“For Want of Extremis, A Kingdom Was Lost”
“Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.”
---H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Previously, in the HULK...
**takes a deeper breath**
Okay. Here we go.
Again.
A long time ago, in a gamma bomb testing site far, far away -- a man named Bruce Banner saved a young teenager - Rick Jones - from a gamma bomb detonation in the Arizona Desert. Selflessly tossing said teenager into a safety bunker, Bruce Banner was transformed into the horrific behemoth called: the Incredible HULK:
(Therein lies the rub: Banner was never the most stable individual. Bruce Banner suffered - and continues to suffer from - Dissociative Identity Disorder. He had - and continues to have - multiple personalities to contend with. So he didn’t just transform into one Incredible Hulk after the Terrible Day of the Gamma Bomb...he transformed into many. Which Hulk he’d become on any given day, of course, was certainly up-for-grabs):
The Savage Green Hulk - a childish, unthinking brute of unrelenting physical power. An engine of mindless destruction that got stronger and stronger with rage.
The Cunning Grey Hulk - a sneaky, manipulative, cunning adversary whose strength paled in comparison to the Jade Giant, yet whose devious motives were always suspect.
The Idealized Professor - a Hulk with the mind of Bruce Banner, the physical power of the Green Hulk and the devious, cunning tactics of the Grey Hulk. The most idealized version of the Hulk in Bruce’s eyes.
The Guilt Hulk - A lizard-like creature that represented all Bruce’s hidden, repressed guilt and shame concerning Bruce’s....tortured past.
The Devil Hulk - A chained monster at the back of his mind. Enraged at the world at large, dedicated to destroying it at all costs.
The Professor had been the dominant persona for some time. However, since losing the love of his life - Betty Ross Banner - to a vindictive radiation-fueled murder by the homicidal Abomination, the Professor had retreated to a world within the safety of Bruce Banner’s mind, where he could be with the woman he’d loved for so long.
In lieu of the Professor, the Banner/Savage Hulk amalgam had joined up with the Avengers, saving the world with Banner’s undeniable genius and the Savage Hulk’s unimaginable (yet untamable) might. Things had been good for Bruce Banner - he’d found the support of his Avengers teammates, proven himself a hero and been able to turn the Savage Hulk’s ferocity toward a decent goal - helping others.
Except when Bruce got a letter from Mr. Blue. With proof that Betty was alive - comatose, cryogenically-preserved and captive inside a secret government installation. That elements/creatures/lying traitorous bastards within the government were deceiving him. That the Avengers were not above reproach.
The Professor has escaped the madness of Bruce Banner’s mind. What shall he do next, we wonder?
Read on, gentle reader. Oh do, read on...
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Mr. Blue’s Explicit Instructions...
The massive green goliath - the Professor-Hulk - impatiently tapped at the keyboard. His eyes were fixed on the scanned image displayed across the screen while a rampant frustration tugged at his weary heart.
My life has been - and always will be - absolutely, unabashedly, insane.
The Professor Hulk grimaced, looking upon the picture of Betty that had been delivered to him along with a letter from Mr. Blue. The picture itself was proof that Betty was alive - comatose, cryogenically-preserved and held captive inside a secret government installation.
It was that image that the Professor had scanned into the Avengers mainframe. With a healthy dose of skepticism his scientific background afforded him, he gazed hard at the pixels. His jade eyes searched hard - not only to verify the authenticity of the picture, but to find some kind of clue within its contents. Some sense of direction he could give to what promised to be a newfound, frenzied search for his once-late wife.
Naturally, he’d kept this information from the rest of the Avengers, as Mr. Blue had warned that creatures within the government were deceiving him, and that not even the Avengers themselves were above reproach.
Which led an aspect of Bruce Banner to posit the following question:
“Why the hell do you trust Mr. Blue anyway, you lovesick simpleton?” a snooty voice called out along the Professor’s ear.
The square-jawed, confident, handsome version of the Incredible Hulk growled low at the unwelcome visitor. “Butt out, Bruce. No one asked you.”
The Professor grimaced as the ghostly form of Bruce Banner - the puny pink-skin with the thick glasses and the flowing white lab coat - appeared as a reflection on the flat screen computer. The Professor moved the flatscreen an inch to the left, in an attempt to dispel the reflection by changing the surfaces the screen was reflecting.
A jade smile washed over his square-jawed face, satisfied with his success until the image of Banner flickered back to life on the computer screen.
“Nice try,” the image of Bruce Banner said, “but you can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“We’ll see about that,” the Professor grumbled as he turned his head back behind him, to the spot where Bruce should have been standing.
He saw what he’d half-expected to see - nothing but air. As the intelligent Hulk turned back to the computer screen, the clearly-impossible reflection of Bruce Banner reappeared, adamant in its impossible existence.
“Come on. Please tell me you saw that one coming.”
The Professor pinched at the bridge of his nose, frustrated.
“That’s like, right out of every horror movie anyone’s ever gone to,” the wraith-like Banner mused delightedly, the reflection pacing across the screen. “I call it: Ghost Physics 101.”
The Professor sighed, trying not to listen to the irritating apparition as he went back to work on the image file he was viewing. “Okay, Banner. What do you want this time?”
The apparition crossed its arms, and raised an eyebrow. “An honest answer. To a serious question.”
“Oh, this should be good,” the Professor muttered sardonically.
Unamused, the ghost-like vision asked its question: “Why. Do you. Trust. Mister Blue?”
“I don’t know,” the Professor took the bait. “Why do I trust Mr. Blue?”
“A mark of desperation, I suspect.”
Haughtily, the Professor snarled. “Oh, is it now?”
“After all, Mr. Blue could be any number of your illustrious villains. The Leader, for one.”
“The Leader is dead,” the Professor grunted. “We killed him, remember?”
“Yes, along with Thunderbolt Ross. Yet, he’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“Ross? You’re saying Ross might have done this?”
“I know I didn’t say that,” the scientist raised an eyebrow, “but is that something you’re saying?”
“HAW!” the Professor guffawed, pounding on his well-muscled stomach. “That ol’ windbag? He’d simply waltz over here with his troops and his guns, pull out a stogie, and outright tell me his plan to trap/capture/humiliate me. He wouldn’t do some kind of clandestine shit like this. Certainly not using his daughter as bait to lure me in.”
“Fair enough,” Banner agreed, pulling out a pipe from his lab coat along with a lighter. The Professor watched as Bruce Banner absently lit the pipe, his analytical mind deep in thought.
“Agamemnon?” Bruce surmised.
“Missing,” the Professor said.
“Armageddon.”
“Not his style.”
“The Abomination.”
“Also, not his style.”
“The Puffball Collective?”
“Now you’re just reaching.”
The scientist smiled. “Perhaps it’s—”
“Perhaps you’re avoiding the only real important question in this whole thing,” the Professor snorted, glaring at the image of Bruce Banner.
The ghostly scientist puffed hard on his pipe, exhaling the cool tobacco taste as he pulled the pipe from his mouth and leveled his eyes at the Hulk. “Which is?”
“Do you believe that this Mr. Blue can bring Betty back to life?” the Professor stared down Bruce Banner. “Do you believe that Mr. Blue can bring our wife back to us - alive and whole?”
The scientist blinked, momentarily taken aback by the abruptness of the question.
“Ahem,” Bruce Banner coughed, cracking his neck. The nervous scientist fidgeted around, wiping off his thick glasses several times while sucking on the tight plastic nozzle of his smoker’s pipe in a desperate attempt to save face. The Professor was still staring him down intently, with an unfazed poker face. Ready to wait for Bruce’s answer all night, if need be.
After a moment, Bruce finally spoke: “I would surmise that - potentially - it could be within the realm of possibility.”
“So, if it was possible that someone could bring your beloved wife back to life...what would you do?”
The scientist blinked, gently-but-audibly biting on the nozzle of his smoking pipe in frustration. He clicked his tongue a couple times, exhaled a whiff of smoke from his nose and gently continued puffing on his vice in frustrated silence.
With a toothy shark’s grin, the Professor smiled. “Glad to hear we agree.”
The Professor brought his attention back to the image analysis, leaving the Banner reflection grimacing in defeat.
“I still think it’s a trap.”
Okay, grimacing in near defeat, then.
The Professor pursed his lips and rolled his eyes, continuing about his work.
The green goliath zoomed in on the picture of Betty in the cryogenic chamber, analyzing the government markings along the walls. He typed in several search algorithms and parameters, exhaling in frustration as his efforts came up empty. He rubbed at his tired green eyes, grinding his teeth together with a jaw strength that could chew through mountains and grumbling with a horrible sound that echoed throughout the scientist’s bedroom.
Sighing gently, the green goliath’s features softened, gazing upon the preserved features of his wife. Sitting there, her face looking so peaceful, lying within that cryogenic chamber.
Naked as the day she was born.
The Professor grimaced, gazing up at the government markings once again.
Goddamned cloak-and-dagger bastards, he thought to himself in a profound, yet muted, rage. Even in death, they can’t leave my wife with one fucking shred of dignity.
He gazed upon her naked body, trying to keep the rage inside dialed back to a minimum. Even though he was an intelligent version of the Hulk, the Professor was just as capable of losing control as the Savage Hulk had always been - especially where Betty was concerned.
That was when he saw it.
Something that no one else but Bruce Banner would have noticed.
As her husband, Bruce Banner had seen her unclothed many times. He’d known his wife in ways that no one else could. It was barely perceptible, but there it was anyway: An error in the image itself. An error in the way his wife’s naked body looked.
“No,” he growled. “No no no no. This is a mistake. This can’t be--“
The Professor zoomed in further, hoping to find some sign that he was wrong. Yet the zoom-in made the problem more apparent.
This photograph has been altered, the Professor realized, a fire lighting up in his eyes. Someone altered the image of my wife’s naked body.
The sound of leather stretching taut echoed across the room as the Professor’s green fingers coiled into a fist that could shatter steel.
