What's up, enthusiasts? Welcome to the Nerd O Dome. You're listening to I Am A Nerd, where we celebrate nerdy things, old and new, with our like minded peers, and that means you. I'm your host, Direct Addition. Today, we're continuing our countdown to Captain America, and I have with me Zero Cool.
What's up, Zero? What up, what up? We're counting down to Captain America. It's supposed to hit theaters February 14th. When this episode drops, it's probably going to be like a week away and it's going to hit on Valentine's day. And we're going to [00:02:00] talk a little bit about that. He is Ross red hope.
I'm not going to be able to keep calling him Thaddeus, first of all. We're just going to call him Ross and go with it. Roll with it, because Thaddeus just doesn't really roll off the tongue quite as well as Ross does. No, it does not. It does. It even felt wrong, like, writing it out when I was doing notes for this.
I know, right? When you read it in text, it's like, what? Thunder Boat. Ross. Ross. Although, how cool would it be to have a name like Thaddius? I mean, that's, no, I don't know. That'd be rocking, dude, because I, if I had a name like Thaddius, I'd have to go by my middle name. I'm just saying ain't too many people running around with the name Thaddeus.
I know and somebody, somebody be like, yo, what's up? Tha no, no, no, no, kid. Hold on. My name's Thaddeus. Yeah, tell me. That wouldn't be smooth as the club. That wouldn't be smooth as club . That'd be smooth at the club. I'm telling you. No, it would not , but, Thaddeus aside, thunder Boat Ross is now gonna be making his not his thunder boat.
Ross's debut in the MCU is not coming up. [00:03:00] However, his alter ego known as Red Hulk. We're finally getting that MCU debut. For, for that character. So, and many people don't know that Ross actually had a hand in creating the OG Hulk as far as MCU goes. And that goes back to Incredible Hulk. Well, it's not even just the MCU.
I remember as a kid watching the animated TV show where it showed, and you'll, you'll see it in the opening where a banner pushes Rick Jones into the in the thing, right? It was Ross who set off the gamma bomb early. Oh, I didn't know Ross had that much of a hand as far as well he directed some white coats to do it But yeah But he wanted to get it done early and it was kind of the same as far as the the Incredible Hulk goes But this one was more they tied it into The MCU a little bit more where he was trying to recreate the super soldier serum [00:04:00] and He didn't really tell Bruce The scientists that were working with him any of his group what they were actually really what they were doing, right?
They thought they were working on more of a cure for cancer cure for disease more more along those lines, but you know military types we Sometimes don't always tell the truth need to know, classified, all that good stuff. Right, a need to know basis.
Thunderbolt Ross is going to be played by, first time, Harrison Ford. Whereas before, it was William Hurt. And Hurt started in, The Incredible Hulk back in 2008. I think that's when that film premiered and it was supposed to be a reboot of Hulk, the original one.
Well, okay. Let's try and clear this up a little bit. Let's back it up Alright, so. One thing first. There have been two notable Hulk films and that was Hulk [00:05:00] and then The Incredible Hulk and I'm talking like actual MCU films. Now. Incredible Hulk is considered as the reboot of Hulk, which happened 2003? The one directed by Ang Lee.
Ang Lee, yes. Yeah.
So the first Hulk the star was Eric Bana. Right, and that was the one directed by Ang Lee. And that was simply just called Hulk. And so The Incredible Hulk was a reboot of that film. And it was officially considered as phase one of the MCU. Kind of retroactively. Right, yeah. Because there wasn't really a concerted effort to make an MCU at that point.
Correct. Why are we, why are we getting Harrison Ford now instead of William Hurt? I [00:06:00] think that if he hadn't passed away, I think that we would be seeing him because we saw him in other MCU films portraying the character of Thaddeus Ross, right? And he's a lot of people may not know, but he's been in multiple MCU films almost in kind of a Not really a side role, but he had small but impactful roles in all of these films.
And if you really piece them together, you can see that he's been trying to give the Avengers and superhero community hell throughout that time. Pretty much, yeah. And he's of that thought that, you know, every government official thinks that, any, uncontrolled power is a danger.
Like TikTok, you know, you had to go real world on me already. Damn, I threw that one out there. Damn . [00:07:00] But yes, just like every other government entity, if they're, if they're not in control of it, then it must be a threat. No matter how many times these people, these characters, these beings, beings are, are saving.
Numerous lives, no matter how many times that they've, they've saved the plant. They're always a threat, right? You can get one through nine, right? But as soon as you get 10 wrong, okay, now we have a problem. Yep. we were talking about his appearances in some of the other movies, which, so the war showed up in civil war.
