DID I HEAR SOMEONE SAY…SENTINELS?

By Derrick Ferguson

The Hulk landed on a tall mesa north of Hulkbuster Base with a resounding THA-WOOM! that rattled the bones of Hardbottle’s already jangled body. The great green behemoth opened his hand and Hardbottle tumbled to the ground, coughing at the cloud of red dust that engulfed him. He hawked and spat up a huge gob of yellow phlegm and he spent a few minutes bent over, hacking and coughing. His lungs felt as if they were caked with mud.

The Hulk stomped over the edge of the mesa and squatted on his haunches, glaring down at the impressive sight of Hulkbuster Base of full alert. It was lit up bright enough to put shame to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The amount of mobilization of men and machines was an awesome display of military might and it was all devoted to one thing: the destruction of The Incredible Hulk. Hardbottle finished his coughing and spitting and walked over to where The Hulk squatted, brushing dirt from his fatigues. “Okay. You said you wanted to talk. Let’s talk.”

The Hulk’s massive square head turned to regard the human with eyes that were smoldering emerald pools of bestial anger. “You got balls, Hardbottle. I see why old Thunderbolt give you the job of chasin’ after me.”

Hardbottle shrugged. “Seems to me that I don’t have much to worry about. If you were going to kill me, you could have done that when I was unloading rounds from my rail gun into your face…which I noticed has healed up nicely. That healing factor of yours does come in handy, doesn’t it?”

Indeed, the wounds that The Hulk had suffered during his fight with Hardbottle had just about healed up completely. The pits in his chest had closed up and the burned skin on his face and flaked off and fallen away. The Hulk growled.

“Okay, so what’s the deal, Banner? I-”

“HULK!” The man-monster roared, startling Hardbottle, who took a couple of steps back. “Call me HULK!”

Hardbottle quickly regained his composure and peered at the emerald behemoth with a sly grin of understanding. “It’s all just a big show, isn’t it, Banner? You like pretending that your intellect has The Hulk’s rage under control but it’s just an act. Mostly to fool yourself than the world. You can barely keep the anger from consuming you…in fact, youLIKE letting The Hulk’s anger take control, don’t you?”

The Hulk’s nostrils flared suddenly and a wickedly wide grin spread across his face. “And how much booze does it take for you to control your Hulk, Hardbottle?”

Hardbottle returned the grin and waggled an index finger at The Hulk like a stern schoolmaster. “Let’s keep the focus on you, Dr. Banner. After all, all this is about you. What do you want? Why am I still alive?”

“I need you to be a witness,” The Hulk declared and turned back to moodily contemplate Hulkbuster Base. He pointed a thick finger at the base. “Somewhere in there is a man Ross has been experimentin’ on. Ross and his people got no more understandin’ of the effects of gamma radiation on human cell structure than you got of today’s weather on Asgard.”

Hardbottle snorted in amused derision. “And of course I should take your word that you know better. And how do you know all this?”

“Because I’m here to rescue him. We’ve been in touch for weeks.”

“You’re talking about The Leader Project. I know all about-AAAAAAAARGH!”

The Hulk snatched up Hardbottle in one huge hand with a bellow that filled the hot desert night. The Hulk held Hardbottle up in the air over his head, over the edge of the mesa. Hardbottle clawed futilely at the massive hand that held him, trying to pry the finger open but it was as useless as trying to count individual grains of sand on a beach. Hardbottle could barely breathe and there was no doubt in his mind that he was very close to death. As far as he was concerned, The Hulk was crazier than Chinese arithmetic and was quite capable of anything. Thousands of feet of empty air were under his wildly kicking legs.

“You’ve got five seconds to explain everything you know about The Leader or I’m going to see exactly how far I can throw your ass. I’m betting you’ll end up somewhere in Canada without me half trying.”

“Can’t…breathe…goddammit…gotta…breathe…”

Again Hardbottle hit the ground, his entire body aching brutally. It took him a full two minutes before he could get enough air into his lungs to speak; “Y’know, Banner, you’re not exactly endearing yourself to me with these repeated outrages you keep performing on my body.”

“Five seconds, Hardbottle.” The Hulk stood over the human, his face in shadow with only his wide teeth showing in a humorless grin of pitiless malice. His massive hands opened and closed, the tremendous tendons and sinews creaking like ancient iron hinges that badly needed oiling.

“Thunderbolt and The Leader have been playin’ you, man. The Leader’s lived up to his name because he’s been leading you into a trap all this time.”