“Someone. Altered. The image. Of my wife’s. Naked. Fucking. Body.” He repeated the words aloud. As if vocalizing the thoughts would calm him somehow.
They of course, did the exact opposite.
He couldn’t figure out which made him feel more violated: That creatures within the government had stolen his wife’s body and cryogenically preserved her corpse, allowing him to think his own beloved wife was beyond saving in this age of miracles and marvels. Or the fact that someone stole this image, and violated his wife’s memory - and dignity - by tampering with it.
His eyes were wide with emerald rage as he clicked at the mouse, blowing up the altered section of the image wider and further. Hoping that maybe - if he just focused on why and how the tampering took place - he’d prevent himself from going completely insane.
However, even as he read the message contained within the digitally-altered pixels, it took all the strength the Incredible Hulk could muster to keep him from screaming:
Bruce,
Your wife is indeed, a beautiful woman. Tony Stark’s Extremis is an equally-beautiful viral construct. Bring Extremis to me, and we can arrange a beautiful trade.
Incidentally, the answers to the Extremis construct lay upon the Avengers Mainframe. Happy hunting.
Regards,
Mr. Blue.
Beneath the cruel, sadistic message from Mr. Blue laid the specific contact and delivery instructions for the trade. Mr. Blue distinctly noted that the plans for the Extremis virus were on the Avengers mainframe - likely in one of the backup servers that Tony Stark held at Avengers Mansion.
Extremis, the Professor mused bitterly. Whatever that is.
Nevertheless, one thing was made perfectly-clear in the post-script instructions: Mr. Blue would accept nothing less than the Extremis virus - not just the notes, but the virus itself - for Betty Banner’s location, and the secrets to her resurrection.
The Professor sighed, cupping his hands in his face.
So that’s the rub, huh? Blue returns the love of my life to me. And all I have to do, is hack the Avengers mainframe - and betray the people who have done nothing but good by me - to get her back...
The Professor desperately tried to keep calm, an endless rage boiling inside his insane heart.
Suddenly, the reflection of Bruce Banner appeared in the computer screen once again. The Professor’s eyes nearly bulged out of his green skull, watching the scientist puff on his pipe - bemused and insufferably smug.
“Still trusting that Mr. Blue, are we?” Bruce Banner smiled. “How’s that working out for you?”
# # # # # # # # # #
Somewhere in the Arizona Desert
A Forgotten Mineshaft Hideaway
The Leader and His Skittering Marionettes
Not well, Samuel Sterns - now known as the Leader - thought angrily, feeling a weakness in his limbs. This new vessel is not working out well at all.
The gamma-irradiated creature calling itself the Leader watched the flickering TV screens with tired, weary eyes. The static-y, pirated images danced across the digital displays, and he licked his parched lips, Stern’s gamma-irradiated mind subconsciously-singing in tune with the ebbs and flows of each transmission frequency. Creatures from the desert mindlessly skittered across the dials at the behest of their weary Leader, carefully adjusting the feeds as their chitinous exoskeletons tumbled to and fro along the shadows of the dark hideaway.
The creature’s brain pulsed painfully as blue bio-luminescent fluids gelled across its wretched, wrinkled skin. A transcendent anger pulsed along thick, throbbing turquoise veins which surged up his elongated skull like wild, untamed vines. His mustachioed mouth drew into a sneer, coughing and wheezing at the pain alighting his current “vessel”.
“You’ve caused me much...discomfort, Professor,” the resurrected Leader growled. His voice sounded strange - a discordant, chaotic tune with the high-pitched harmonious chords of a sweet, synthetic robotic voice coupled with the low, throaty vibrations of a lifelong smoker gargling shards of broken glass. The dichotomy was disturbing, to say the least. Nevertheless, the voice echoed ominously throughout the underground chamber – a voicetinged with unknowable malice and deceit. “Nevertheless, the time of reckoning is at hand.”
The Leader listened as his chitinous pets - the nanotech insects crawling across his weakened, frail body - injected him with their tender suckers, attempting desperately to preserve their leader’s failing physical form.
They’re keeping me here, he thought, angrily. Keeping me here in the current moment. Keeping me from going back and...
A pulse radiated across his body, and a sigh escaped his lips. It was a fleeting moment, orgasmic and yet wholly beautiful in its clarity. Samuel Sterns - the Leader - grunted hard, feeling a burst of glowing blood hemorrhage along his forehead, knowing some of the smaller veins were erupting from the strain.
Have to stay here, he thought, with that mountainous, distended mind of his.
Gritting his teeth, he felt his frail form shrivel and weaken further as his transcendent mind fought the wonderfultendersweetecstasy that threatened to rip him away forever.
Have to....
The world faded around him, his eyes rolling back into his colossal head.
Back. Forth.
Back. Forth.
Time REMAINS fluid inside THE BLEEDING-BLUE HEMORRHAGIC rupture of the brokenSternscontinuitydisk.
Time REMAINS...
Suddenly, the Leader was back in Freehold, in the time that was Not Now.
Back in Freehold – high and mighty, basking in the glories of his Resurrection Machine, and driven by the need to bring the once-dead Marlo Chandler back to life.
He felt his body - full, and whole and strong. He inhaled deeply through well-toned lungs and smiled his cruel, vicious smile. The pain was gone, the visions were gone. The blue, viscous liquids holding him together was gone, as were the creatures crawling over his half-dead vessel. None of those inconsequential things belonged in the Not Now Time.
He was in Freehold, about to resurrect Marlo Chandler (she’d been dead once), while simultaneously attaining enough power to finally evolve past his mere physical form. His plans, so long in coming, were finally reaching fruition. Stern’s eyes opened wide, his mustachioed mouth twisting into a psychotic smile.
Finally, he would be victorious. Finally, he would--!!
Suddenly, the Leader realized how wrong it all felt.
“No!” the Leader shouted. “This is the past! No, I don’t want to be here again!”
The battle passed in fits and starts, as if his life were privy to the fast forward button, and the Hulk (that cursed Professor persona) used the Leader as a shield against vicious laser blasts from his own troops. The Leader felt the blasts rip through his strong body, cutting open his chest, and he shrieked in agony as he watched his life’s blood seep out from the mortal wounds.
“Not again, not again...” he murmured in agony, collapsing to the floor in a wretched, broken pile, fatally stabbed by friendly fire in this most-final of final battles.
“Stop,” he commanded to his own body as, without his consent, as it kept crawling toward the Resurrection Machine. Just as he’d done all those years ago. “Stop, I command you!”
A mere passenger in the swirling winds of history, the Leader helplessly watched himself crawl into the Resurrection Machine to revive his mortal form, just as the Professor tossed something into the device’s swirling energies. A gigantic monkey wrench.
“NOOOOO!” the Leader shouted as the Resurrection Machine exploded, with his frail, dying form inside it.
Helplessly, he relived his own horrible death at the hands of the accursed Banner creature.
The world faded, as the wonderfultendersweetecstasy overtook him once more.
Back. Forth.
Back. Forth.
Time REMAINS fluid inside THE BLEEDING-BLUE HEMORRHAGIC rupture of the brokenSternscontinuitydisk.
Time REMAINS...
The broken being once named Samuel Sterns had seen better days.
The creature’s brain pulsed painfully as blue bio-luminescent fluids gelled across its wretched, wrinkled skin. A transcendent anger pulsed along throbbing turquoise veins that stretched across his elongated skull like wild, untamed vines. His mustachioed mouth drew into a sneer, coughing and wheezing at the pain alighting his current “vessel”.
“You’ve caused me much discomfort, Profess--” the resurrected Leader grunted, clutching at his chest as he fought to retain the memories from the previous loop.
“Blast!” he growled. “I’ve lived this moment before. Again.”
The Leader groaned, the exertion from the past few minutes taking its toll on his emaciated body. Sterns watched sadly as his chitinous pets - the nanotech insects and creatures that were crawling all over his weakened, frail body - swarmed him with their tender suckers once more.
His memories were confused. Scattered. Reality to him was becoming more, and more, subjective. But there was something new from the experience this time:
“Broken Sterns Continuity Disk,” he muttered, coughing another burst of green-and-blue blood out from his cracked lips. He wiped the fluid from his mouth with shaking, tired hands. “Fascinating.”
The Leader mused upon the implications, watching the screens before him once more with tired, weary eyes.
He was waiting for the sign. The one from his ally in the Avengers camp. The one telling him that Bruce Banner recognized and understood the true message left inside the note that the Leader’s nanotech creatures had planted.
Until then, he had time to ponder the bizarre phrases he’d heard from that place that kept trying to pull him away from this world. The place that wanted the resurrected Leader back. The place that kept whispering strange, unknowable things like:
The Broken Sterns Continuity Disk.
The Fluidity of Time.
The Bleeding-Blue Hemorrhagic Rupture.
Idly, Samuel Sterns wondered if he was going insane.
# # # # # # # # # #
Somewhere Deep in the Pacific Ocean
An Unknowable Coral Reef
The Sweet Swan Songs of Nadia Blonsky
The tender thoughts of yesterday threatened to drive Emil Blonsky insane.
Emil Blonsky - the Abomination - sat upon the ocean depths, laying flat as crustaceous beings skittered to and fro around his unmoving form.
Nadia, the Abomination thought. My sweet, beauty Nadia.
Ocean waves licked at the Abomination’s thick, dark-green hide. Out of old habit, he opened his mouth to take a breath, tasting the thick brine and sighing gently. The gills along his neck ate the beauty of the ocean blue, filtering sweet oxygen into the beast’s addled brain. His gills bristled as the Abomination exhaled into the water, his mind drifting off to thoughts of yesteryear. Drifting off and away, to the sounds of his beloved wife’s sweet voice.
Oh how beautifully you could sing, my Nadia, a tear came out of the beast’s eye, intermixing seamlessly with the surrounding salt water. As if it had never been there at all.
