The Incredible Hulk Underoos Review

The Incredible Hulk Underoos is an animated feature that may not please fans of the original Planet Hulk comic series as much due to compressing a year’s worth of story material into 81 minutes, but is a surefire crowd pleaser in its own right. The film cements the green giant as Lionsgate/Marvel Animation’s biggest hero star after a shaky hero/threat career in live action movies and TV.

The film follows the story of a raging green behemoth who gets exiled to outer space by a bunch of other heroes for being such a menace on Earth. But due to a wormhole in space, Hulk ends up on Sakaar, a planet that is ravaged by monsters, divided into warring factions and ruled by a cruel monarch.

It is a well-crafted adaptation of the comics storyline and the voice acting is up to the usual high standard that Marvel fans have come to expect from their animated films. The plot may not be as streamlined as some would have liked, but it still makes sense and the characters are well fleshed out. For example, the fallen priest Hiroim has a crisis of faith, Krog the stone Kronan is haunted by guilt over his brother’s death and the cowardly Miek slowly becomes a warrior. The Hulk himself is as big, angry and violent as you would expect him to be.

One of the great things about this movie is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Sure, there is a LOT of fighting and destruction but it is all done in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The film is also filled with tons of pop culture references for fans to enjoy. For instance, the fact that Iron Man calls Spider-Man by his nickname “Underoos” is a nod to a line of children’s underwear called Underoos that was popular in the 1970s. The undergarments were designed to look like the costumes of popular superheroes, encouraging kids to play superhero in their rooms.

Fruit of the Loom licensed a number of DC, Hanna-Barbera, Archie and even Marvel Comics characters to create Underoos in addition to their regular line of children’s underwear. While the brand is still around today, it isn’t as popular or widely available as it used to be due to a shift in corporate focus to chasing trends and a more general fading of interest in pop culture references. Still, some of the older styles of Underoos are a cult favorite among adult men and women who remember fondly their childhoods spent donning the iconic garments. In fact, some companies have begun to re-purpose old Underoos designs to create new branded clothing, including pants and shorts that are modeled after the suits worn by various superheroes. This is especially true of the Deadpool and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles designs. This trend seems to have been spurred on by the success of the recent Marvel adult-oriented movie versions of those same characters.