Shadow Boxing

The Thing and the Human Torch have been dispatched to contain the Hulk who has been reverted back to his savage grey form by a Hydra gamma bomb and is on the rampage in the desert outside Las Vegas. The Thing tries to talk sense to the Hulk, but the gamma spawned brute is too enraged to listen to reason and attacks. The Hulk easily bats away the Torch and piles onto the Thing. When Ben mentions a gamma bomb blowing up, it causes the Hulk to think back to the moment, years ago, when Bruce Banner rushed to get Rick Jones to safety before the gamma bomb explosions that first turned him into the Hulk. Recalling how the bomb was just moments away from exploding sents the Hulk into another frenzy. The Hulk recalls how the gamma bomb ripped through Banner's body moments after he pushed Rick to safety. At the very moment, he is reliving the memory of the gamma bomb, the Torch recovers and unleashes a powerful flame blast. However, the blast does nothing to phase the Hulk who then turns and begins walking off.

Recovering from the brawl, the Thing and Torch summon the Fantasti-Car and send it after the Hulk. Ben and Johnny hope that the contingency built into the Fantasti-Car can stop the Hulk. However, their discussion and the sound of the Fantasti-Car only make the brute think about how he lost Jarella, the green-skinned princess who ruled a kingdom in the Microverse who loved the Hulk for who he was. The Hulk begins to mourn the loss of his this long lost lover and throws a rock at the Fantasti-Car, wrecking it, before leaping away. The whole incident leaves the two members of the Fantastic Four wondering who Jarella was, and why the Hulk is crying.

The Hulk's leap takes him to a nearby hospital, where he comes crashing through the skylight. Walking through the hallways, the Hulk passes by an open room. Seeing the unconscious patient sitting in a bed causes the Hulk to flashback to the day that Jim Wilson died of an auto-immune disease. He recalls how a transfusion of the Hulk's blood could save Wilson's life, but the Hulk couldn't bring himself to do it, knowing that the gamma radiation blood could transform Jim into a monster like himself. While the Hulk pauses for a moment to shed tears for his dead friend, he is suddenly attacked by the Human Torch, who things that the Hulk might harm the hospital patient. The Torch's flame blast knocks the Hulk out of the hospital and out into the street. Soon they are joined by the Thing and the effort to try and contain the Hulk renews itself again. However by this point, Ben has figured out that the Hulk isn't fighting them, but his own memories as a response to taking a full-on gamma blast in the face.

Ben also understands the Hulk's plight, of being transformed into a monster against his will and tells Johnny to give him a chance to try to get through to the Hulk one-on-one. The Thing then confronts the Hulk and tries to talk him into surrendering so that they can try to cure him of the excess gamma radiation. However this only causes the Hulk to think about when Betty Ross died of gamma radiation poisoning and how the Abomination did it through a blood transfusion. The Abomination's mockery in the Hulk's mind causes him to lash out at the Thing once more, this time more furious than ever before and totally intent on killing the Thing.

Recurring Characters

Human Torch, Thing, Hulk

Continuity Notes

• The Hulk's recollection of Banner saving Rick Jones from the gamma bomb was from Incredible Hulk #1.

• Jarella was killed in Incredible Hulk #205.

• Jim Wilson died of an auto-immune disease in Incredible Hulk #420. In that story the illness was identified as HIV/AIDS however that should be considered a topical reference per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616 as that story was written at a time when lack of treatment and social stigma toward the disease made it more deadly than it is today.

• Betty Ross seemingly died of radiation poisoning in Incredible Hulk #468, it was revealed that Abomination was responsible in Incredible Hulk #472-474. The Hulk never found out this truth until Incredible Hulk Vol 2 #24-25. At the time of this story, everyone believed Betty Ross to be dead. However she was secretly being kept alive by her father General Ross until a cure could be found. She was later resurrected as the Red She-Hulk, as explained in Incredible Hulk #610.