Sing for me, my love, he thought gently. Sing for me.
And she did.
Deep in his mind, the Nadia of yesterday sang a melodious Russian tune in their beautiful Russian language in their lovely Russian home. A tune that brought him peace - a tune that relaxed him. Brought him away from all the stressors and struggles of being in the spy business. Of being an espionage agent. All the research, and the titles, and the background checks - the forgeries, the lies, the secrets. All fading away as that sweet melody washed over him, in her lovely, womanly voice.
He reached out to touch her, caressing her side gently. Her voice changed pitch slightly, as his hand ran over a small bulge in her shirt.
A bruise? he thought. A welt-mark? How did she--?
Another thought. One of momentary anger. A thought where Emil had lashed out at her cruelly. It threatened to intrude upon the melodic memory. Emil Blonsky pushed the thought away as hard as he could, gritting his teeth in a growl as his hand glided though the murky ocean depths. His hard claws passed through the water, as if the casual violence alone would dispel the nagging thought at the base of his skull.
That was not him, the Abomination thought. I would never lay a hand on my sweet, sweet--
And then he heard her voice again. Melodious and womanly. Heavenly, like a gentle angel. Voluptuous and perfect, her body a haven for him. Never nagging, never improper, never questioning, never doubting. She was a perfect angel for him; always and forever.
The perfect wife. Just as she should be, he thought. Just as I trained her to be.
Emil Blonsky - the Abomination - listened to the melody awhile longer, eyes seeing only the lovely form of his sweet, sweet Nadia.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that he could no longer be with her. The Nadia of Yesterday was a shadow - a phantom - a sweet memory to keep him going. Leaving Mother Russia to spy on the cursed Banner. The accident that transformed him into this scaly, green, monstrous behemoth. The endless fights with that damned Hulk creature. These were the only things that the Abomination could know now. He would never reunite with Nadia Blonsky - his former lover. She had not been able to accept the scaly behemoth left in place of her perfect husband.
Their past life destroyed by that cursed Banner creature, Emil would never again see his beloved Nadia. Yet now, thanks to the Abomination, Bruce Banner could never see his beloved Betty again either.
I hope you choke on the memories of your long lost Betty, you goddamn bastard. Just as you’ve defiled the memory of my sweet Nadia...
Vengeance had been served. The Abomination could rest easy, knowing that Bruce Banner would have to live suffering the same torments that had plagued Emil Blonsky ever since that fateful day of his first transformation into the tragic figure of the Abomination, left forever unable to resume his human form.
So why did Blonsky still suffer so? Vengeance had been served, hadn’t it?
Dragging his frustrated claws into the pointed scales of his scalp, the horrendous Abomination creature seethed, sighing a sea of angry bubbles from his mouth that scoured their way from the briny depths to the cool calm of the ocean surface somewhere up above him.
“Why do you mock me, Banner??” he screamed violently into the murky ocean. The sound waves were distorted and dissolved by the surrounding water, leaving all the beast’s venom and rage muted in the lonely depths. More bubbles popped up onto the unseen surface above, his rage trapped within the ocean floor below.
Sighing sadly amongst surrounding sea creatures, the Abomination relaxed once more, laying his body down upon the ocean floor and gazing up towards the surface. Scrunching his scaly face in confusion, he reached out towards the oddly-dark seawater, suddenly feeling a wealth of seaweed along his hands.
He looked at the black seaweed latched to his arms and wiped the mess away, noting how sticky it was. He raised an eyebrow as the mass started to poke and prod at his green flesh, surprised that he could actually feel something through his thick, calloused hide.
The Abomination watched the black mass moving across his body, and felt the sharp pain of a thousand needle-pricks piercing into the meat of his colossal arm. The Abomination looked closer and saw them - thousands of them - attached to his arm with their needle-like pincers and horrible, multi-tiered appendages.
A plume of bubbles burst from his mouth once more as he gasped in horror.
This was not seaweed.
The Abomination roared and raged, scraping at the creatures that surrounded his flesh. With his mighty claws, he ripped off dozens of the chitinous insects crawling all over his body, flinging them back into the ocean from wench they came - and yet, they kept coming.
He scrapped off the scaly flesh along his arms and hands, letting his blood mix into the surrounding water. Frantically, he dragged his vicious, violent claws along his chest, desperate to halt their unstoppable pace - and yet, they kept coming.
They reached his face, and began crawling inside his mouth. The Abomination gargled in the ocean water and spat as many of them out as he could, hell-bent on preventing them from doing whatever unholy thing they were trying to do to him - and yet, they kept coming.
They swarmed his massive reptilian frame, finding a respite in every crevice. Their adamantium pincers poked and stabbed at his raging, thrashing body. Their adamantium suckers began probing beneath his flesh as dozens more poured into his mouth. He clenched his teeth against them, trying to mash them with his fingers and teeth and feet and toes and whatever he could use to stop them - and yet, they just kept coming.
The chitinous creatures were unerringly relentless in their horrifying assault.
They found ways through his eyes and ears. They disassembled strategic pieces of tooth to allow themselves entry despite how tightly he clenched his teeth together to stop them. They tunneled their ways through the mucus membranes, each of the thousands of chinitous monsters programmed with the same directive - the same goal in mind:
Reach the mind of Emil Blonsky - the Abomination.
Emil Blonsky’s terrified mind slowly lost momentum - the equilibrium of his world began to grow more subjective over time until his sense of up and down was as solid as the ocean waves surrounding him. The will of Emil Blonsky began to evaporate, as the insects started to colonize the motor centers of his twisted gamma-green mind. As they did so, the Abomination’s skull began to twist and contort, as small green spires began poking out through his scaly head. The creatures nestled themselves inside his brain, pulling the folds of his mind over themselves like a warm blanket, altering his oddly-shaped skull to accommodate their added mass. The Abomination’s eyes went blank as the insects pulled Emil’s mucus membranes around themselves and sealed each other into his head, their work done.
The Abomination drooled into the surrounding waters as thousands of extra creatures pooled away from his body, exiting through whatever orifices they could. Their task as backup to the mind-controlling parasites was done - their services well-performed. The still-living creatures slinked away from the mindless Abomination as their brothers instructed their vessel on its new task.
The Abomination slowly rose from the ocean depths, with nothing but the sweetest thoughts of murder in his mind.
As the creature swam away to perform its sacred task, its Leader smiled.
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
ExtremisSearch
After finally reaching the hidden partition in the supposedly-secure Avengers computer, the Professor smiled.
It had taken much work. The Professor had spent many, many long hours typing at his computer, which was up-linked with the Avengers mainframe. His bottomless rage – just barely contained beneath the surface – had continued to spur the green goliath’s mighty efforts.
There were thousands of incredible files on the computer, written by genius intellects like Reed Richards, and Hank Pym, and Hank McCoy. Thousands of these files - with their own unique encryptions, their own added layers of security, and their own uplink protocols.
Tony Stark’s files, of course, had been the most strongly-encrypted of all. Stark was, naturally, the best engineer and technologist among the team. He’d have the most secrets to hide, and be the most paranoid at hiding them.
It was a miracle that the Professor hadn’t tripped any of the alarms.
However, Tony Stark had spent less time on the other side of the law than Bruce Banner had. Tony Stark had spent less time needing to hack into encrypted files, less time staying off the grid and covering his tracks. Bruce Banner had become a master in such feats, as a matter of necessity. That, and the fact that Professor was highly-motivated to get at those files.
After all, his wife’s life hung in the balance. Wasn’t that motivation enough?
As his fingers tapped across the keyboard, desperately searching the partition for the answer to the Extremis conundrum, the green goliath almost idly wondered how many times he’d needed to hack into government files over the last several years roaming around the world as the much-maligned Hulk.
And the Grey Hulk thinks he should be the primary personality, the genius Professor thought to himself as he finally found the needle in the haystack he’d been looking for. Joe Fixit? The Primary Hulk? Ridiculous.
Once he clicked on the file, the Professor’s eyes nearly popped out of his head:
Extremis.
A nano-technological virus capable of re-writing the body’s repair center. Effectively capable of re-writing a person’s DNA, as an extended comatose state allows cellular mitosis to replace the body’s normal cells with the Extremis-altered technology.
It could potentially turn a human being into a super-human, a living weapon capable of limitless destruction.
I have much more benign plans for this technology.
With some effort, I believe I can develop a way to rebuild my own body. As an eminent futurist, I’m always looking toward the future. However, despite all of my achievements with the Iron Man, the weakest link has always been the Tony Stark portion of the equation.
Not anymore.
-Tony Stark
(**See Attached Engineering Specifications and Diagrams
**Reference File: Extremis 001_StarkSolutions.org)
The Professor gasped, his scientific mind’s eye struggling with all the amazing applications of such technology.
I’ve theorized this, he thought to himself. Theorized the ability to customize the human genome. My theories have always been endothermic in nature, requiring far more energy than worth the investment. However, creating a virus durable enough to overpower the body’s own immune system without killing the host...
Remarkable work here, Tony. Absolutely remarkable.
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, Bruce had known that gene therapies and customizable DNA was just around the corner, once the specific peptide sequences in the human genome were mapped and matched with specific traits.
Imagine a family being able to “engineer” their child with an IQ of 200, or with the athletic build potential of a quarterback. Imagine further a family being able to customize genetic traits like hair type, or skin color. Imagine further, a couple being able to “weed out” genetically-passed traits, like diabetes or cancer, out of their children’s genomes.
Now, imagine a homicidal maniac being able to engineer bulletproof skin, so he can go on a shooting spree without being gunned down by the police. Imagine a serial killer engineering super speed for himself to abduct victims in broad daylight and elude police with ease. Imagine a terrorist cell enabling a suicide bomber program where the suicide bombers didn’t die, and were free to do it all over again.
That was the power of Extremis.
That was the power Mr. Blue wanted, in exchange for Betty.
“You can’t give that to Mr. Blue,” the familiar reflection of Bruce Banner appeared in the computer screen.
