By Joshua Tyler and Jacob VanGundy | Published
Decades before Iron Man started the MCU, there were plans to create a separate Marvel universe, which would culminate with the Avengers team. It debuted on the CBS television network and spawned many superhero movies.
The network has fully developed a number of superheroes and is also doing crossover shows. If CBS had succeeded in making its superhero universe Marvel, it would have started the live-action comic book trend 30 years earlier. Here's what went wrong.
Spider-Man Spider-Man does anything a Spider can do In the 70s
The television network version of the MCU began with the 1977 TV movie, Spider Man. That led to an ongoing series on CBS called The Amazing Spider-Man.
Starring Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker, the show was a moderate success, but was especially popular with children. That popularity of limited years affects the network. So Spider-Man was retooled to appeal more to adults in its second season.
That didn't change the show's demographics, so CBS pulled the plug on its first Marvel show in 1979.
Muscles Wasn't a Special Effect and Made The Incredible Hulk Successful
Following the same release formula as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk began as a TV movie released in November of 1977. That served as a backdoor pilot for the upcoming television series, which aired on CBS.
Starring Lou Ferrigno as the Green, Hulk version of the character, and Bill Bixby as Puny Banner, The Incredible Hulk was the most successful of the CBS Marvel shows, running for five seasons. It was such a hit, that even after the show ran for four seasons, the show went back to two made-for-TV movies, some of which were stitched together from old episodes.
Unlike almost every other Marvel superhero effort made in this era, The Incredible Hulk endured in pop culture, and the MCU even referenced it in its current streaming shows. Against all odds, The Incredible Hulk was a real success.
It's a miracle that success happened, as both CBS and showrunner Kenneth Johnson, wanted to make it as similar to the Hulk from the comics as possible. There was even Johnson's hard push, making the hulk red instead of green.
Green argued, it was not the color of anger. The color of anger is red. The showrunner said he called Stan Lee for permission to change the color of the Hulk's skin to red, but that was a bridge too far for the creator of the male animal.
Now, The Incredible Hulk it's the end of Marvel's first attempt at enduring pop culture consciousness. It's also not forgotten that if some of their efforts had been successful, we might have gotten the MCU, decades earlier.
It wasn't for lack of trying though, because after that The Incredible Hulkthey do Dr. Strange.
Dr. Strange Gets a TV Movie
CBS's next attempt at a Marvel adaptation was Dr. Strangeanother TV movie designed as a backdoor pilot. It was released a year after the backdoor driver The Incredible Hulkand given the success of that show that CBS probably had high hopes for.
Starring Peter Hooten as Stephen Strange, and Jessica Walters as the villainous Morgan Le Fay, it didn't do well enough to warrant a series. Despite its poor ratings, Dr. Strange it's the closest to an accurate comic take on the character of that era. That may be in part, because Stan Lee actually served as a consultant on the show.
Because of Lee's involvement, it comes close to feeling like an old, low-budget version of a modern MCU movie. If you think you should ignore the special side effects.
The First Captain America Motorcycle Movies Released on Television
Not to be discouraged by the failure of Dr. StrangeCBS moved forward with their efforts to turn the Marvel universe into a television phenomenon. Their biggest push to adapt a Marvel character, came with the pair of Captain America made-for-TV movies released in 1979.
The first one was named Captain America and the second one had a title Captain America 2: Death Too Soon. Captain America was released in January of 1979 and Captain America 2: Death Too Soon it first aired on television in November of the same year. They turned pale.
Both movies star Reb Brown as Captain America and drastically change his origin story and characterization, making the character feel familiar. No one liked them.
Their failure would have been the final nail in the coffin for the CBS version of the MCU, however The Incredible Hulk it was a success, and there was hope in the air that there might be more.
Thor Awkwardly Weilid His Hammer At The Hulk's Team
After a long time The Incredible Hulk ended its run, network television brought it back as a 1988 TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns. The real purpose of this movie was a last ditch effort to get another Marvel character working on television. The Incredible Hulk Returns he was a backdoor pilot in the Thor series.
It saw Lou Ferrigno's Hulk team up with Thor, played by Eric Kramer. Thor's appearance was meant to get the audience excited enough, for the actor to justify his show. But the Thor they put on screen was hokey and awful.
It failed and network television dropped Marvel.
Some Attempts to Build the Avengers
CBS' attempt to create their own Marvel TV Universe failed, but Marvel continued to experiment with other deals.
In 1990 the Cannon Group, famous shlock filmmakers, attempted a theatrical version of Captain America. The film has never been released in the United States, although it received a brief theatrical run in the UK. However, it became a cult favorite as a direct-to-video entry showing on the bottom shelves of Hollywood video stores.
Marvel kept trying, although this meant they failed to make a must-see Captain America movie, three times, at that time. In 1994 they gave another low-budget filmmaker, Roger Corman, the shot to make a Fantastic Four movie. If you're wondering why you've never heard of it, or seen it, it's because the film was never released.
Why it wasn't released is a matter of debate. Corman says he had no intention of releasing it and the movie exists only as a way to hold on to the Fantastic Four movie rights. Some say it was so bad that even Corman was embarrassed to release it.
The leaked versions of Corman's Fantastic Four are available online now and, thanks to overworked clues and cheap armor, they end up very similar to the original episodes of The Power Rangers.
There was also an attempt, to get a live-action Iron Man movie, at the same time. There was even a written document, but the project stopped there. That's pretty cool, considering how badass Iron Man's suit could be.
Why The TV Avengers Of The 70s And 80s Were Never Made
It is CBS that is putting the most effort into trying to capitalize on the success of the Marvel universe. They were ready to build their own Avenger, if they could make anything work better than the Hulk. They just needed some famous heroes to team him up with.
Crossover episodes between The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man were originally planned, but concerns about Spider-Man's small fanbase prevented an MCU-style team-up. After both series ended, actors Bill Bixby and Nicholas Hammond created a Hulk/Spider-Man TV movie, and while other Hulk TV movies were made, they did not bring back Hammond's Spider-Man.
If crossovers had happened, he could have easily transformed into Dr. Strange and Captain America joined in a campy '70s Avengers TV event. The inconsistent ratings were a hindrance to CBS, trying its own TV version of the MCU, but it also faced two major business problems.
One was that CBS was afraid of simulating superheroes, which at the time were thought to be only for children. That's at least part of why Spider-Man was canceled, despite its ratings success.
Another thing is that Marvel itself has always been dissatisfied with CBS and worried that the network was creating their own new characters, releasing shows they owed to Marvel. It was that attitude that led Marvel to the creation of She Hulk, in an attempt to stop CBS from having the idea of ​​a female Hulk.
The interconnected universe has been a big part of Marvel comics since the 1960s, and CBS almost brought that to the small screen nearly 50 years ago. While the campy style of the CBS productions may have hindered MCU-level popularity, the full universe of the Incredible Hulk's impact could have changed the entire genre.
Although the concept sounds modern, superhero universes could easily have been the hot trend of the 80s, if one of those CBS projects other than the Hulk had started. It didn't happen. The world was not ready.
Maybe it's for the best, because if any of the Marvel shows from the 70s, 80s, and 90s didn't work they wouldn't be as successful as what we have now. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark had to wait.
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