Is Iron Man 2 a Prequel to The Incredible Hulk?

With a very special thanks to our good friend Jeff Vice, the film critic at the Deseret News, we were pointed out to an article on Empire Magazine’s website that has some pretty compelling evidence (granted, it’s via twitter) that the Iron Man sequel is in all actuality an Incredible Hulk prequel of some kind.

And we all know how much I love prequels…

From their story:

Now, we don’t often indulge idle speculation here at Empire, but something Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau said today on his Twitter feed has sparked our imagination, and could be a major reveal in terms of the plot of The Avengers movie.

Favreau retweeted a question from a follower, who asked ‘Does ‘Iron Man 2’ take place before or after Hulk movie?’ Favreau succinctly replied, ‘Before’.

They went on to speculate that this validates the theory that Hulk is going to be the bad guy.  Jeff Vice further speculated to us:

And if they’re following existing Avengers continuity, 616 at least, that means Loki is the real villain, since he sets Hulk up for the fall.

What do you guys think?