The Professor raised an eyebrow, the snarl on his face deadly-serious. “You don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Banner.”
“Can you imagine what he could do with it?” the scientist said, pleading with the stubborn visage of the massive green monster before him with the genius intellect. “An army of Nitros - Living Bomb Blasts? Or a fleet of unstoppable Hulks? Perhaps a world where ALS and DID cures are handed out to the highest bidder and sold only on the black market? Or you and I fighting Speedfreek...times fifty?”
The Professor raised an eyebrow at the reflection of Bruce Banner, who was rapidly losing his patience with the towering behemoth.
“That won’t happen,” the Professor grumbled, a cold glare emanating from his emerald eyes.
“How do you figure?” the scientist said, crossing his arms. “Because Mr. Blue seems like such a nice guy so far...”
As the Professor held up the flash drive, a twinge of doubt crossed his mind. With green eyelids, he blinked the doubt away. “Because I have a plan.”
“Oh! A plan!” the scientist watched frantically as the Professor plugged the flash drive into the computer and downloaded the Extremis specs, unable to do a thing to stop him. “Can’t wait to see what that is.”
“You worry too much, Banner,” the Professor smiled as the download completed. He plucked the device out of the computer and placed it inside a plastic bag.
Fuming, the reflection of the scientist began to pace around the reflective surface of the computer screen. He puffed hard on his smoking pipe, sighing heavily. “She wouldn’t want you to do this, you know.”
“Betty,” the Professor gritted his teeth, clenching his left fist as he held the flash drive in his right. “You’re trying to manipulate me by talking about what Betty would want me to do.”
The scientist glared at him. “Does that make it any less true?”
The Professor glared at the reflection of Doctor Bruce Banner, a burning rage boiling inside his jaded heart.
“It does.”
“How do you figure that?” Bruce furrowed his brow, pointing his pipe at his towering alter-ego.
“Because it’s as you said on the grassy knoll,“ the Professor glared at him, “our wife is dead. She’s incapable of wanting anything.”
He trailed off as he ripped open the flesh of his own forearm, leaving an open, gushing green wound trailing up toward his wrist. The Professor tucked the flash drive inside the gaping wound, protected inside the sealed plastic bag.
The green goliath’s incredible healing factor began to kick in, as severed veins and arteries swirled back into one another, and blood spilled out inside the wound neatly slurped back into the remaining veins. The muscle fibers and fat cells knitted themselves back together, skin coiling back over green flesh until even the forearm hairs regrew, leaving his wrist and forearm as pristine and muscular as it ever was.
The genius Hulk rose from his chair, walking over toward the various notes and files that lay strewn about the bedroom.
Bruce Banner - the helpless reflection - watched sadly as the Professor began enacting his plan, knowing his words would fall on deaf ears.
“You lovesick fool,” the reflection whispered gently. “You damn lovesick fool...”
# # # # # # # # #
Somewhere in the Arizona Desert
A Forgotten Mineshaft Hideaway
The Leader and His Other Skittering Marionettes
Fools, the Leader smiled a malicious, mustachioed smile, thinking cruel thoughts as he gazed bemusedly at his prey. You idiotic, scampering fools.
The distended brain of the Leader pulsed and quivered, as his body trembled. Painfully, laboriously - he breathed in and out. He’d already received the sign from his plant in the Avengers. Bruce Banner had received the true message. The satellite images were tracking his progress now.
He watched the flickering screens around him, smiling as his creatures pulsed inside the mind of the Abomination, driving him with his new directive.
All his marionettes were in motion, performing all the actions he needed them to. And the Leader himself, of course, was directing all that powerful gamma-green energy toward a worthy, coordinated purpose.
“Soon now,” he muttered, as the insects and their blue suckers desperately struggled to keep his broken body together. “Soon, I will be made whole once more...”
His plans were coming together.
Oh how the Leader loved it when his plans came together.
Next Issue: Well, the Professor stole Extremis. So that’s a thing, now. But what on Earth is the Professor planning that could compel him to do such a thing? Where will the Professor’s journey take him? Just what the hell happened to the Leader anyway, and what are these plans of his that he’s putting together? We’ll find out those answers in due time, my friends.
In the meantime, a reprieve of sorts: We’ll delve into the Abomination’s and Hulk’s past next issue, and what connection they both have to the lovely Nadia Blonsky. And what the results of that past connection might mean in the present time for these two gamma-green goliaths! Find out what’s what in the incredible HULK #4!
AUTHOR’S GAMMA-NOTES:
***The Leader died in Incredible Hulk #400, during his attempt to use the Resurrection Machine at his Freehold stronghold to both bring Marlo Chandler back to life (she was dead for a bit, you see), whilst simultaneously attaining ultimate power, or something appropriately-lunatic like that.
***The Abomination killed Betty Banner in Incredible Hulk #467. While she was undergoing treatment for radiation sickness, Emil Blonsky substituted a pack of human blood for a pack of his own gamma-irradiated blood. The blood transfusion during the operation was what did poor Mrs. Banner in.
RAGE MOMENTS
As promised, this is YOUR space, dear readers! (Well, mostly. I’m a long-winded sort of bastard myself as it is).
That said, here’s a review of HULK #0 from Stuart Fairchild (writer of M2K’s very own NAMOR Volume 2!)
I have never read Jason McDonald's work before but this was a really good issue.
The characterization of Savage, Gray, and Banner were right on the money.
I was really following the issue and come the part of the third act (Savage Hulk) I began to realize what it was which was explained in the 4th act in Avengers Mansion. I don't want to place a SPOILER but you did a really good job with the lead and twist
I cant wait for the next issue
Great job!
5/5
I hope your series last cuz I want a Hulk/Namor crossover, lol
Thanks, Stuart!!
I love the Hulk and I’ve been reading his stories since I was a kid (I write, mere weeks after my thirtieth birthday. UGH.) While I grew up reading the Professor Hulk, I find that, as I get older, I really enjoy ALL aspects of the Hulk and what they represent.
The Savage Hulk in his childlike innocence and undeniable rage (because this is how a child would likely throw a temper tantrum if an adult were simply too weak to stop him/her). The Grey Hulk and his cunning, devious tactics. The Professor Hulk as the idealized version of what Bruce wishes he was. And the Bruce Banner with all that delightful inner rage locked up tight inside that scientist’s noggin and the unemotional land of equations and formulas, where everything works out the way it’s supposed to in the end. There are so many themes you can play with in a HULK series just with the Hulk personas themselves. (As you’ve already seen in these first two issues!) All that madness, and all those themes before you start adding things like supporting cast members or villains to bounce other crazy-ass ideas off of.
Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room for a Hulk/Namor crossover (or a Hulk/Namor battle) at some point during this wacky ride. I can wedge it in there somewhere!
Continuing the HULK #0 trend, here’s what Meriades Rai has to say on the subject:
HULK # 0 by Jason McDonald
A well-written set-up issue by Jason, whose BATMAN series at DC Omega sets a very high standard. His prose here is a touch sparser than I was expecting, given that Batman - and also GHOST RIDER at Marvel Ad Aeternitas - are heavier, meatier reads, but I'm guessing that this is because this is an issue #0 rather than #1. There's certainly enough to chew on here to suggest that Jason's Hulk will be every bit as psychologically wrought and intricate as his other work once he gets into his stride and having a brisker pace to a scene-setter is definitely a good thing.
Interesting to see the multiple aspects of the Hulk personas stacked up one after another, and Jason cleverly gives each a distinct voice. His Banner elicits sympathy, which isn't always the case (sometimes the character can be downright annoying with his wheedling), and Grey/Fixit is authentic, as an arrogant bully readers will either love or despise (I'm personally in the latter camp, but that's overall rather than pertaining to Jason's version; whenever I read Fixit I'm always hoping he'll get stomped). Green is my favourite, though, and always will be. Intriguing to see him depicted so savagely here, rather than the traditional heavy-handed-but-innocent archetype, thus becoming Red; does this mean Green won't feature so heavily in the series proper?
Mercy was portrayed very nicely, just the right amount of sinister and raw appeal, but by far the most curious thing about this issue is how it could easily be Hulk: The End as much as a new beginning. Mercy has given Banner a kind of peace, and given each of the Hulks what they wanted most, how unsettling her methods. This could be the last Hulk story ever, and it would work - but, of course, there's a new series to come, and Jason could go anywhere from here. I'm assuming Mercy will be a massive part of that, and I'm fascinated to see where it'll all lead.
Thanks for the very high praise, Meri!!
Yes, my issues are typically of Ludicrous Length(TM)! (This is very possibly the shortest piece of fanfic I've ever written that wasn't in an anthology title!) As you’ve seen in the ensuing issues, brevity is no longer a concern.
My big thing with HULK #0 was to introduce and encapsulate the various aspects/personalities of the Hulk, each of which deserved a decent amount of screen time. As you’ve seen, the main players are: Bruce Banner, Savage Hulk, Grey Hulk and the Professor (whose scene I placed into the first issue instead, in order to keep #0 small). I plan on this being a fair ensemble, where all his aspects get a good amount of screen time throughout the series.
Green/Savage is still in the series proper (actually, you'll see a lot more of him next ish!), but he's not one of the heaviest hitters in the opening pages of the story. I like how you said this could be Hulk: The End. I never really thought of it that way, but it is certainly appealing. Mercy's role in what is to come is small, but critical. Rest assured, you’ll see her again before this whole lot of madness concludes.
Not a fan of the Grey Hulk, eh? I actually had more fun writing this "bully" Hulk myself. For all his arrogance and swagger and scheming, half his plans fall to hell in the end anyway, and it's great to see Fixit act like a spoiled teenager, casting blame every other which-way whenever it happens. Don’t worry, though...he’ll likely get his comeuppance very, very soon.
You can read Meri’s work in M2K’s Defenders, Ultimate Defenders & Ultimate Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman over at DC Omega!