And to Hardbottle’s amazement, The Hulk threw back his head and guffawed. A wild and powerful laugh tinged with madness. Hardbottle slowly picked himself up and slapped the dirt off. “You maybe want to let me in on the joke?”

The Hulk stopped laughing long enough to reply; “The Leader’s been stringin’ Ross along all this time, y’dumb son of a bitch. If you’d stop killin’ off the few workin’ brain cells y’got you’d have figured out that’s how I knew about that so-called trap of yours.”

“Don’t give me that load of horseshit, Banner! You breathed in that RA2 gas! It knocked you out! You expect me to believe this was all part of some plan you and The Leader worked out?”

The Hulk grinned again and pointed at Hulkbuster Base. “I wouldn’t try to convince you of anythin’, Hardbottle. Fact is, I’m thinkin’ I done already give you too much credit for havin’ some intelligence. But c’mere and watch.”

Hardbottle walked over to stand next to The Hulk and as he watched in growing unease and shocked amazement, sections of Hulkbuster Base began to grow dark as power was shut down, section by section. The Hulk’s grin was fierce as he growled in satisfaction; “right on time.”

“But how…you mean…The Leader really is helping you?”

“You seem to forget, along with everybody else on this stinkin’ planet that part a’ me is a genius. You ready to go?”

“Go? Go where?”

The Hulk frowned. “The base of course. Where’d you think we were goin’? Abu Dhabi?”

“And why exactly am I going?” Hardbottle demanded. “As a witness? A witness to what? I’ve already told you I know all about The Leader Project.”

The Hulk’s face darkened with anger. “So you don’t care that old bastard Ross is exposin’ his own men to gamma radiation to create his own super-soldiers?”

“So? Didn’t you deliberately expose yourself to gamma rays to become The Hulk, Banner?”

“I was trying to save a LIFE!” The Hulk roared, raising both massive fists above his head. “Rick Jones-“

Hardbottle laughed and waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell that story walkin’, mister. You think ANYBODY believes that bag a’ bullshit anymore? The way a lot of us got it figured, Thunderbolt jumped the gun and pressed the button on you before you were ready and you got hit with a bigger dose than you or the old man intended. Either way I don’t care about Thunderbolt’s projects.”

“You’re as bad as Ross, you know that, Hardbottle?” The Hulk’s breath felt as if it were coming from inside a furnace.

“Why? Because I don’t switch sides and throw it with you?” Let me give you a quick reality check, Banner. YOU’RE the rampaging man-monster who has threatened the world I dunno how many times. YOU’RE the one responsible for God only knows how many deaths and billions of property damage. I’m a Lt. Colonel with The United States Army assigned the job of capturing you. That’s where we stand.”

The Hulk glowered at Hardbottle for a very long minute before lowering his fists. “If I were the monster you claim that I am, I’d kill you right now.”

“You’ll be saving yourself a lot of grief later on if you do. You’ve embarrassed and humiliated me and I don’t like that. Soon as I climb down offa here, I’m gonna be hunting your big green ass from here to Hell if I have to. Believe that.”

The Hulk growled; “You wanna stay clear of me, Hardbottle. You’d better believe THAT because I mean it most sincerely. Stay away from me.” And with a simple flexing of tremendous leg muscles, The Hulk sprang into the air, disappearing into the night.

Hardbottle’s shaking hands fumbled and the belt and zipper of his pants and he barely got them unfastened and his pants down he time. He squatted and the contents of his bowels and bladder emerged in hot, forceful streams. It had been truly an awesome test of self-control for Hardbottle to keep from soiling himself while The Hulk was present. Hardbottle would have thrown himself off the mesa first before giving the man-monster the satisfaction of watching him foul himself with his own waste. Hardbottle laughed crazily. He’d walked many a fine line in the past but this was the finest yet. He’d gone tone to toe with The Incredible Hulk and lived to tell about it. And as tears of hysterical relief washed his lean cheeks, Lt. Colonel Felton Hardbottle vowed that he would see to it that the next time he met up with The Hulk, it would be the man-monster who would be fighting to control his bowels.

Thunderbolt Ross stormed into the underground command bunker of Hulkbuster Base with his usual swagger and bombast, shouting orders left and right, sending the bunker staff into a whirlwind of furious activity. “Just what in the blue blazes in going on around here? Where’s Lt. Colonel Hardbottle? Where’s The Hulk?”

A Lieutenant turned from a bank of holographic tracking screens and slipped his headset off his ear and let it hang around his neck as he reported tersely; “There’s been no sign of Lt. Colonel Hardbottle since The Hulk took him hostage, sir.”

