Superhero Media: Hulk Vs. Wolverine (2009)

Part of the continuity made up of both The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Wolverine and the X-Men, the Hulk Vs short films come on a single DVD and have been rattling around my collection for about a decade. The better one of the pair is Hulk Vs. Wolverine, yes, it's mostly an extended fight sequence, but at 35 minutes, that doesn't wear out its welcome, think of it as a Marvel Aragami. When the Hulk is rampaging in the Canadian wilderness, Logan is called in to bring the monster down before too many innocent people are hurt; the two go toe-to-toe in some pretty well-animated fight sequences then get ambushed by some "old friends" of Logan. That's right, the whole thing was a Weapon X plot to turn the Hulk into a weapon and the film also features the Professor, Lady Deathstrike, Sabretooth, Omega Red and Deadpool. Wolverine has to battle his way out with the Hulk and try and stay alive. 

As strong as the draw of seeing an immovable object battle an irresistible force is, Deadpool is the glue that holds Hulk Vs. Wolverine together, with his irreverent humor providing the perfect counterbalance to all of the grunting that the rest of the cast provides. Seriously, every Weapon X character only cares about either killing Logan or making him suffer for 'reasons'; without wacky Wade Wilson wooing us with witty one-liners, the tone would be far too grim to be enjoyable. The finale of the film, with Hulk wading through Weapon X like so much chattel, is not only a hell of a lot of fun, but reminds me of the base escape sequence from Hulk (2003), one of the best Hulk fights in film history. The film ends, in probably the only way it really can, with Hulk and Logan squaring off to continue their fight. 

So is it just me, or does this seem like a kind of perfect way to introduce Wolverine to the MCU when they finally get around to it? So I'm writing this in January 2019 (yada yada backlog) and I have a slight suspicion that there will be a Wolverine and/or Deadpool cameo in Avengers Endgame, but if that's not the case, this concept may work. Sure, Hulk Vs. Wolverine is only 35 minutes long, but add in some origins flashbacks, a bit more exposition and maybe some Alpha Flight cameos and 90 minutes is easily within reach. Deadpool would probably have to be swapped out for another character, but I can totally see Mark Ruffalo signing up for a film where he gets to rampage around as Hulk for a while and the Canadian government is forced to call in an expert; "He's the best at what he does, and what he does ain't pretty". Think about it, you know I'm right on this one.