He was the one that brought them the Sokovia Accords. Yep. And he showed them the film. And that, really he was the one that caused the rift between the team. Because he was like, you guys are out of control, you need to be You need to be managed, you need to be put under thumb. Under supervision, right. Yep.
And Stark was feeling guilty about everything that happened in, from [00:08:00] Ultron. Because he had a hand in creating Ultron. And so then that, that's when the whole split started to happen. Yep. I remember his appearance as a, as a hologram in, Infinity War. Yes. He was in Infinity War. One of the best, one of the best things I ever saw was Rhodey.
He's like, cut that dude off, mid sentence. Right. Because of the Sokovia Accords, right? They were, Cap and the team was considered fugitives. This is, uh, Infinity War was after Civil War, right? Yep. So, they had been considered fugitives if they had been on the run, but because of everything that was happening , they were coming back together to save the world.
And Rodie was, I think he was given, he was still, he's still in the military. He's still, you know, he was giving him an update. He was, he was still the liaison to the Avengers initiative. Mm-hmm . And he was given, just like you said, uh, Ross, an update. Ross didn't like it. And Rodie said, you know what, go to hell.
Turned [00:09:00] him, turned it off, said done. Click. And he, and you know, roadie mad anyways 'cause he got skeleton legs now. He Right. He got better legs than Fort Gump ever did. But he's still got skeleton legs. So, you know, they had team cap showed up and he was pissed and he's like, he told him to arrest them.
Didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I told him, go to hell. Yeah. Uh, he was an in game too, but he has a smaller, very small. Yeah. Much. He was just at the funeral. The funeral was stark. And I think that was it. I don't remember him being in any other scene. One of the, one of the biggest not collaborations, but how do you, juggling of schedules because there was nobody in the funeral scene that was CGI'd.
Every single actor that portrayed their character was there at the time of filming. And you see how many big name actors that were there. Could you imagine managing the conflict of their schedules to get that one scene, which was, [00:10:00] what, maybe that was a tangent. Now, that's all I'm going to say.
Nice little panning shot. It wasn't long. It was, here they are. We got it. But all in the same spot. Amazing. Yes. Outside of that he was chasing Black Widow in her movie. Mm hmm. He was chasing her in the beginning and then he showed up at the end after everything was all said and done with.
Now we get him in Cap 4. He's become president because he was, before he was what, Secretary of State? Secretary of State. Before that he was General. Chasin Hulk. Pissed off at Hulk all the time Was he elected president? No, he was elected, yeah.
Almost kind of like the same storyline as they used in D. C. when Lex Luthor got elected. Okay. Very similar. Very, very close in storytelling there. Okay. Because I thought he was Somebody had died and he had to step into the role or something like that. But if he was elected I'm pretty sure he was elected, but we might have to go back and hit the [00:11:00] archives.
Alright, so I wonder if they're going to touch on that, because when did that happen? We've pretty much seen his progression from General to Secretary of State to now President. If we go back to Incredible Hulk, and he was chasing the Hulk for, you know, he was pissed off about that, and the fiasco that came out of that, the destruction, and everything from Hulk and Abomination, how he handled Emil Blonsky and stuff like that, that ended, pretty much was going to be the end of his military career.
Pretty much, yeah. And then once that happened, he jumped in as the Secretary of State, because He had the background dealing with super folks. Mm hmm. Then we get the Sokovia Accords. We get the arrest from Civil War. Cap being arrested and the fallout from that. And then where is he going to go from there?
[00:12:00] This is a man that cannot be in the spotlight. He has to be in some sort of control. And it's just the mindset that he, that he possesses that he has to be doing something to control outcomes. He did it as a general. Yeah. Didn't always work. Hulk got away. But he was that mindset that he had to. Be in control at all times.
And for a man of that type of stature, just the natural progression is moving into politics where you can control. Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm trying to think if there were any other appearances that I missed as far as him being an MCU, because it does seem like it's few and far between, but he does have those.
All of those roles, all of those scenes that he's been in has been those important moments. Absolutely. And, and it's one of those where if you blink, you may miss it. If you get up to get, you know, popcorn, you may miss it. You're definitely gonna miss it. But he's been [00:13:00] there a lot along the way. Right. And of course, and especially if you're not familiar with the character, you definitely not gonna know who he is.
You may have seen. Oh, that's the general. Uh, it's, well, with William Hurt playing that character, you may have recognized, oh, that was that one dude that was chasing the Hulk. Back in the day. Back in the day. Um, but now, if you're not familiar with those films, cause, 2008, you say that was? That was a while back.