“Then he’s most likely dead,” Ross stated flatly with no hint of sympathy or regret. “Can’t say I’ll lose much sleep over that development. Where’s The Hulk?”

“Don’t know, sir. Once we started losing power, the tracking sensors were the first things to go. We’re blind. No sensors, no motion detectors, no radar. No nothing.”

“We’ve still got men around here with eyes in their heads, don’t we boy?”

The young man gulped. “Sir?”

“Get some observers out there equipped with nightscopes you ignorant puppy! Station them along the perimeter at regular intervals every 800 feet and they’re to report everything and everything they see!”

“Yes, sir!”

“And can somebody tell me why the hell we’re losing power? Don’t we have our own nuclear reactor three miles down? Did one of you brainless nincompoops throw the wrong switch?”

“The main computer’s the problem sir!” Someone shouted helpfully. “We’ve lost control of it and it’s systematically shutting down all power systems section by section!”

“Under whose authorization, dammit?”

“Sir…according to the computer…. YOURS.”

Thunderbolt Ross said nothing further and stormed through the bunker until reaching a bank of elevators where he used a red and yellow keycard to open one special elevator. He stepped inside and the elevator sped downward so fast that at one point Ross’s feet actually lifted a quarter inch from the floor of the car. The elevator smoothly braked to a slow stop and the doors opened and Ross emerged into a secure chamber where a lone man sat in horseshoe shaped console of computer monitors and keyboards. Floating over his head, slowly revolving so as to give him a complete view was a three dimensional holographic display of Hulkbuster Base.

Ross’s face was nearly purple with rage. “Is there no loyalty left anywhere on this stinking planet? Why would you betray me like this?”

The man turned in his high-backed swivel leather captain’s chair to face Ross. His skin was a rich, healthy shade of emerald green and his shoulders and neck were thick with banks of corded, gamma radiation rich muscle to support the oversized head that was crisscrossed with thick green veins that pumped gamma irradiated blood to the artificially mutated brain. “How can you even dare to ask me a question like that after what you’ve done to me.”

“You were supposed to be leading Banner into a trap! For us! For ME!”

The green man laughed crazily. “Banner’s going to help cure me, which is more than what you’re willing to do.”

“You’re mad! Banner can’t even cure himself!” Ross’s eyes narrowed. “SHE put you up to this, didn’t she? She’s never been happy with my overseeing of her activities…she’s never liked having you out from under her thumb. She saw her chance and she took it. With your help.”

“And what of it? She’s the future of this planet, Ross! She’s the one who’s going to unlock the secrets you never could! And she’s going to do it with Banner’s help!”

“I made a mistake, “ Ross said slowly, almost gently. From a shoulder holster under his jacket he drew forth a gold-plated .45 automatic. “I thought I was bringing Glenn back to help me finish the job of destroying The Hulk once and for all.” Ross fired three times, the bullets smashing into the green man’s chest. The green man’s face contorted in a terrible grimace of horror before he slumped to the floor, a pool of dark jade blood spreading, pumping from the baseball sized wounds in his chest and back. “But you’re not Glenn Talbot. That bitch lied to me.” Ross’s hand that held the gun dropped to his side. “You’re just another soulless monster.”

Thunderbolt Ross turned and left the chamber, leaving the green man there. A green man whose mutated, ravaged features were still unmistakably those of the man he’d been cloned from: Major Glenn Talbot.

The elevator returned Thunderbolt Ross to the bunker and he had composed himself thoroughly by then. He briskly stepped back into the bunker and snapped; “Give me a SitRep!”

“We’ve got positive visual confirmation on The Hulk, sir! He’s been spotted on the mesa two miles east of the base!”

Ross nodded his shaggy white head. “Very well…time to pull out the stops, then.”

The Hulk landed on one of the major airstrips, made for the landing and take-off of the heavy cargo transport planes. It was one of the sections still brightly lit and the impact of The Hulk’s landing sent crazily zigzagging cracks five feet wide through the tarmac, the ground vibrating like a plucked piano wire. The Hulk didn’t care if Ross knew he was there…in fact, he wanted the crazy old bastard to know this particular green chicken had come home to roost and it was pissed off enough to lay gamma bomb eggs. He threw back his head and gave out with a wordless bellow of raging hatred for the entire world.

