X-Men Movie Discontinuity

That's definitely an issue. Another problem is that someone decided to hang Magneto's origin on the Holocaust, which makes his birth year no later than 1932 (in the movies) whereas in the comics it's specifically stated he was born in the late '20s and was sent to the Warsaw ghetto when his family was rounded up in 1939. So in 2011 he's either 82-85 (comics) or 79-84 (films). Doing that really limits the stories you can tell in present day without evoking the magic reset button on his age.

If you read Straczynski's run on Thor, you'll see a number of those elements made it into his movie version. I agree with you; I also quite like the way they've cleaned up Iron Man, Thor and Hulk, hewing to the core of the characters and their backstories, evoking their histories without becoming encumbered by them.

Wait, waitasec. Which part of the Hulk's backstory are we talking about?

In the comics, Banner was irradiated while saving Rick Jones from a nuclear bomb test. In the TV show he experimented on himself trying to unlock hidden reserves of human strength. So in that respect, yes, the movies were closer to the TV show and I think that's a good thing.

But the movies kept the feel of the comics. Hulk is one of Banner's multiple personalities, arising from the trauma he recieved from his abusive father. That is one aspect of the Hulk that Ang Lee presented perfectly and I love his movie just for that. It's much better than the 'all people are strong and green when angry' backstory of the TV show.

In my opinion, the movies both did a very good job of modernizing the comic book versions of the Hulk. The only thing I want them to add is the fact that Hulk is always a hero because Banner is a good man. Maybe we'll get Captain America's speech in the Avenger's movie.

"Back in my day, we had a name for people like you."
"What was it?"
"Hero. I've been watching you, Hulk. No matter how scared they are of you, or ho much they hound you, you always manage to do the right thing. That's a hero in my book."

The X-men, on the other hand, departed from the comic's backstory much more. All they kept was the essential theme of mutants as outcasts. (They couldn't really lose that theme, just as they couldn't lose the anger=strength theme of the Hulk.)

The comics did just that.

" Magneto continued his genetic experiments and, using technology abandoned by the Inhumans Phaeder and Maelstrom, he created Alpha, whom he dubbed the “Ultimate Mutant”. Alpha turned on his creator, however, reducing Magneto and the Brotherhood to infancy. The baby Magneto was transferred to Muir Island, where geneticist Moira MacTaggert attempted to control Magneto's insane rages by manipulating his DNA so that his body would be better able to tolerate his powers. Magneto was later restored to adulthood by the Shi’ar alien Eric the Red."

End result, Mags is physically about 1/2 his actual age. Which is really the only time I've seen any comic even tangentally deal with the fact that their characters don't age relative to the world they're depicted in.

That specific element of Ang Lee's Hulk is something I did like. But both movies make major depatures in the core story of the Hulk. Ang Lee's Hulk gets the psychological element right, but not the origin story. In the comic books Banner is a victim of his own creation, the gamma bomb. No one did this to him: he ultimately did it to himself. To me that's significant.

In the Norton Hulk Banner is a victim of his own experiment as in the TV series, which is at least spiritually closer to the comic books, but the Norton Hulk goes farther. It specifically incorporates the Fugitive aspect of the TV show as Banner on the run and searching for a cure. The comic books didn't focus on Banner trying to find a cure for the Hulk although that occasionally happened, they focused on The Hulk. In effect, the comic books are about the Hulk, while both movies and the TV show are about Banner. That's a vast shift in focus. Its a good one for the medium in my opinion, but it comes at the expense of basically lifting Banner from the comic books and picking up the Hulk as only a secondary actor, not the star of the show.

In fact, in the movies and the TV series they ditch Rick Jones because Rick plays better off the Hulk than Banner, and is not as necessary when focusing on Banner.

Are these just minor tweaks? In my opinion, its no bigger tweak than which specific mutants are members of the X-Men at its founding: the core story is still the same for the X-Men: mutants who serve the very people who consider them outcasts. And its the same for the relationship between Xavier and Magneto: rivals for the soul of mutant kind and its relationship to the rest of humanity. But in both the X-Men movies and the Hulk movies the specifics are changed around significantly.

Ah, I see what you're saying. You're not talking about the themes or the backstory, you're talking about the characterization and the choice of main POV character.

I agree with you, there. The comic book focus is on the Hulk; the TV show and movies focus on Banner. (But they have to because of the constraints of live action filming. The 'Planet Hulk' animated movie focused exclusively on Hulk.) In the X-Men, the focus is usually on Prof. X; the movie focuses on Magneto more. (And the earlier movies focused almost completely on Wolverine.)

The choice of narrative focus warps the entire story, so that even if the backstory and theme is the same it may have a different meaning. Focusing on Banner leaves the Hulk as a mindless monster that needs to be cured. Focusing on Wolverine leads to stupidities like X-Men 3.