Nightmerica Part Three

Bruce Banner has joined Chrissie Cutler in locating and reuniting the Nightmericans before they can be recovered by the Wright-Armstrong Corporation. After recovering Deadbird, they are onto their next quarry, a man named Manifest Destiny, who has been tracked to a slum in east St. Louis. This area heavily African-American neighborhood has been hit hard with drugs. As this will make Banner look either like a cop or a social worker, they have the uncomfortable task of having Chrissie dress up as a prostitute and drug addict so he appears to be her John so they blend in a little better. They leave Deadbird in the RV to protect it if anyone tried to break in. Out on the street, she tells them that their man -- Stuart Wendell -- is the sweetest human being alive, so him being in this place is odd. Later down the street, they witness a drug deal go down where the drug in question are strange yellow cubes. They decide to go into a grocery store to get some answers and are stopped by a woman who mistakes Bruce for a man named Reginald, the son of her friend Georgia. The case of mistaken identity confuses them but the woman ultimately walks away.

Inside the store they see a strange sight, a dazed-looking boy suddenly wakes up and starts demanding more of something called "Normal". His mother relents and gives him one of the yellow cubes they saw earlier. The boy then goes back into his dazed stupor. When they ask the store owner if they've seen Stu, tells them to buy something or get out. As they leave, a woman stops them and tells them that people are afraid to give information, and warns them to get their friend and the poison he is pushing out of their neighborhood. Seeing a connection, Bruce locates some local gangsters and questions about where he can score some Normal. When the thugs decide to try and rob him, they suddenly run off upon the arrival of Duke Dauphin a former football player turned owner of a local outreach program called New Dimensions. He introduces themselves and Banner and Chrissie explain that they are reporters covering the drug crisis in the area. Buying their story, he invites them into his office where he tells them that after he retired from pro football he came back to his hometown and opened his outreach center to try and help his old neighborhood. As they question him about the new drug on the streets, he questions Chrissie's motivations, calling her by her full name and suspects that Banner for Manny Joslin. Realizing he knows who they are, they ask him if he knows Stuart Wendell. It's then that Dauphin suggests that perhaps they have mistaken each other for other people.

Bruce decides it is time to leave because, despite the obvious fact that he has Stu stashed somewhere, they need to make a plan. When a thug comes out of an alley to attack them, Chrissie whirls around and a metal staff emerges from her wrist, knocking him out with a heavy blow. Banner doesn't see this brief moment and thinks she knocked their would-be attacker out with a simple backhand. They take the man's keys and his gun and check back in with Deadbird and tell him everything they have seen. That evening they go back to New Dimensions Outreach where they get the drop on one of the guards. Learning that everyone went home for the night, they force the man to take them inside where they find where the production of Normal is being made. They discover that they are manufacturing the drug from Manifest Destiny's body. They find him, a man who is one gelatinous mass of flesh, in another room. No sooner do they find Stu does an alarm go off. Needing to get out quickly, they start cutting off excess flesh from Stu's body to get him free from the chair he is sitting in.

They are interrupted by Duke Dauphin who pistol whips Bruce from behind. Instead of knocking Banner out it triggers a transformation into the Hulk. The gamma-spawned monster easily trounces Duke's men. Dauphin tries to flee but the Hulk follows him outside. When the former football player tries to run down the Hulk in his SUV, the Hulk easily smashes it. Going back inside, the Hulk is easily calmed by Chrissie and he reverts back into Bruce Banner. They get back to the RV with Manifest Destiny and head off to their next destination. Along the way, Bruce warns Chrissie about getting close to the Hulk, telling her it's dangerous. When they make a pit stop, Manifest Destiny explains that he was given a make-shift super-soldier serum in 1941 which didn't work out so well. However, Stuart Wendell still looks at things on the positive side and notices that Bruce is preoccupied in his thoughts. Wendell suggests that Bruce has lost sight of the spirit of America. He offers to show him what that is and tells Bruce to stick his head into his body. Hoping it's safe, Banner places his head inside Stu's body.

Bruce finds himself hallucinating Stu's idealized version of America, where everyone lives an idyllic life following the American Dream. Banner finds this experience euphoric he doesn't hear Deadbird warning him to pull himself out. In the real world, Deadbird begs Stu to stop because he's killing Bruce.

Recurring Characters

Hulk, Nightmericans (Chrissie Cutler, Deadbird, Manifest Destiny)

Continuity Notes

• Duke Dauphin states that he played for the Oakland Raiders from 1980 to 1983. These dates should be considered a topical reference per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616.