Jason McDonald
6/19/2016
---H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Previously, in the HULK...
**takes a deeper breath**
Okay. Here we go.
Again.
A long time ago, in a gamma bomb testing site far, far away -- a man named Bruce Banner saved a young teenager - Rick Jones - from a gamma bomb detonation in the Arizona Desert. Selflessly tossing said teenager into a safety bunker, Bruce Banner was transformed into the horrific behemoth called: the Incredible HULK:
(Therein lies the rub: Banner was never the most stable individual. Bruce Banner suffered - and continues to suffer from - Dissociative Identity Disorder. He had - and continues to have - multiple personalities to contend with. So he didn’t just transform into one Incredible Hulk after the Terrible Day of the Gamma Bomb...he transformed into many. Which Hulk he’d become on any given day, of course, was certainly up-for-grabs):
The Savage Green Hulk - a childish, unthinking brute of unrelenting physical power. An engine of mindless destruction that got stronger and stronger with rage.
The Cunning Grey Hulk - a sneaky, manipulative, cunning adversary whose strength paled in comparison to the Jade Giant, yet whose devious motives were always suspect.
The Idealized Professor - a Hulk with the mind of Bruce Banner, the physical power of the Green Hulk and the devious, cunning tactics of the Grey Hulk. The most idealized version of the Hulk in Bruce’s eyes.
The Guilt Hulk - A lizard-like creature that represented all Bruce’s hidden, repressed guilt and shame concerning Bruce’s....tortured past.
The Devil Hulk - A chained monster at the back of his mind. Enraged at the world at large, dedicated to destroying it at all costs.
The Professor had been the dominant persona for some time. However, since losing the love of his life - Betty Ross Banner - to a vindictive radiation-fueled murder by the homicidal Abomination, the Professor had retreated to a world within the safety of Bruce Banner’s mind, where he could be with the woman he’d loved for so long.
In lieu of the Professor, the Banner/Savage Hulk amalgam had joined up with the Avengers, saving the world with Banner’s undeniable genius and the Savage Hulk’s unimaginable (yet untamable) might. Things had been good for Bruce Banner - he’d found the support of his Avengers teammates, proven himself a hero and been able to turn the Savage Hulk’s ferocity toward a decent goal - helping others.
Except when Bruce got a letter from Mr. Blue. With proof that Betty was alive - comatose, cryogenically-preserved and captive inside a secret government installation. That elements/creatures/lying traitorous bastards within the government were deceiving him. That the Avengers were not above reproach.
The Professor has escaped the madness of Bruce Banner’s mind. What shall he do next, we wonder?
Read on, gentle reader. Oh do, read on...
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Mr. Blue’s Explicit Instructions...
The massive green goliath - the Professor-Hulk - impatiently tapped at the keyboard. His eyes were fixed on the scanned image displayed across the screen while a rampant frustration tugged at his weary heart.
My life has been - and always will be - absolutely, unabashedly, insane.
The Professor Hulk grimaced, looking upon the picture of Betty that had been delivered to him along with a letter from Mr. Blue. The picture itself was proof that Betty was alive - comatose, cryogenically-preserved and held captive inside a secret government installation.
It was that image that the Professor had scanned into the Avengers mainframe. With a healthy dose of skepticism his scientific background afforded him, he gazed hard at the pixels. His jade eyes searched hard - not only to verify the authenticity of the picture, but to find some kind of clue within its contents. Some sense of direction he could give to what promised to be a newfound, frenzied search for his once-late wife.
Naturally, he’d kept this information from the rest of the Avengers, as Mr. Blue had warned that creatures within the government were deceiving him, and that not even the Avengers themselves were above reproach.
Which led an aspect of Bruce Banner to posit the following question:
“Why the hell do you trust Mr. Blue anyway, you lovesick simpleton?” a snooty voice called out along the Professor’s ear.
The square-jawed, confident, handsome version of the Incredible Hulk growled low at the unwelcome visitor. “Butt out, Bruce. No one asked you.”
The Professor grimaced as the ghostly form of Bruce Banner - the puny pink-skin with the thick glasses and the flowing white lab coat - appeared as a reflection on the flat screen computer. The Professor moved the flatscreen an inch to the left, in an attempt to dispel the reflection by changing the surfaces the screen was reflecting.
A jade smile washed over his square-jawed face, satisfied with his success until the image of Banner flickered back to life on the computer screen.
“Nice try,” the image of Bruce Banner said, “but you can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“We’ll see about that,” the Professor grumbled as he turned his head back behind him, to the spot where Bruce should have been standing.
He saw what he’d half-expected to see - nothing but air. As the intelligent Hulk turned back to the computer screen, the clearly-impossible reflection of Bruce Banner reappeared, adamant in its impossible existence.
“Come on. Please tell me you saw that one coming.”
The Professor pinched at the bridge of his nose, frustrated.
“That’s like, right out of every horror movie anyone’s ever gone to,” the wraith-like Banner mused delightedly, the reflection pacing across the screen. “I call it: Ghost Physics 101.”
The Professor sighed, trying not to listen to the irritating apparition as he went back to work on the image file he was viewing. “Okay, Banner. What do you want this time?”
The apparition crossed its arms, and raised an eyebrow. “An honest answer. To a serious question.”
“Oh, this should be good,” the Professor muttered sardonically.
Unamused, the ghost-like vision asked its question: “Why. Do you. Trust. Mister Blue?”
“I don’t know,” the Professor took the bait. “Why do I trust Mr. Blue?”
“A mark of desperation, I suspect.”
Haughtily, the Professor snarled. “Oh, is it now?”
“After all, Mr. Blue could be any number of your illustrious villains. The Leader, for one.”
“The Leader is dead,” the Professor grunted. “We killed him, remember?”
“Yes, along with Thunderbolt Ross. Yet, he’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“Ross? You’re saying Ross might have done this?”
“I know I didn’t say that,” the scientist raised an eyebrow, “but is that something you’re saying?”
“HAW!” the Professor guffawed, pounding on his well-muscled stomach. “That ol’ windbag? He’d simply waltz over here with his troops and his guns, pull out a stogie, and outright tell me his plan to trap/capture/humiliate me. He wouldn’t do some kind of clandestine shit like this. Certainly not using his daughter as bait to lure me in.”
“Fair enough,” Banner agreed, pulling out a pipe from his lab coat along with a lighter. The Professor watched as Bruce Banner absently lit the pipe, his analytical mind deep in thought.
“Agamemnon?” Bruce surmised.
“Missing,” the Professor said.
“Armageddon.”
“Not his style.”
“The Abomination.”
“Also, not his style.”
“The Puffball Collective?”
“Now you’re just reaching.”
The scientist smiled. “Perhaps it’s—”
“Perhaps you’re avoiding the only real important question in this whole thing,” the Professor snorted, glaring at the image of Bruce Banner.
The ghostly scientist puffed hard on his pipe, exhaling the cool tobacco taste as he pulled the pipe from his mouth and leveled his eyes at the Hulk. “Which is?”
“Do you believe that this Mr. Blue can bring Betty back to life?” the Professor stared down Bruce Banner. “Do you believe that Mr. Blue can bring our wife back to us - alive and whole?”
The scientist blinked, momentarily taken aback by the abruptness of the question.
“Ahem,” Bruce Banner coughed, cracking his neck. The nervous scientist fidgeted around, wiping off his thick glasses several times while sucking on the tight plastic nozzle of his smoker’s pipe in a desperate attempt to save face. The Professor was still staring him down intently, with an unfazed poker face. Ready to wait for Bruce’s answer all night, if need be.
After a moment, Bruce finally spoke: “I would surmise that - potentially - it could be within the realm of possibility.”
“So, if it was possible that someone could bring your beloved wife back to life...what would you do?”
The scientist blinked, gently-but-audibly biting on the nozzle of his smoking pipe in frustration. He clicked his tongue a couple times, exhaled a whiff of smoke from his nose and gently continued puffing on his vice in frustrated silence.
With a toothy shark’s grin, the Professor smiled. “Glad to hear we agree.”
The Professor brought his attention back to the image analysis, leaving the Banner reflection grimacing in defeat.
“I still think it’s a trap.”
Okay, grimacing in near defeat, then.
The Professor pursed his lips and rolled his eyes, continuing about his work.
The green goliath zoomed in on the picture of Betty in the cryogenic chamber, analyzing the government markings along the walls. He typed in several search algorithms and parameters, exhaling in frustration as his efforts came up empty. He rubbed at his tired green eyes, grinding his teeth together with a jaw strength that could chew through mountains and grumbling with a horrible sound that echoed throughout the scientist’s bedroom.
Sighing gently, the green goliath’s features softened, gazing upon the preserved features of his wife. Sitting there, her face looking so peaceful, lying within that cryogenic chamber.
Naked as the day she was born.
The Professor grimaced, gazing up at the government markings once again.
Goddamned cloak-and-dagger bastards, he thought to himself in a profound, yet muted, rage. Even in death, they can’t leave my wife with one fucking shred of dignity.
He gazed upon her naked body, trying to keep the rage inside dialed back to a minimum. Even though he was an intelligent version of the Hulk, the Professor was just as capable of losing control as the Savage Hulk had always been - especially where Betty was concerned.
That was when he saw it.
Something that no one else but Bruce Banner would have noticed.
As her husband, Bruce Banner had seen her unclothed many times. He’d known his wife in ways that no one else could. It was barely perceptible, but there it was anyway: An error in the image itself. An error in the way his wife’s naked body looked.
“No,” he growled. “No no no no. This is a mistake. This can’t be--“
The Professor zoomed in further, hoping to find some sign that he was wrong. Yet the zoom-in made the problem more apparent.
This photograph has been altered, the Professor realized, a fire lighting up in his eyes. Someone altered the image of my wife’s naked body.
The sound of leather stretching taut echoed across the room as the Professor’s green fingers coiled into a fist that could shatter steel.
