Easter Eggs and References in The Incredible Hulk Movie

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By reagu

"Hulk Smash!" is not a corny line

If you're reading this, then you probably saw The Incredible Hulk and thought that the line, "Hulk Smash!", was a lame and cheesy thing to say before he beats up the Abomination.

Well, stop! And step back a bit.

Let's first acknowledge that the 2008 movie (The Incredible Hulk) is much more loyal to the comic books than the 2003 movie (Hulk).This means that The Incredible Hulk contains many elements from the comic books including the line, "Hulk Smash!"

Below is a list of Hulk comic book elements in the 2008 movie that I picked up. They may not be obvious to those who don't follow the Hulk comics so I include a quick explanation where possible.

Let me know if I missed any.

Incredible Hulk CG Animation and Motion Capture Interview

Samuel Stern is the Leader
Samuel Stern is the Leader

Easter Eggs and References from the Hulk Comic Universe

* Samuel Sterns receiving gamma ray blood on his temple. In the comic books, one of the Hulk's main nemesis is the Leader, a mental equivalent to the Hulk's brute strength. The Leader's power originated from gamma ray exposure much like the Hulk's. Also, the name of the man who turned into the Leader is Samuel Sterns. ComicBookMovie.com reports that the Leader will be the villain in the sequel.

* The purple pants that Betty Ross gave Banner at the motel room. In the comic books, the Hulk wore purple pants.

* "Hulk smash!" is not a corny line thrown in by the writers. It's the Hulk's signature line in the comic books. Other well-known superhero signature line includes "This is a job for Superman", "Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man", "It's clobberin time!", and "Shazzam".

* Dr. Samson, Betty's psychiatrist boyfriend played by Ty Burrell. In the comic books, he is known as Doc Samson, also a psychiatrist who was exposed to a small dose of gamma radiation while working with Dr. Banner. He gained similar powers as the Hulk but at a much lesser level.

* Rick Jones in a list of names during the opening sequence. In the comic books, Rick Jones was the teenager that Dr. Banner saved from a blast of gamma radiation. Banner shielded Rick from the gamma ray bombardment with his own body, kicking off the Hulk saga.

* Hulk out muscling the Abomination. To the uninitiated, it may seem a bit lame that the Hulk was able to comeback from the beating that he received from a much more powerful and better-trained Blonsky as the Abomination. The same goes when the Hulk was clearly beaten down by the soldiers using sonar cannons in an earlier battle.

Where did the Hulk get the burst of strength? Well, in the comic books, the Hulk gets stronger as he gets angrier, giving him potentially limitless strength. This particular trait allows the Hulk to match up very well against powerful supernatural beings such as the Norse god Thor and the demi-god Hercules (LeadersLair.com).

In the movie, each time the Hulk was beaten down, he saw Betty Ross in danger (e.g. soldiers carrying her away against her will and flames about to engulf her on the rooftop) and seeing her in danger made him angrier building up the strength to overpower his opponents.

Blue Serum used for Captain America turns Blonsky into a Super Soldier
Blue Serum used for Captain America turns Blonsky into a Super Soldier

Hulk TV Series and Other Marvel Comics Easter Eggs

Besides the Hulk universe, there are two more distinct categories of references incorporated by the movie makers. These two categories are references to the 1970 Hulk TV series and other Marvel comic book superheroes such as Iron Man and Captain America that could be used for setting up the Avengers movie.

Seeing these references made The Incredible Hulk fun to watch for loyal fans. And if you missed them, you should watch the movie again.

For a complete list of references, easter eggs, and allusions in The Incredible Hulk movie, see the article at GammaGangsta.com.

  • Open Question: Where is my fish, i have the rod?

    So, long story short, my uncle the other day took my pidgeon and i havent heard from it since, so i called him to see if he knew where it was and he said that the incredible hulk could beat bane in a fight any day, i agreed with him and we had a tequila sunrise together and he talked about his life in the old country (which was ironic because he was a swede). Then i told him about the troubles with my boyfreind ted. Ted had recently gotten out of prison and was trying to go straight (away from the real estate scams) so i said that he should quit smoking, to which he protested quite strongly, saying that he had spent ten years in the joint without a single smoke. So back to my uncle, we then got a call from my uncles neighbour who said that though the hulk has more agility and brute strength than bane, bane would still stand a sizeable chance against the hulk. So we marched on over to his caravan and got into a huge argument about it. By the time we had finished it had been six hours and i had blown my curfew. My parents were ropeable when i got home. They said things like "a fifteen year old girl should not be out at this hour" or "why cant you be good like your boyfreind". So i went to bed, but then i remembered about my pidgeon and cursed myself for forgetting about it. So the next day i asked mum about my pidgeon and she said that she saw him on his perch on the roof. So i climbed the three stories and found ol pidgey sitten down watching the sunset. I sat with him and remembered my most embarrassing moment in boarding school, when i was sleeping in class i accidentally took a poop in my chair and ran out of class with my knickers around my knees with a big turd hanging out of them. Which was odd because my poo is usually brown. Oops i may have gotten off track here, so i was playing ocarina of time and i caught a huge fish but i forgot to save. Is there any chance i can easily catch the fish i lost? - 3 hours ago

  • Open Question: How to install games in PSP?

    I want to buy a PSP. In it I wanna install 2 games 1> GTA 4. 2> The Incredible Hulk SO, for this I want download links for both the games and how to install them. I have a pc so if the installation can be done with pc you just tell me how to do that. And I wanna ask a suggestion that For me a PSP will be good or A Graphic Card. PSP: Its cost is 2400 and if its so cheap its disk space will be less and both the games shall not come in it. OR Graphic Card: its cost is 3000 1GB. Ad with this GTA 4 will run and The Incredible Hulk will also work. I do not need to download any game or anything. I have both the games. PLEASE HELP ME WHAT TO DO. - 5 hours ago

  • Open Question: Is The Incredible Hulk a sequal to Hulk?

    So im watching The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton in it, and then i remembered that there was another Hulk movie that was made not long before this one. So i was wondering, is The Incredible Hulk a sequal to Hulk? - 9 hours ago

  • Open Question: What ever happened to the Incredible Hulk 2?

    So, I watched both the Incredible Hulk & The Incredible Hulk 2. I recently watched the avengers and decided to re watch all the trailers for each Avenger. Although it seems there is no trailer for the Incredible Hulk 2. All I remember of the movies is that in the first one, the story line is introduced and the creating of Hulk, in the second one Hulk is encountered by Abomination, and at the end credits , Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) was planning to kill Hulk. Somehow it seems the second movie has fallen off the face of the planet. It's like MIB erased everyone who knew of it's memory. I watched them both on DVD and it seems no trace of it exists on the internet. Strange...Any ideas? - 16 hours ago

Comments

marveltshirtguy 3 years ago

Cool hubpage

Jammin1 2 years ago

One that you have missed is Cap himself in the alternate opening sequence. When Hulk smashes the Ice it cracks all the way down the side of the mountain and if u watch in slo-mo u can see teh outline of Cap and his sheild

Dash 14 months ago

thanks i posted a video of a few of these...@

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NPzMZi4xpA

Isak 10 months ago

Thor (or Tor, if tou want to be picky) is not a norse god. he is a SCANDINAVIAN god! Son of Odin! The asa-belief has its origin in Iceland, sweden, denmark and small parts of northern Germany, as well as in Norway...

It hurts my Scandinavian heart that people don“t know that :)

reagu profile image

reagu Hub Author 9 months ago

Isak, gonna have to ask you to bring up the correction to Marvel Comics since it's their created universe that I'm talking about here.

http://marvel.com/universe/Asgard

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