With Justice League and Spider-Man news and rumors out of the way, I wouldn’t be doing my nerdly service if I didn’t whip up some Avengers HOTT GOSS, and fortunately there’s quite a bit for us today. The first bit of news involves some insight into the mood and focus of The Avengers 2, and director Joss Whedon offered up a very telling quote during an appearance at the Glasgow Film Festival, which ran from February 14th through the 24th.

While Whedon was short on details, when asked about the return of the superhero’s union, he said fans could expect “Death, death and more death. I can’t do any bigger, so I’m trying to do better.” (Via Yahoo!)

I assume that he means that one of the core characters is going to die – perhaps half of the Marvel Universe dies like in the Infinity Gauntlet series??? – but if I had to start making some odds, I’d have Nick Fury at the bottom of my list, because Samuel L. Jackson has that huge deal with Marvel Studios. At the top of my list, maybe Black Widow or Hawkeye, because Scarlett Johansson can’t be sticking around this hero party much longer, and Jeremy Renner has the Bourne franchise to run now.

But maybe it’s one of the bigger guys. Perhaps it’s even the unstoppable Incredible Hulk, whom Whedon said might not get his own movie now, despite some serious rumors to the contrary.

“The problem is it’s a very popular character, but it’s not a superhero, “Whedon said. “Half of it’s a superhero, half of it’s a werewolf. And you can’t structure it like a superhero movie, you can’t light it like a superhero movie. How do you develop that? It would be extremely difficult. The one thing you would have in your favor would be Mark Ruffalo. But right now I don’t know if they have plans to do that or not, because he works so well as part of a greater whole, but by himself, it’s tough. I don’t envy the guys who went before.”

So what does that mean then for that amazing rumor that not only would the Hulk get another shot at his own movie, but Marvel would be balls to the wall with both Planet Hulk and World War Hulk movies? It means don’t hold your breath.

But right now we’re talking Marvel, and specifically the rumors dropped earlier this month that after Avengers 2, Hulk would be launched into space for a spinoff film based on the Planet Hulk storyline from the comics. Given how far off in the future that would be, it was safe to assume the idea was in early development if at all– but now Aint It Cool says it’s not in development at all. We’re dealing with a “he said, he said” battle between two different sites with different sources, but Ain’t It Cool says Latino Review’s original scoop is “1,000% inaccurate”– mostly because Marvel wants more Ruffalo and less Hulk. (Via Cinema Blend)

Ah yes, nothing like a good war between two bloggers and their anonymous sources. The Planet Hulk rumor is certainly fun for fans of the books (thanks to commenter Surly Badger for suggesting them to me, I mean GRRRRRRR PUSH UPS!) but it also suggests that someone who is either working on The Avengers 2 or within Marvel Studios is stupid enough to not only leak privileged information, but completely skip over the details of the highly-anticipated sequel and start talking about something that may not happen for another seven or eight years. Basically, the whole rumor stank of bullsh*t from day one.

And you know who doesn’t like bullsh*t? Dolph Lundgren. The 55-year old action star is currently enjoying a relatively tame renaissance thanks to The Expendables franchise, and he took some time to complain about The Avengers to the L.A. Times.

“‘The Avengers’ — that was a great movie, by the way — but I think certainly for part of the audience, if you fire a thousand bullets and there’s not a drop of blood, there’s something wrong with that. Part of the audience wants to see real explosions and real fights and that kind of real machismo.”

It’s important to remember that Lundgren was the original Punisher, so I’m going to let his complaint pass. Only because I hope that The Punisher is properly remade soon with Lundgren playing the villain. Anything is better than John Travolta.