“Someone. Altered. The image. Of my wife’s. Naked. Fucking. Body.” He repeated the words aloud. As if vocalizing the thoughts would calm him somehow.
They of course, did the exact opposite.
He couldn’t figure out which made him feel more violated: That creatures within the government had stolen his wife’s body and cryogenically preserved her corpse, allowing him to think his own beloved wife was beyond saving in this age of miracles and marvels. Or the fact that someone stole this image, and violated his wife’s memory - and dignity - by tampering with it.
His eyes were wide with emerald rage as he clicked at the mouse, blowing up the altered section of the image wider and further. Hoping that maybe - if he just focused on why and how the tampering took place - he’d prevent himself from going completely insane.
However, even as he read the message contained within the digitally-altered pixels, it took all the strength the Incredible Hulk could muster to keep him from screaming:
Bruce,
Your wife is indeed, a beautiful woman. Tony Stark’s Extremis is an equally-beautiful viral construct. Bring Extremis to me, and we can arrange a beautiful trade.
Incidentally, the answers to the Extremis construct lay upon the Avengers Mainframe. Happy hunting.
Regards,
Mr. Blue.
Beneath the cruel, sadistic message from Mr. Blue laid the specific contact and delivery instructions for the trade. Mr. Blue distinctly noted that the plans for the Extremis virus were on the Avengers mainframe - likely in one of the backup servers that Tony Stark held at Avengers Mansion.
Extremis, the Professor mused bitterly. Whatever that is.
Nevertheless, one thing was made perfectly-clear in the post-script instructions: Mr. Blue would accept nothing less than the Extremis virus - not just the notes, but the virus itself - for Betty Banner’s location, and the secrets to her resurrection.
The Professor sighed, cupping his hands in his face.
So that’s the rub, huh? Blue returns the love of my life to me. And all I have to do, is hack the Avengers mainframe - and betray the people who have done nothing but good by me - to get her back...
The Professor desperately tried to keep calm, an endless rage boiling inside his insane heart.
Suddenly, the reflection of Bruce Banner appeared in the computer screen once again. The Professor’s eyes nearly bulged out of his green skull, watching the scientist puff on his pipe - bemused and insufferably smug.
“Still trusting that Mr. Blue, are we?” Bruce Banner smiled. “How’s that working out for you?”
# # # # # # # # # #
Somewhere in the Arizona Desert
A Forgotten Mineshaft Hideaway
The Leader and His Skittering Marionettes
Not well, Samuel Sterns - now known as the Leader - thought angrily, feeling a weakness in his limbs. This new vessel is not working out well at all.
The gamma-irradiated creature calling itself the Leader watched the flickering TV screens with tired, weary eyes. The static-y, pirated images danced across the digital displays, and he licked his parched lips, Stern’s gamma-irradiated mind subconsciously-singing in tune with the ebbs and flows of each transmission frequency. Creatures from the desert mindlessly skittered across the dials at the behest of their weary Leader, carefully adjusting the feeds as their chitinous exoskeletons tumbled to and fro along the shadows of the dark hideaway.
The creature’s brain pulsed painfully as blue bio-luminescent fluids gelled across its wretched, wrinkled skin. A transcendent anger pulsed along thick, throbbing turquoise veins which surged up his elongated skull like wild, untamed vines. His mustachioed mouth drew into a sneer, coughing and wheezing at the pain alighting his current “vessel”.
“You’ve caused me much...discomfort, Professor,” the resurrected Leader growled. His voice sounded strange - a discordant, chaotic tune with the high-pitched harmonious chords of a sweet, synthetic robotic voice coupled with the low, throaty vibrations of a lifelong smoker gargling shards of broken glass. The dichotomy was disturbing, to say the least. Nevertheless, the voice echoed ominously throughout the underground chamber – a voicetinged with unknowable malice and deceit. “Nevertheless, the time of reckoning is at hand.”
The Leader listened as his chitinous pets - the nanotech insects crawling across his weakened, frail body - injected him with their tender suckers, attempting desperately to preserve their leader’s failing physical form.
They’re keeping me here, he thought, angrily. Keeping me here in the current moment. Keeping me from going back and...
A pulse radiated across his body, and a sigh escaped his lips. It was a fleeting moment, orgasmic and yet wholly beautiful in its clarity. Samuel Sterns - the Leader - grunted hard, feeling a burst of glowing blood hemorrhage along his forehead, knowing some of the smaller veins were erupting from the strain.
Have to stay here, he thought, with that mountainous, distended mind of his.
Gritting his teeth, he felt his frail form shrivel and weaken further as his transcendent mind fought the wonderfultendersweetecstasy that threatened to rip him away forever.
Have to....
The world faded around him, his eyes rolling back into his colossal head.
Back. Forth.
Back. Forth.
Time REMAINS fluid inside THE BLEEDING-BLUE HEMORRHAGIC rupture of the brokenSternscontinuitydisk.
Time REMAINS...
Suddenly, the Leader was back in Freehold, in the time that was Not Now.
Back in Freehold – high and mighty, basking in the glories of his Resurrection Machine, and driven by the need to bring the once-dead Marlo Chandler back to life.
He felt his body - full, and whole and strong. He inhaled deeply through well-toned lungs and smiled his cruel, vicious smile. The pain was gone, the visions were gone. The blue, viscous liquids holding him together was gone, as were the creatures crawling over his half-dead vessel. None of those inconsequential things belonged in the Not Now Time.
He was in Freehold, about to resurrect Marlo Chandler (she’d been dead once), while simultaneously attaining enough power to finally evolve past his mere physical form. His plans, so long in coming, were finally reaching fruition. Stern’s eyes opened wide, his mustachioed mouth twisting into a psychotic smile.
Finally, he would be victorious. Finally, he would--!!
Suddenly, the Leader realized how wrong it all felt.
“No!” the Leader shouted. “This is the past! No, I don’t want to be here again!”
The battle passed in fits and starts, as if his life were privy to the fast forward button, and the Hulk (that cursed Professor persona) used the Leader as a shield against vicious laser blasts from his own troops. The Leader felt the blasts rip through his strong body, cutting open his chest, and he shrieked in agony as he watched his life’s blood seep out from the mortal wounds.
“Not again, not again...” he murmured in agony, collapsing to the floor in a wretched, broken pile, fatally stabbed by friendly fire in this most-final of final battles.
“Stop,” he commanded to his own body as, without his consent, as it kept crawling toward the Resurrection Machine. Just as he’d done all those years ago. “Stop, I command you!”
A mere passenger in the swirling winds of history, the Leader helplessly watched himself crawl into the Resurrection Machine to revive his mortal form, just as the Professor tossed something into the device’s swirling energies. A gigantic monkey wrench.
“NOOOOO!” the Leader shouted as the Resurrection Machine exploded, with his frail, dying form inside it.
Helplessly, he relived his own horrible death at the hands of the accursed Banner creature.
The world faded, as the wonderfultendersweetecstasy overtook him once more.
Back. Forth.
Back. Forth.
Time REMAINS fluid inside THE BLEEDING-BLUE HEMORRHAGIC rupture of the brokenSternscontinuitydisk.
Time REMAINS...
The broken being once named Samuel Sterns had seen better days.
The creature’s brain pulsed painfully as blue bio-luminescent fluids gelled across its wretched, wrinkled skin. A transcendent anger pulsed along throbbing turquoise veins that stretched across his elongated skull like wild, untamed vines. His mustachioed mouth drew into a sneer, coughing and wheezing at the pain alighting his current “vessel”.
“You’ve caused me much discomfort, Profess--” the resurrected Leader grunted, clutching at his chest as he fought to retain the memories from the previous loop.
“Blast!” he growled. “I’ve lived this moment before. Again.”
The Leader groaned, the exertion from the past few minutes taking its toll on his emaciated body. Sterns watched sadly as his chitinous pets - the nanotech insects and creatures that were crawling all over his weakened, frail body - swarmed him with their tender suckers once more.
His memories were confused. Scattered. Reality to him was becoming more, and more, subjective. But there was something new from the experience this time:
“Broken Sterns Continuity Disk,” he muttered, coughing another burst of green-and-blue blood out from his cracked lips. He wiped the fluid from his mouth with shaking, tired hands. “Fascinating.”
The Leader mused upon the implications, watching the screens before him once more with tired, weary eyes.
He was waiting for the sign. The one from his ally in the Avengers camp. The one telling him that Bruce Banner recognized and understood the true message left inside the note that the Leader’s nanotech creatures had planted.
Until then, he had time to ponder the bizarre phrases he’d heard from that place that kept trying to pull him away from this world. The place that wanted the resurrected Leader back. The place that kept whispering strange, unknowable things like:
The Broken Sterns Continuity Disk.
The Fluidity of Time.
The Bleeding-Blue Hemorrhagic Rupture.
Idly, Samuel Sterns wondered if he was going insane.
# # # # # # # # # #
Somewhere Deep in the Pacific Ocean
An Unknowable Coral Reef
The Sweet Swan Songs of Nadia Blonsky
The tender thoughts of yesterday threatened to drive Emil Blonsky insane.
Emil Blonsky - the Abomination - sat upon the ocean depths, laying flat as crustaceous beings skittered to and fro around his unmoving form.
Nadia, the Abomination thought. My sweet, beauty Nadia.
Ocean waves licked at the Abomination’s thick, dark-green hide. Out of old habit, he opened his mouth to take a breath, tasting the thick brine and sighing gently. The gills along his neck ate the beauty of the ocean blue, filtering sweet oxygen into the beast’s addled brain. His gills bristled as the Abomination exhaled into the water, his mind drifting off to thoughts of yesteryear. Drifting off and away, to the sounds of his beloved wife’s sweet voice.
Oh how beautifully you could sing, my Nadia, a tear came out of the beast’s eye, intermixing seamlessly with the surrounding salt water. As if it had never been there at all.
Sing for me, my love, he thought gently. Sing for me.
