other villains - after that, I was hooked. Soon after that, I bought my first Hulk comic, issue #300, which featured a mindless Hulk against (wait for it) the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man - and the only way the Hulk could be defeated was by sending him off to a dimensional crossroads, where he could hopefully find a place to live, and never threaten humanity again - however, eventually, he returned to Earth. Years later, in 2006, Marvel ran a similar storyline, called "Planet Hulk", where the Illuminati of the Marvel heroes (Mr. Fantastic, Professor X, Iron Man, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Black Bolt and Dr. Strange) tricked the Hulk into boarding a rocket headed to a distant planet...
THE PLOT: The Hulk crashes on the planet Sakaar, is forced to compete in gladiatorial contests, then unites with a group of rebel Sakaarians to overthrow the Red King.
AFTER: Well, it's more or less faithful to the storyline from the "Hulk" comics from 2 years ago, which is generally regarded as one of the better Hulk sagas. Although Earth's heroes intended to send Hulk to a nearly-deserted planet where he could never hurt anyone, something goes wrong and instead he lands on a populated planet with a war-like society. Who's to say, maybe that's the best environment for him after all, because he's really handy in their gladiatorial matches, and teamed with a ragtag group of "Warbound", he ends up becoming the warrior mentioned in their prophecies.
The deviations from the comic book include the absence of a Brood character (an X-Men villain race, sort of like the hive queen from "Alien") from Hulk's band of allies, and the replacement of Silver Surfer in the arena with Beta Ray Bill, an alien who's sort of like a Thor wanna-be. But the essence of the story is the same. No Bruce Banner in this film, though - it took place at a time in the comics where Hulk couldn't (or wouldn't) turn back into Banner. However, Hulk seems to get somewhat smarter over the course of this film, I'm not sure if there was something in the planet's environment that made him smarter, or maybe it was the brain-nanites that helped him understand the alien languages.
There are a lot of story elements here, in fact there's almost too much story to fit into an 80-minute animated film, I have a feeling that some of it had to be left out. And although Hulk finds success in the arena, and eventually love with a warrior girl, the comic books didn't let him enjoy this paradise for very long. Shortly after the events in this film, the planet was almost completely destroyed, and Hulk blamed the heroes of Earth - so he loaded his Warbound into a rocket and went back to Earth for revenge. That storyline was called "World War Hulk", but I guess Hulk beating up on the other Marvel heroes wouldn't really make a great film for the kiddies...
RATING: 5 out of 10 broken swords
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