And let's be honest, not everybody is well versed in the MCU, as some of us are. Not everybody went and saw Black Widow. You know what I mean? There was a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, contention about some of these movies. And a lot of people boycotted them for different reasons. I'll be it. Most of them were dumb, but you know, if you didn't see them and you're trying to jump back in, you may not be familiar with this character as, as much as some of the other characters.
Just a quick [00:14:00] add on there, uh, Ang Lee's Hulk, the first time we saw Thaddeus Ross was June 17th, 2003. Oh, okay. But the Incredible Hulk was Was 2008. 2008, okay. Yeah, and that starred Edward Norton as, uh, Bruce Banner. Gotcha.
talk about the ironic thing about the Red Hulk which is You have transformed a man who has made it his job his life's work to hunt down Hulks Right, and they transformed him into a Red Hulk. So he's essentially have just become what he's hated the most Amazing how that works.
That's how it always works, it seems like. You know what I'm saying? Now granted, he's not the same as our traditional Hulk. Or any of the personalities that the Hulk actually has. Or any of the other ones that we've seen. But the fact that you take this one man, who has made it his life's mission to hunt down this one particular individual because [00:15:00] he's different.
And he becomes exactly like him. Yeah. What's that tell you about human nature? Oh, man. I mean, that's, like I said, that's the way it always happens. Either the thing you hate you may become. What was the phrase? Like you, if you live long enough, you're going to see yourself become the villain. Yes. Something along those lines.
Either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. There it is. Oh, I remember him mentioning in some of The films he was in, how he had like heart attacks. Mm hmm. Uh, he was explaining the story about he was on, he was golfing or something like that. And then he had, he dropped and he had to have a triple, triple bypass.
So I guess he couldn't die the hero and he had to. Became the thing he hated most. Amazing how that works, isn't it? But I digress. That was, I just needed to throw that in because I read that and I was like, that makes a lot of sense. We talked about [00:16:00] it, uh, earlier in a few other episodes about which iterations of Red Hu 'cause initially I thought it was just gonna be, I thought Thaddeus Ross was, or Thunderbolt Ross was the only Red Hulk.
But come to find out, there have been two others. Two others. So three altogether. So the second one was Robert Maverick. And that was his second incarnation. And he appeared in the debut series of us Avengers four star general Robert Maverick, uh, back in 2017. And his is a little bit different than Ross's transformation because he was given a device and it was created by Avengers, idea mechanics, not advanced idea mechanics, the typical name that we usually associate with aim, right?
But this was Avengers idea of mechanics. And was given a device called the Hulk plug in. And his, his difference is that he was only able to transform into the Red Hulk for an hour. [00:17:00] Mmm, okay. That, well, I don't want to do comparisons. But that kind of screams JSA, our man. Our man, absolutely. Now, another difference between Maverick and, and Ross was that Maverick got to keep his cool ass mustache when he was Red Hulking.
Uh, I don't know if that's a plus. Well, you know, depending on, depending on when you read it, it may or may not be. Uh, and, so Maverick had to die off to change himself into the Red Hulk for an hour. Now, Ross transformation was natural? Mm hmm. Like, was it along the same lines as
Ross's is not really based on anger and unlike Bruce Banner's Hulk, he doesn't get any stronger the angrier he gets. Oh really? Okay. But, um, [00:18:00] he has the same strength, durability and endurance that is comparable to the Hulk when Hulk is just Hulking. Okay. Not as he gets angrier. Okay. But his, uh, his difference is that he's capable of absorbing radiation, which his body can metabolize to increase his strength.
Okay. So his is based off of radiation absorption. Absolutely. To his strength. The, the drawback to that is he emits a lot of heat when he absorbs that radiation and he gets stronger. Okay. And the third, what? The third one was the personality of the original Hulk, Joe Fixit. Uh, okay. And he gained the ability to transform into his version of the Red Hulk, uh, when he was in the Below Place.
Now, I couldn't find a whole lot of information on that particular iteration of Red Hulk. We may have to come back in one of our episodes of Catch Up. Yeah, and [00:19:00] find out about Red Hulk. Red Hulk wasn't my jam, you know, like I said, I looked more into it when we wanted to do this, this countdown. So a lot of this, I'm learning along with, with you guys.
Yep. So. And I have one more to add to it. In the Marvel 2099 run, there was a space explorer named Ross Romero, who was dispatched by Alchemex, which we all know Alchemex to be the bad guys. He was actually dispatched to a planet that had come into the solar system. He was the last person of the expedition, and he actually ate a fruit from the planet that transformed him into the 2099 version of Red Hulk.
Come to find out, do you know who the planet was? Not the Venom planet.