The Hulk stomped toward the main complex of administrative buildings at the center of the base, an organic machine of pure rage. The mind of The Hulk was fixed pure on his objective but there was another part of him, a part he detested and hated and wished everyday of his life that he could kill but it was a part he could not ignore or deny and it was this part that was urging caution. Where were the warning klaxons that should be sounding? Where were the platoons of soldiers that should have been firing on The Hulk no matter how futile it was? Ross never tired of throwing wave after wave of solders at The Hulk. Maybe this time Ross had decided on new tactics?

A thick metal cable easily a foot in diameter suddenly snaked out of the darkness and wrapped around The Hulk, pinned his arms to his sides. The Hulk roared and whirled around as more cables encircled his body. The cables seemed to have independent life and thought as they wound tighter and tighter around him. He snarled and tore one hand free, ripped at the silver cables, tearing them loose and he got a good look at what was attacking him.

Two twenty foot tall robots of dark blue and gunmetal gray approached The Hulk. Their faces were flat, expressionless faces and round, blunked-out Little Orphan Annie eyes. The robots retracted the damaged cables into wrist sockets as they sized up their prey. The Hulk growled, recognizing the robots as Sentinels, mechanical mutant hunters developed by The United States government. Indeed, they were only supposed to be used by Presidential order and even then, only to hunt, capture or kill mutants.

The Sentinels moved with surprising speed and agility for their size and weight, bracketing The Hulk, forcing him to keep swiveling his head as if he were watching a high-speed tennis match. But The Hulk wasn’t waiting for the robot mutant hunters to make the first move. The Hulk leaped at The Sentinel on his left smashing right into the center of the robot’s barrel chest and they both crashed to the ground with a tremendous THOOM!

The other Sentinel sprang into action and too late The Hulk realized his mistake. The Sentinels had deliberately lured him into close quarters where they could lay hold of him. The Sentinel under him seized hold of The Hulk with both giant metal hands and the other Sentinel bent closer and fired a strong jet of RA2 gas right into The Hulk’s face. The green goliath thrashed and struggled in the cruel unyielding metal grip of the robot, his head flopping forward, eyes half closed, strings of drool dribbling from his thick lower lip.

The Sentinel holding The Hulk got to it’s knees with fluid, swift motions that were too disconcertingly human in their effortless ease and it looked over at it’s twin. Silent communication passed between the two as The Hulk was placed on the ground.

The Hulk suddenly exploded into action, having faking being overcome by the gas. The Hulk could be overcome by RA2 gas and indeed, the first time he had breathed it, he had done so willingly, knowing that his healing factor would identify it and overcome it if he ever breathed it again. Like now.

The Hulk slammed into the midsection of the first Sentinel, knocking it over on its side. The Hulk drew back one huge foot and kicked The Sentinel, sending it skidding along the ground, tearing a deep trench in it’s wake, sending huge broken chunks of concrete flying as The Sentinel desperately tried to half it’s uncontrollable skid. It smashed into storage buildings, maintenance sheds, crushing all in it path into shapeless lumps as The Sentinel tumbled over and over, it’s arms and legs clanging like giant Tibetan prayer bells.

The Hulk turned his attention to the other Sentinel and swung a huge green fist. BA-WHANNNG!

The Sentinels left leg were flying off somewhere far away, spinning into the darkness, torn from it’s owner torso, leaving only a stump that sparked as hundred of damaged cables whipped around wildly. The Sentinel windmilled its arms wildly as it struggled to retain its balance but it was no use. The Sentinel toppled over on its side with a crash that sounded like an entire scrap yard dumped from a mile up onto another scrap yard.

The Hulk bounded onto The Sentinel’s chest and those great green fists began pounding away like the world most powerful sledgehammers, denting the robot’s head, tearing through the flexible micro chain mail armor as if it were wet toilet paper. From The Sentinel’s right eye a spray of liquid nitrogen emerged and covered The Hulk in a thick coating of ice. Only The Hulk’s legs were free and he stumbled backwards as The Sentinel tried to get to its one remaining foot, half its head ruined by The Hulk’s thunderous blows.

The Hulk flexed and the ice sheath burst into shards. Roaring wordlessly, The Hulk leaped right at The Sentinel, seized it’s head and with one tremendous yank, ripped the head completely free of the body, falling backwards to land heavily on the ground, his prize held firmly in his hands. With a disdainful snort, The Hulk punted the head in a screaming arc where it was rapidly lost to sight and was discovered three days later somewhere in Illinois.