And she did.
Deep in his mind, the Nadia of yesterday sang a melodious Russian tune in their beautiful Russian language in their lovely Russian home. A tune that brought him peace - a tune that relaxed him. Brought him away from all the stressors and struggles of being in the spy business. Of being an espionage agent. All the research, and the titles, and the background checks - the forgeries, the lies, the secrets. All fading away as that sweet melody washed over him, in her lovely, womanly voice.
He reached out to touch her, caressing her side gently. Her voice changed pitch slightly, as his hand ran over a small bulge in her shirt.
A bruise? he thought. A welt-mark? How did she--?
Another thought. One of momentary anger. A thought where Emil had lashed out at her cruelly. It threatened to intrude upon the melodic memory. Emil Blonsky pushed the thought away as hard as he could, gritting his teeth in a growl as his hand glided though the murky ocean depths. His hard claws passed through the water, as if the casual violence alone would dispel the nagging thought at the base of his skull.
That was not him, the Abomination thought. I would never lay a hand on my sweet, sweet--
And then he heard her voice again. Melodious and womanly. Heavenly, like a gentle angel. Voluptuous and perfect, her body a haven for him. Never nagging, never improper, never questioning, never doubting. She was a perfect angel for him; always and forever.
The perfect wife. Just as she should be, he thought. Just as I trained her to be.
Emil Blonsky - the Abomination - listened to the melody awhile longer, eyes seeing only the lovely form of his sweet, sweet Nadia.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that he could no longer be with her. The Nadia of Yesterday was a shadow - a phantom - a sweet memory to keep him going. Leaving Mother Russia to spy on the cursed Banner. The accident that transformed him into this scaly, green, monstrous behemoth. The endless fights with that damned Hulk creature. These were the only things that the Abomination could know now. He would never reunite with Nadia Blonsky - his former lover. She had not been able to accept the scaly behemoth left in place of her perfect husband.
Their past life destroyed by that cursed Banner creature, Emil would never again see his beloved Nadia. Yet now, thanks to the Abomination, Bruce Banner could never see his beloved Betty again either.
I hope you choke on the memories of your long lost Betty, you goddamn bastard. Just as you’ve defiled the memory of my sweet Nadia...
Vengeance had been served. The Abomination could rest easy, knowing that Bruce Banner would have to live suffering the same torments that had plagued Emil Blonsky ever since that fateful day of his first transformation into the tragic figure of the Abomination, left forever unable to resume his human form.
So why did Blonsky still suffer so? Vengeance had been served, hadn’t it?
Dragging his frustrated claws into the pointed scales of his scalp, the horrendous Abomination creature seethed, sighing a sea of angry bubbles from his mouth that scoured their way from the briny depths to the cool calm of the ocean surface somewhere up above him.
“Why do you mock me, Banner??” he screamed violently into the murky ocean. The sound waves were distorted and dissolved by the surrounding water, leaving all the beast’s venom and rage muted in the lonely depths. More bubbles popped up onto the unseen surface above, his rage trapped within the ocean floor below.
Sighing sadly amongst surrounding sea creatures, the Abomination relaxed once more, laying his body down upon the ocean floor and gazing up towards the surface. Scrunching his scaly face in confusion, he reached out towards the oddly-dark seawater, suddenly feeling a wealth of seaweed along his hands.
He looked at the black seaweed latched to his arms and wiped the mess away, noting how sticky it was. He raised an eyebrow as the mass started to poke and prod at his green flesh, surprised that he could actually feel something through his thick, calloused hide.
The Abomination watched the black mass moving across his body, and felt the sharp pain of a thousand needle-pricks piercing into the meat of his colossal arm. The Abomination looked closer and saw them - thousands of them - attached to his arm with their needle-like pincers and horrible, multi-tiered appendages.
A plume of bubbles burst from his mouth once more as he gasped in horror.
This was not seaweed.
The Abomination roared and raged, scraping at the creatures that surrounded his flesh. With his mighty claws, he ripped off dozens of the chitinous insects crawling all over his body, flinging them back into the ocean from wench they came - and yet, they kept coming.
He scrapped off the scaly flesh along his arms and hands, letting his blood mix into the surrounding water. Frantically, he dragged his vicious, violent claws along his chest, desperate to halt their unstoppable pace - and yet, they kept coming.
They reached his face, and began crawling inside his mouth. The Abomination gargled in the ocean water and spat as many of them out as he could, hell-bent on preventing them from doing whatever unholy thing they were trying to do to him - and yet, they kept coming.
They swarmed his massive reptilian frame, finding a respite in every crevice. Their adamantium pincers poked and stabbed at his raging, thrashing body. Their adamantium suckers began probing beneath his flesh as dozens more poured into his mouth. He clenched his teeth against them, trying to mash them with his fingers and teeth and feet and toes and whatever he could use to stop them - and yet, they just kept coming.
The chitinous creatures were unerringly relentless in their horrifying assault.
They found ways through his eyes and ears. They disassembled strategic pieces of tooth to allow themselves entry despite how tightly he clenched his teeth together to stop them. They tunneled their ways through the mucus membranes, each of the thousands of chinitous monsters programmed with the same directive - the same goal in mind:
Reach the mind of Emil Blonsky - the Abomination.
Emil Blonsky’s terrified mind slowly lost momentum - the equilibrium of his world began to grow more subjective over time until his sense of up and down was as solid as the ocean waves surrounding him. The will of Emil Blonsky began to evaporate, as the insects started to colonize the motor centers of his twisted gamma-green mind. As they did so, the Abomination’s skull began to twist and contort, as small green spires began poking out through his scaly head. The creatures nestled themselves inside his brain, pulling the folds of his mind over themselves like a warm blanket, altering his oddly-shaped skull to accommodate their added mass. The Abomination’s eyes went blank as the insects pulled Emil’s mucus membranes around themselves and sealed each other into his head, their work done.
The Abomination drooled into the surrounding waters as thousands of extra creatures pooled away from his body, exiting through whatever orifices they could. Their task as backup to the mind-controlling parasites was done - their services well-performed. The still-living creatures slinked away from the mindless Abomination as their brothers instructed their vessel on its new task.
The Abomination slowly rose from the ocean depths, with nothing but the sweetest thoughts of murder in his mind.
As the creature swam away to perform its sacred task, its Leader smiled.
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
ExtremisSearch
After finally reaching the hidden partition in the supposedly-secure Avengers computer, the Professor smiled.
It had taken much work. The Professor had spent many, many long hours typing at his computer, which was up-linked with the Avengers mainframe. His bottomless rage – just barely contained beneath the surface – had continued to spur the green goliath’s mighty efforts.
There were thousands of incredible files on the computer, written by genius intellects like Reed Richards, and Hank Pym, and Hank McCoy. Thousands of these files - with their own unique encryptions, their own added layers of security, and their own uplink protocols.
Tony Stark’s files, of course, had been the most strongly-encrypted of all. Stark was, naturally, the best engineer and technologist among the team. He’d have the most secrets to hide, and be the most paranoid at hiding them.
It was a miracle that the Professor hadn’t tripped any of the alarms.
However, Tony Stark had spent less time on the other side of the law than Bruce Banner had. Tony Stark had spent less time needing to hack into encrypted files, less time staying off the grid and covering his tracks. Bruce Banner had become a master in such feats, as a matter of necessity. That, and the fact that Professor was highly-motivated to get at those files.
After all, his wife’s life hung in the balance. Wasn’t that motivation enough?
As his fingers tapped across the keyboard, desperately searching the partition for the answer to the Extremis conundrum, the green goliath almost idly wondered how many times he’d needed to hack into government files over the last several years roaming around the world as the much-maligned Hulk.
And the Grey Hulk thinks he should be the primary personality, the genius Professor thought to himself as he finally found the needle in the haystack he’d been looking for. Joe Fixit? The Primary Hulk? Ridiculous.
Once he clicked on the file, the Professor’s eyes nearly popped out of his head:
Extremis.
A nano-technological virus capable of re-writing the body’s repair center. Effectively capable of re-writing a person’s DNA, as an extended comatose state allows cellular mitosis to replace the body’s normal cells with the Extremis-altered technology.
It could potentially turn a human being into a super-human, a living weapon capable of limitless destruction.
I have much more benign plans for this technology.
With some effort, I believe I can develop a way to rebuild my own body. As an eminent futurist, I’m always looking toward the future. However, despite all of my achievements with the Iron Man, the weakest link has always been the Tony Stark portion of the equation.
Not anymore.
-Tony Stark
(**See Attached Engineering Specifications and Diagrams
**Reference File: Extremis 001_StarkSolutions.org)
The Professor gasped, his scientific mind’s eye struggling with all the amazing applications of such technology.
I’ve theorized this, he thought to himself. Theorized the ability to customize the human genome. My theories have always been endothermic in nature, requiring far more energy than worth the investment. However, creating a virus durable enough to overpower the body’s own immune system without killing the host...
Remarkable work here, Tony. Absolutely remarkable.
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, Bruce had known that gene therapies and customizable DNA was just around the corner, once the specific peptide sequences in the human genome were mapped and matched with specific traits.
Imagine a family being able to “engineer” their child with an IQ of 200, or with the athletic build potential of a quarterback. Imagine further a family being able to customize genetic traits like hair type, or skin color. Imagine further, a couple being able to “weed out” genetically-passed traits, like diabetes or cancer, out of their children’s genomes.
Now, imagine a homicidal maniac being able to engineer bulletproof skin, so he can go on a shooting spree without being gunned down by the police. Imagine a serial killer engineering super speed for himself to abduct victims in broad daylight and elude police with ease. Imagine a terrorist cell enabling a suicide bomber program where the suicide bombers didn’t die, and were free to do it all over again.
That was the power of Extremis.
That was the power Mr. Blue wanted, in exchange for Betty.
“You can’t give that to Mr. Blue,” the familiar reflection of Bruce Banner appeared in the computer screen.