So the planet that Ross Marrero was on was Ego. You don't say. Don't say. In 2099? 2099. Okay, well that's, [00:20:00] I see, I don't mind like little Easter eggs like that and they drop in. Right. And they just kind of tie it together and go full circle. Right. So, I might, I might have to look into that. That's, that provides that little interconnected and a little bit of continuity to all the numerous things.
Numerous thousands of storylines that we get going here. I thought that was a pretty interesting fact myself.
I was light on Red Hulk. As far as his MCU debut goes, we already mentioned Harrison Ford is going to be playing him. And, you know, instead of the late William Hurt. How do you think Harrison is going to do in the role? I mean, I'm pretty sure that's kind of a, I mean, you're talking, you're talking about a, uh, an actor who brings a lot of weight to a character, even, even characters that he doesn't get too excited about.
I mean, originally he played Han Solo. We all know that he was Han Solo. He beat out Christopher Walken and Al Pacino for the role and he was a carpenter beforehand. Uh, he wasn't a big fan of [00:21:00] Star Wars, but the, the, the weight that he brought to the Han Solo character, I mean, Could you imagine anybody else playing Han Solo?
No. Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones. I mean, so many things in his career that, it's just the force of his acting personality that just kind of brings these characters to life, whether he even likes the role or not. Yeah. It's an amazing talent that he has to, to be able to do that for any production that he's in.
It's, to me, somewhat amazing, I thought.
There's a, there's a line from the movie that I'm looking for that I want to get exactly right before I say it because it
epitomizes the type of, of energy that, uh, Harrison Ford brings to it and you'll see in, in the trailer where you're going to see the frame where it looks like Harrison Ford sitting down and he just brings out this, this It's almost raw, but controlled [00:22:00] sentence where he says, you may be Captain America, but you're not Steve Rogers.
And then Sam has the best comeback to it. It says, you're right, I'm not. To me out of the entire trailer, and we saw a lot of good stuff in the trailer and, and the, the teaser and all that, but that, that sentence right there brought. The Harrison Ford to Thaddeus Ross. I'll be honest.
I was a little hesitant when they replaced Hurt after his passing to do a Thaddeus Ross character. But after hearing that line in the trailer, I'm more enthusiastic about, enthusiastic about it now. Yeah. And I mean, it's a genuine concern when they have to recast a role. I mean, look at everybody who has just been out of shape about trying to recast Black Panther.
Yeah. And there are some characters that you should not recast. I think you should. [00:23:00] Like, again, this may be another unpopular opinion, and we may be swaying a little bit away from Red Hulk. But I've always thought that you should recast Black Panther. Because, I mean, it's, yes, it was a great role. And Chadwick Boseman did a great job.
I don't think anybody else could have, I don't even think anybody else could have played Black Panther better than him, but I feel it does more, more hurt to retire that character with all that it meant and here's, and here's the way I look at it, you're, you're absolutely right, but in certain cases I think that, and I don't think it's disrespect, but I think that at certain points there may not be And, think anyone that would be, have the ability to make the character better.
They might do a good job, they might almost get close to what Chadwick did. But are they going to make it [00:24:00] better? And here's the thing about it, we're the MCU, we're talking MCU. How many alternate realities do you have? So bring maybe an alternate. Yeah. Black Panther. We've opened up the multiverse. Yeah. If you're going to recast the character, bring him from another universe.
And that way you still have that Black Panther role and it's not being, well, I can't say it's not going to be compared to Chadwick. Oh, it's absolutely going to be. But you know the difference from get go. Right. You're not trying to mentally compare what Chadwick did with another actor, and I'm not trying to impugn any other actor's ability.
But will they be able to meet that standard? And if you know that going in already, then you're obviously probably going to have a biased against it. If you bring it in from another universe that that changes the cards on the table and you might be more receptive to that Black Panther, that actor's ability.[00:25:00]
And I was going to ask with now that kind of brings up the question with Harrison taking up the role after William Hurt. Is he facing that same I think so, but But he has that power, that He's got that That buying power behind it. Absolutely, he's got the experience and he's got the, the, the acting chops to, to possibly get as close to William Hurt's character than anybody else.
So that's why I'm not too bent out of shape on Harrison Ford taking up the role. Okay. Um, we gotta get out of here. So any last words or any last things we didn't touch on for Red Hulk? I mean, let's Hulk out. It's better than slither out of here. I mean, come on. So we gonna go ahead and Hulk out of here?
Sorry, I had to, bro. I had to. We gonna go ahead and hook out of here and we catch you guys back next week [00:26:00] with our final countdown to Captain America Brave New World where we touch up on the Falcon. So remember live your best geek life, play games, read comics, watch anime, geek responsibly. Peace.[00:27:00]
