Ang Lee's "Hulk" having been atoned for with the rather better received The Incredible Hulk, Marvel has released "Hulk vs.", which is specifically Hulk vs. Wolverine - a fight that fanboys seem to get all kinds of worked up about - and Hulk vs. Thor.

They're totally unrelated, both forty minutes long and pretty much excuse plots for big fights. Which is pretty much what anyone looking into these is going to want.

Hulk vs. Thor is almost painful in its excuse plot. We start out with some exposition from Loki about how Odin does some magical sleep thing once a year and during that time, Asgard is vulnerable and Thor and his pals have to protect him. Loki figures this is a good time for him to send the Hulk in to wipe the floor with Thor - all pretty non-sequiter.

Loki gets Enchantress to work some magic mojo on Banner, separating Banner and the Hulk and then doing some mind control on him (because that ALWAYS goes so well). Loki goes to town in control of Hulk and wipes the floor with a bunch of guards and minor characters who were chatting at the start. Naturally, Thor comes along to lay the smackdown but Loki manages to do a pretty good job of thrashing him.

A lot of this fight is almost beautiful but it's not that impressive as a fight. Inevitably, Loki dicks around too much and the spell is broken. At this point, Enchantress goes "Oh... wait - so, the plan was to KILL Thor... well, I wasn't in for that!" And Loki offs Banner. The Hulk just about beats Thor to death but then Enchantress comes and kisses it better (literally) and for some reason, the Hulk decides to go back and beat the hell out of the city some more.

Thor has some words with Loki but then Enchantress tells us that with Banner dead, she can't return the Hulk to Midgard. At this point, Loki realises - and Thor choking him might help. Irritatingly enough, we are teased with occasional shots of the cannon fodder defence of Odin - which looks pretty awesome but we KEEP missing the good stuff, it seems. Well, what would you rather see - an idyllic after-life for Banner, or the fighty fighty?

Naturally, this being a story with mythology - all you need to do is pop to Hell or its equivalent and ask the relevant deity for your soul back. Banner angsts for a while but chickens out, it turns to Loki to finally convince Hella to take the Hulk. Which naturally saves the day. Of course, then they have the Hulk running around the Hell-equivalent and for some reason this necessitates another fight and then Hella sends him home. Loki gets his comeuppance, Odin wakes up up and we find pretty much everyone survived getting stamped on.

The pacing is pretty uneven, we're slow to start off and constantly, CONSTANTLY avoiding the big fights. We get one decent sized Hulk/Thor fight and one pretty short one at the end. The story really is an embarrassment. It was all so arbitrary. Fun but there's so much "that's it?" feeling. Far too much cutting away from the action and filler for something that is cutting to the credits at close to forty minutes.

All-in-all, it's decent but the pretty animation can't rescue a story that struggles to be mediocre. It's almost as if they'd decided to a double feature and just plucked Thor out of thin air because... well, he's another well known Marvel heavy hitter. It's something of a shame they didn't go for something a little more interesting... Thor is pretty much solidly getting his ass handed to him by the Hulk. So, any notion that this would be more of a match of equals is flawed. Something that pitted Hulk against maybe Juggernaut might have been more fun... and wouldn't have required the terrible excuse story.

Hulk vs. Wolverine is rather more interesting and isn't so painfully contrived. The name is a big misnomer though. The conflict here is really more about Wolverine vs. his former compatriots from Weapon X - Lady Death Strike, Deadpool, Sabertooth and Omega Red.

Wolverine starts out not sure what's going on, before we cut to four hours earlier. Wolverine does his badass thing - including JUMPING OUT A HELICOPTER WITH NO PARACHUTE... and kind of sliding down a mountain. Yeah, he runs around being cool before he tracks down Banner. This being Wolverine... he antagonises Banner but naturally, doesn't off him and ends up getting punted across the forest.

Cue fanboy pleasing fight. Healing factor and adamantium aside - Wolverine would pretty much be paste after the thrashing he takes... but THE POWER OF FANBOYS COMPELS HIM. Round two is just getting underway when Weapon X turn up and tranq the hell out of both of them.

Cue another flashback - this time to Wolverine getting abducted by Weapon X goons and getting his adamantium... and a bit of training and escaping. In which Wolverine kills about a dozen people. It's pretty awesome. Deadpool is also great - in fact, he's a terrible scene stealer.

Deathstrike wants to off Wolverine... but escape ensues and eventually he frees Banner. They do a bit of escaping and fighting - then Wolverine stabs Banner so he'll Hulk out. This results in some awesomeness from most everyone. Even a little more Hulk vs. Wolverine - gasp! Then... we have the mandatory explodey base... but... why the tease of Wolverine & Hulk at the end? It's a fantastic finishing shot but leaves the question unresolved and the Hulk vs. Wolverine quotient very low.

Hulk vs. Wolverine isn't quite as pretty as Hulk vs. Thor but it is really in a different ballpark as far as the story goes. Now, it's fair to say that you'd have to have been hiding under a rock not to have a basic grasp of Wolverine's back story insofar as Weapon X goes but the retelling is cool and gives the characters a reason to be there rather than "the plot demands it".

It's a little ironic that this is shipping dubbed "Hulk Vs." because it does feel a lot like he's really just cameoing despite being the titular character... he does the HULK SMASH, fairly competently but it really feels as if he's never given time to shine... Not just that but anyone hoping these would be actual Hulk stories, will be sadly disappointed. Thor allows for Banner to be a whiney little bitch a bit but really, it's all very trite and the kind of pathos that defines the character is pretty absent.

Bottom line: worth it if you've been gagging to see Wolverine just run around and MURDER A LOT OF PEOPLE, like a bad ass - without the child friendly parameters of the recent cartoon. Worth it if you just want some pretty cool fights... Definitely worth it for people who are Deadpool fans... if Wolverine hogs the screen time from the Hulk, Deadpool steals the scenes from Wolverine... But, if you're looking for something you can get your teeth into? Not for you, not really. The stories are insubstantial and in the case of Wolverine, the kind of stuff even a level one fanboy could summarise without thinking... Really, just there for the bigger fans or those who like the big fights. Those buying it because they love the Hulk - will be a little disappointed.