I just came back from an advanced screening of Marvel Entertainments (NYSE: MVL) Incredible Hulk and it surpassed my expectations as did Iron Man before it.

The preview Wednesday night, two days ahead of the premier scheduled for Friday the 13th, is probably too scary for little tykes but it is a superb blend of movie technology magic and the passion of the cast and crew.

It's all in the eyes. Unlike the glib Tony Stark character in Iron Man, played fittingly by Robert Downey Jr., Edward Norton is the emotionally gamma ray charged green powerhouse that only roars, and must communicate his feeling though his eyes. This is the case when the Hulk's temper rages and when he is expressing his affection for Dr. Elizabeth Ross, played by to perfection by Liv Tyler.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, comic-book publisher Marvel (NYSE: MVL) has come up with another character set to exploit from its vast library. I've never heard of this title, but apparently a comic book called Runaways, which has been around since 2002 and has developed a following. It has been tapped by management to be source material for a movie. It has something to do with teenagers who have parents that are evil villains. This sends them for a loop, causing them to run away and to attempt to process this shock to their systems. I don't really know a lot about this universe.

And that's what fascinates me about it from the perspective of being a shareholder. It both frightens and excites me at the same time. One of the biggest issues surrounding Marvel has been the oft-mentioned value of the company's 5,000 characters. Some have pointed out that, once you get through Hulk, X-Men, Spider-Man ,Iron Man and a few of the other major hitters, Marvel really doesn't have any other big properties to lean on in terms of generating viable movie franchises. For instance, is Ant-Man going to be a huge success at the movies? For that matter, what the heck is an Ant-Man anyway? Wasn't he made fun of in an old Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1970's? I sometimes do have some reticence when thinking about characters such as Thor, Captain America, and, yes, Ant-Man. Will they be accepted by the movie-going youth as readily as Iron Man recently was at the multiplex?

This is why I think it's a neat idea to start testing the perception of Wall Street investors by announcing the film adaptation of a lesser-known quantity. I mean, I haven't heard of this Runaways thing, at least. But maybe something a little more modern compared to the Captain America character will resonate perfectly fine with the youthful target audience of today. Perhaps Marvel will find out the true value of its brand equity when it slaps its name on something that hasn't been promoted over several decades. It's difficult to say at this stage, and I'll concede that it might be a bit early to begin evaluating this concept when investors are more worried at the moment over the potential success or failure of the new Hulk picture that is set to open very shortly.

Still, if Marvel wants to compete with big guns such as Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), then it needs to broaden its horizons and move beyond Wolverine.

This summer was a very profitable one for box offices nationwide, with four movies grossing over $300M, and at least another nine grossing over $100M -- signaling in a big way the resurgence of the movie industry, which had been struggling for the last few years.

The four big $300M+ winners of the summer were Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE: SNE) 'sSpider-Man 3, which grossed $336M in the U.S., Viacom, Inc (NYSE: VIA)'s Paramount's Shrek the Third, which grossed $320M, Transformers, also from Paramount, which grossed $311M, and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS)'s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which grossed $308M.

Three of the four were third installments of well established big-budget franchises, so their success is hardly shocking, but the Transformers success clearly marks the start of a new blockbuster franchise (the release date of the sequel has been announced -- June 26, 2009). The robot-action extravaganza, which was directed by Michael Bay, was definitely a surprise, as I remarked in my summer movie preview that Transformers "has flop written all over it... there cannot possibly be enough substance in a story about alien robots that transform into vehicles to make this a hit with the general public." I was wrong -- very wrong. The movie killed at the box office, grossing over $330M on a $150M budget, and prompting a re-release on IMAX, which opened last week.