The decapitated Sentinel dropped to its knee with an awesome KA-BOOOM! digging a pit some ten feet deep into the ground. Fat yellow and blue sparks were leaping out of the space where its head had once been. The headless body toppled over onto The Hulk who was waiting with a smashing uppercut that threw the headless body back up into the air where it sailed some four thousand feet to come down right on a fuel storage depot. Barrels of fuel and oil burst and exploded, engulfing The Sentinel in bright orange flames. The Sentinel writhed and thrashed, looking too much like a human being in mute agony. The Hulk turned, looking for the first Sentinel to finish destroying it.

With a meaty KA-SHUNK! a titanium spear pierced The Hulk’s upper right thigh and continued into the ground. The Hulk bellowed his surprised pain into the night and reached for the spear.

KA-SHUNK! Another titanium spear went completely through his stomach and also solidly embedded into the ground, thrumming. The Hulk thrashed about, nearly insane with rage and pain, impaled and held to the ground firmly as a third Sentinel emerged from where it had been silently observing the battle, quietly correlating data and thinking about how best to not make the same mistake his brothers had made.

Blank white eyes glowing, The Sentinel stalked toward the impaled Hulk, arms slowly lifting as The Sentinel prepared to discharge plasma beams…

Ross’s watery eyes took in the scene with a grim satisfaction. It had cost him a lot to get those three Sentinels. And if The President ever found out…well, it wouldn’t matter a poobah’s pizzle HOW long or how well Thunderbolt had served his country. Ross would be spending the rest of his life in The Vault. But it would be worth it if they finally killed The Hulk. It had taken years for this day and if Thunderbolt Ross could stand over the broken dead body of The Hulk and spit in the shattered, ruined face of his most hated enemy, it would be worth it. Oh, dear sweet God, YES….it would all be worth it….

“General Ross! Look out!”

Ross whirled around to see The Leader standing by the elevator bank, an electron bazooka in his bloody hands that dripped green gore.

Ross dimly heard someone said faintly, off to his left; “Jesus please us…if he fires that thing in here…”

Developed by T’Challa of Wakanda, an electron bazooka could effectively take down a Monarch class tank with one shot thanks to it’s devastating payload of a shaped electron charge held in a plasma field of ionized supercharged beta particles. If The Leader fired it inside of this enclosed area, he’d kill everyone inside of this bunker.

Ross slowly lifted his wide, scarred hands. “You don’t want to do this, son. There’s no point. Look! The Sentinels have almost killed The Hulk! He’s finished! There’s no purpose to what you want to do!”

The Leader grinned with bloody lips. “Oh yes there is. Just to watch your face when I pull this trigger you insufferable old FOOL.”

The Leader pulled the trigger.

The Sentinel suddenly jerked as if somebody had jabbed it in the back with a large iron girder. It cocked it’s head to the side as if listening to a far off cry of distress and that was all The Hulk needed. He reached for the titanium spears and slowly, agonizingly pulled them out of the ground and free of his flesh, groaning at the agony, as injuries that were already healing around the spears were torn open yet again. The Hulk hefted the spears and flung them right into the eyes of The Sentinel. Arcs of electrical energy burst from The Sentinel’s eyes, engulfing its head as if staggered to and fro.

The Hulk leaped upwards and landed on The Sentinel’s face right between the spears. So towering was his rage that even the whites of his eyes had gone totally dark green and with a bestial scream, The Hulk bit down into The Sentinel’s face with his wide square teeth. His hands reached out and seized the spears and drove them deeper and deeper into The Sentinel’s head even as he chewed and savaged the metal face. A blizzard of ripped metal spewed upwards as The Sentinel toppled over backwards and crashed flat as The Hulk continued his insane chewing right into The Sentinel’s head. The Sentinel’s arms and legs flopped maniacally as it’s systems went absolutely crazy as they were ruthlessly mangled in a matter of seconds.

The Hulk emerged from The Sentinel’s head, his wide, grinning mouth filled with metal that he spat out and looked around fro the last Sentinel, which had gotten to its feet and had emotionlessly watched the destruction of its brothers.

The Hulk crooked a thick finger at The Sentinel in a ‘come here’ gesture.

In response, The Sentinel fired its boot jets and slowly lifted off the ground and ascended into the night sky, turning toward the west and in a matter of seconds was lost to sight. The Hulk hawked and spat into the hole he had eaten in the face of a Sentinel and went in search of The Leader.

Five Days Later
Washington, D.C.
The Pentagon

“Have you anything to add to this report, Lt. Colonel Hardbottle?”