The Professor raised an eyebrow, the snarl on his face deadly-serious. “You don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Banner.”
“Can you imagine what he could do with it?” the scientist said, pleading with the stubborn visage of the massive green monster before him with the genius intellect. “An army of Nitros - Living Bomb Blasts? Or a fleet of unstoppable Hulks? Perhaps a world where ALS and DID cures are handed out to the highest bidder and sold only on the black market? Or you and I fighting Speedfreek...times fifty?”
The Professor raised an eyebrow at the reflection of Bruce Banner, who was rapidly losing his patience with the towering behemoth.
“That won’t happen,” the Professor grumbled, a cold glare emanating from his emerald eyes.
“How do you figure?” the scientist said, crossing his arms. “Because Mr. Blue seems like such a nice guy so far...”
As the Professor held up the flash drive, a twinge of doubt crossed his mind. With green eyelids, he blinked the doubt away. “Because I have a plan.”
“Oh! A plan!” the scientist watched frantically as the Professor plugged the flash drive into the computer and downloaded the Extremis specs, unable to do a thing to stop him. “Can’t wait to see what that is.”
“You worry too much, Banner,” the Professor smiled as the download completed. He plucked the device out of the computer and placed it inside a plastic bag.
Fuming, the reflection of the scientist began to pace around the reflective surface of the computer screen. He puffed hard on his smoking pipe, sighing heavily. “She wouldn’t want you to do this, you know.”
“Betty,” the Professor gritted his teeth, clenching his left fist as he held the flash drive in his right. “You’re trying to manipulate me by talking about what Betty would want me to do.”
The scientist glared at him. “Does that make it any less true?”
The Professor glared at the reflection of Doctor Bruce Banner, a burning rage boiling inside his jaded heart.
“It does.”
“How do you figure that?” Bruce furrowed his brow, pointing his pipe at his towering alter-ego.
“Because it’s as you said on the grassy knoll,“ the Professor glared at him, “our wife is dead. She’s incapable of wanting anything.”
He trailed off as he ripped open the flesh of his own forearm, leaving an open, gushing green wound trailing up toward his wrist. The Professor tucked the flash drive inside the gaping wound, protected inside the sealed plastic bag.
The green goliath’s incredible healing factor began to kick in, as severed veins and arteries swirled back into one another, and blood spilled out inside the wound neatly slurped back into the remaining veins. The muscle fibers and fat cells knitted themselves back together, skin coiling back over green flesh until even the forearm hairs regrew, leaving his wrist and forearm as pristine and muscular as it ever was.
The genius Hulk rose from his chair, walking over toward the various notes and files that lay strewn about the bedroom.
Bruce Banner - the helpless reflection - watched sadly as the Professor began enacting his plan, knowing his words would fall on deaf ears.
“You lovesick fool,” the reflection whispered gently. “You damn lovesick fool...”
# # # # # # # # #
Somewhere in the Arizona Desert
A Forgotten Mineshaft Hideaway
The Leader and His Other Skittering Marionettes
Fools, the Leader smiled a malicious, mustachioed smile, thinking cruel thoughts as he gazed bemusedly at his prey. You idiotic, scampering fools.
The distended brain of the Leader pulsed and quivered, as his body trembled. Painfully, laboriously - he breathed in and out. He’d already received the sign from his plant in the Avengers. Bruce Banner had received the true message. The satellite images were tracking his progress now.
He watched the flickering screens around him, smiling as his creatures pulsed inside the mind of the Abomination, driving him with his new directive.
All his marionettes were in motion, performing all the actions he needed them to. And the Leader himself, of course, was directing all that powerful gamma-green energy toward a worthy, coordinated purpose.
“Soon now,” he muttered, as the insects and their blue suckers desperately struggled to keep his broken body together. “Soon, I will be made whole once more...”
His plans were coming together.
Oh how the Leader loved it when his plans came together.
Next Issue: Well, the Professor stole Extremis. So that’s a thing, now. But what on Earth is the Professor planning that could compel him to do such a thing? Where will the Professor’s journey take him? Just what the hell happened to the Leader anyway, and what are these plans of his that he’s putting together? We’ll find out those answers in due time, my friends.
In the meantime, a reprieve of sorts: We’ll delve into the Abomination’s and Hulk’s past next issue, and what connection they both have to the lovely Nadia Blonsky. And what the results of that past connection might mean in the present time for these two gamma-green goliaths! Find out what’s what in the incredible HULK #4!
AUTHOR’S GAMMA-NOTES:
***The Leader died in Incredible Hulk #400, during his attempt to use the Resurrection Machine at his Freehold stronghold to both bring Marlo Chandler back to life (she was dead for a bit, you see), whilst simultaneously attaining ultimate power, or something appropriately-lunatic like that.
***The Abomination killed Betty Banner in Incredible Hulk #467. While she was undergoing treatment for radiation sickness, Emil Blonsky substituted a pack of human blood for a pack of his own gamma-irradiated blood. The blood transfusion during the operation was what did poor Mrs. Banner in.
RAGE MOMENTS
As promised, this is YOUR space, dear readers! (Well, mostly. I’m a long-winded sort of bastard myself as it is).
That said, here’s a review of HULK #0 from Stuart Fairchild (writer of M2K’s very own NAMOR Volume 2!)
I have never read Jason McDonald's work before but this was a really good issue.
The characterization of Savage, Gray, and Banner were right on the money.
I was really following the issue and come the part of the third act (Savage Hulk) I began to realize what it was which was explained in the 4th act in Avengers Mansion. I don't want to place a SPOILER but you did a really good job with the lead and twist
I cant wait for the next issue
Great job!
5/5
I hope your series last cuz I want a Hulk/Namor crossover, lol
Thanks, Stuart!!
I love the Hulk and I’ve been reading his stories since I was a kid (I write, mere weeks after my thirtieth birthday. UGH.) While I grew up reading the Professor Hulk, I find that, as I get older, I really enjoy ALL aspects of the Hulk and what they represent.
The Savage Hulk in his childlike innocence and undeniable rage (because this is how a child would likely throw a temper tantrum if an adult were simply too weak to stop him/her). The Grey Hulk and his cunning, devious tactics. The Professor Hulk as the idealized version of what Bruce wishes he was. And the Bruce Banner with all that delightful inner rage locked up tight inside that scientist’s noggin and the unemotional land of equations and formulas, where everything works out the way it’s supposed to in the end. There are so many themes you can play with in a HULK series just with the Hulk personas themselves. (As you’ve already seen in these first two issues!) All that madness, and all those themes before you start adding things like supporting cast members or villains to bounce other crazy-ass ideas off of.
Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room for a Hulk/Namor crossover (or a Hulk/Namor battle) at some point during this wacky ride. I can wedge it in there somewhere!
Continuing the HULK #0 trend, here’s what Meriades Rai has to say on the subject:
HULK # 0 by Jason McDonald
A well-written set-up issue by Jason, whose BATMAN series at DC Omega sets a very high standard. His prose here is a touch sparser than I was expecting, given that Batman - and also GHOST RIDER at Marvel Ad Aeternitas - are heavier, meatier reads, but I'm guessing that this is because this is an issue #0 rather than #1. There's certainly enough to chew on here to suggest that Jason's Hulk will be every bit as psychologically wrought and intricate as his other work once he gets into his stride and having a brisker pace to a scene-setter is definitely a good thing.
Interesting to see the multiple aspects of the Hulk personas stacked up one after another, and Jason cleverly gives each a distinct voice. His Banner elicits sympathy, which isn't always the case (sometimes the character can be downright annoying with his wheedling), and Grey/Fixit is authentic, as an arrogant bully readers will either love or despise (I'm personally in the latter camp, but that's overall rather than pertaining to Jason's version; whenever I read Fixit I'm always hoping he'll get stomped). Green is my favourite, though, and always will be. Intriguing to see him depicted so savagely here, rather than the traditional heavy-handed-but-innocent archetype, thus becoming Red; does this mean Green won't feature so heavily in the series proper?
Mercy was portrayed very nicely, just the right amount of sinister and raw appeal, but by far the most curious thing about this issue is how it could easily be Hulk: The End as much as a new beginning. Mercy has given Banner a kind of peace, and given each of the Hulks what they wanted most, how unsettling her methods. This could be the last Hulk story ever, and it would work - but, of course, there's a new series to come, and Jason could go anywhere from here. I'm assuming Mercy will be a massive part of that, and I'm fascinated to see where it'll all lead.
Thanks for the very high praise, Meri!!
Yes, my issues are typically of Ludicrous Length(TM)! (This is very possibly the shortest piece of fanfic I've ever written that wasn't in an anthology title!) As you’ve seen in the ensuing issues, brevity is no longer a concern.
My big thing with HULK #0 was to introduce and encapsulate the various aspects/personalities of the Hulk, each of which deserved a decent amount of screen time. As you’ve seen, the main players are: Bruce Banner, Savage Hulk, Grey Hulk and the Professor (whose scene I placed into the first issue instead, in order to keep #0 small). I plan on this being a fair ensemble, where all his aspects get a good amount of screen time throughout the series.
Green/Savage is still in the series proper (actually, you'll see a lot more of him next ish!), but he's not one of the heaviest hitters in the opening pages of the story. I like how you said this could be Hulk: The End. I never really thought of it that way, but it is certainly appealing. Mercy's role in what is to come is small, but critical. Rest assured, you’ll see her again before this whole lot of madness concludes.
Not a fan of the Grey Hulk, eh? I actually had more fun writing this "bully" Hulk myself. For all his arrogance and swagger and scheming, half his plans fall to hell in the end anyway, and it's great to see Fixit act like a spoiled teenager, casting blame every other which-way whenever it happens. Don’t worry, though...he’ll likely get his comeuppance very, very soon.
You can read Meri’s work in M2K’s Defenders, Ultimate Defenders & Ultimate Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman over at DC Omega!
Jason McDonald
6/19/2016