HULK VS.: FRED TATASCIORE

SAN DIEGO -- Fred Tatasciore has a love/hate relationship with Wolverine.

As the voice of the Hulk, he brutally battles Logan in the Hulk vs. animated movie, due on DVD on Jan. 27.

As the voice of the Beast, he's a best friend as Wolverine tries to rebuild the X-Men in the Wolverine and the X-Men series, which premieres on Nicktoons on Jan. 23.

The differences between the Hulk and Beast aren't lost on Tatasciore, a veteran voice performer with scores of diverse characters on his resume.

"Beast is the character I want to be as a superhero because he's so smart and compassionate and wants to solve things peacefully," Tatasciore says. "Hulk is the complete opposite and just wants to be left alone."

Tatasciore has voiced the Hulk before, in both Ultimate Avengers movies and Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow. He says he enjoys working in the Marvel Universe.

"I am a fanatic of this stuff. This is like I got in to play in my favorite band," he says. "I do study him and I do know about the guy and you learn about the characters as much as I can."

The Hulk vs. movie is loaded with action, right from the get-go. The fight scenes made for lively recording sessions for Tatasciore and Steve Blum, who provides the voice of Wolverine in both the movie and the X-Men series.

"Fred becomes the Hulk," Blum says. "Watching him, the veins in his neck come out, his muscles bulge and he sweats. We're all in the splash zone. It's so brilliant to watch, though, because he really transforms. When he's in that zone, you just have to let him go or you're going to get hurt."

"He's such an extreme state of being, this Hulk character, that I just have to invest myself into it," Tatasciore says. "I don't even know how it's going to come out some times."

Tatasciore and Blum are longtime friends, but recorded together in the same studio for the first time on Hulk vs.

"It's great when you can get the actors together because you can respond off of each other, really make it real and its gets it in the same scene," Tatasciore says.

"It's like music. We kind of jam off of each other."

Tatasciore's Hulk returns in an episode of Wolverine and the X-Men, but he spends most of his time voicing Henry McCoy, aka the Beast, who helps Wolverine rebuild the team after a catastrophic event in the first episode.

Tatasciore says he loved the concept and design for the character.

"He's really dragging the knuckles and he can kick butt, but would love to settle things intelligently," he says.