Hardbottle regarded the assembled Joint Chiefs of Staff and pretended to consult his notes before answering. “No, sirs. I was pretty much out of action until morning came. It was far too dangerous for me to attempt to climb down from that mesa until I could see what I was doing. The climb down took me most of the day and after that it was a two-mile hike to Hulkbuster Base that I found in a state of complete chaos. Not being able to find General Ross I assumed command and contacted The Pentagon immediately.”

“Lt. Colonel Hardbottle, The Joint Chiefs want you to know that we in no way hold you responsible for the debacle at Hulkbuster Base. General Ross was running a completely rogue operation with no support or authorization from us.”

“So his Leader Project was all his doing, sirs?”

“It most certainly was. And he got those Sentinels from one of Bolivar Trask’s old R & D labs in Colorado. Those Sentinel models were fifteen years out of date. They couldn’t have taken The Hulk if they were fresh off the assembly line.”

“Sirs, what exactly did happen to General Ross?”

“Soldier, he went absolutely apeshit. How else would you explain it?”

“Actually, sirs, I meant what the bunker. Were any of the bodies in the bunker positively identified as his?”

“Not yet. We’re still in the process of processing the remains and identifying them by DNA samples. But as you well know, an electron bazooka at that close a range does a helluva lot of damage to human tissue. We may never be able to conclusively prove that General Thaddeus Ross died in that bunker.”

“And what about The Leader, sirs?”

The Joint Chief of Staff all fixed Hardbottle with iron glares. Hardbottle got the point. From this moment on there was no Leader. No Leader Project. And if Hardbottle mentioned it outside of this room, it was his ass.

“You’re dismissed, Hardbottle. Take two weeks leave. You’ll be notified as to your re-assignment.”

Hardbottle saluted, executed a crisp turn and left the briefing chamber. As he walked through the wide corridors of The Pentagon, returning the salutes of junior officers, nodding and smiling hellos at other officers he knew he felt a wash of relief that the exhausting days of debriefing were at last over. Hulkbuster Base had been shut down and a Cone of Silence placed over everything that had happened there. The Leader was missing and Thunderbolt Ross was presumed to have died in the bunker when somebody fired off an electron bazooka. The internal monitors had been scrambled by the intense electron discharge so no record of what had truly happened even existed. All in all the events at Hulkbuster Base was what was known in precise military term as FUBAR.

But the bright side was that he wasn’t getting the blame for it.

He was standing on the side walk outside of The Pentagon, trying to decide which of three different bars he should get drunk in when the longest, blackest, shiniest limousine he’d ever seen pulled up in front of him and the rear window smoothly slid downward. A familiar face poked out and it’s owner smiled warmly. “Recognize me, son?”

Hardbottle nodded. He had enough sense not to salute. He’d noticed that the limo had no official flags or seals of office to identify it, which meant that the occupant wanted a measure of privacy. Or at least as much privacy as one could expect in Washington where even the dogs were bugged. “Yes, sir. I recognize you.”

“Then get yourself in here. We got things to discuss.”

Hardbottle climbed into the rear of the limo that seemed as spacious as his living room. Hardbottle removed his hat and smiled. ‘It isn’t everyday that I’m offered a lift by The Vice-President of The United States, sir.”

The Vice-President chuckled warmly. “Well, it’s not everyday I offer a ride to a man who took on The Hulk and lived to brag about it.”

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“You want a drink, Hardbottle?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What you like? Anything special?”

“Whatever you’re drinking will be fine with me, sir. Thank you.”

As The Vice-President mixed drinks for them he said: “How do you feel about The Hulk, Hardbottle? I mean, now that you’ve seen him face-to-face…smelled him…looked in his eyes…saw his soul so to speak.”

“He’s a menace to human civilization, sir. I had the opportunity to talk to him and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Bruce Banner’s continually maintaining that he is trying to find a cure for his condition is a blatant lie. He loves letting The Hulk take him over. It’s like the biggest, best drug in the world for him. Banner gets off on being a living gamma bomb and one day he’ll destroy us. He’s got to be found and either caged or killed. Sir.”

The Vice-President handed over a vodka and orange juice. “And what would you say if I asked you to do me a huge personal favor and find The Hulk for me?”

“To kill him, sir?”

“Not at all. I want to offer him a job.”

NEXT ISSUE: Well, what’s THIS all about? What kind of position could The Vice President of The United States have that The Hulk could fill? (getcher minds outta th’ gutter, wouldja?) And what really happened between Thunderbolt Ross and The Leader in that doomed bunker? All this and The Original Human Torch in HULK #3!