Incredible Hercules #113
Incredible Herc, Part 2: The Shirt of Nessus
Louisiana, Not Long Ago….
Ares, the god of war, arrives at an alligator farm in St. Charle’s Perish. He tells the owner, Big Henri, that he has taken a new job working for Tony Stark and will be very busy moving forward.[1] However, he stresses it is important that they are never to discuss what Henri has been entrusted with over the phone as his NSA contact informs him that all telecommunications are monitored to flag any conversations that reference known terrorist organizations. This is because he doesn’t want them to know that he is keeping the Lernaean Hydra at the farm. Going to feed the creature, Ares tosses it dead chickens from a bucket and marvels at the beauty of the massive beast.
New Jersey, Now
In the town of Livingston, the Green Cross has set up a camp for New York refugees who fled Manhattan during the Hulk’s recent war with Earth.[2] Hercules and Amadeus Cho are hiding out here to get away from SHIELD after their involvement in the conflict.[3] Amadeus believes that their only recourse is to take down SHIELD, something he feels strongly about after the superhero civil war and Hulk incidents.[4] Hercules, however, is trying to pick his battles smarter and believes that attacking the spy agency directly is tantamount to suicide. As they walk through the camp, Amadeus overhears people complaining about the conditions in the camp and it gets him grimly thinking about his time in SHIELD custody and how Agent Jones accusing him of not caring about the people displaced by the Hulk’s recent rampage. That’s when everyone notices that SHIELD is moving the Hulk’s stone ship to another location. Seeing it gives Cho an inkling of an idea, making him smirk.
Meanwhile, Hercules gets access to a payphone set up for the refugees and calls his half-sister Athena to ask to stay with her for a while. Athena warns him that her brother Ares is not the only threat Hercules need concern himself over. She says that Amadeus Cho is at a crossroads in his life where he will have to choose between using his great intelligence for great good or unspeakable evil. Hercules will need to guide the boy onto the path of becoming a great hero. Hercules, thinking of how he killed his sons many centuries ago says he can’t do that, telling his sister he will see her soon and ends the call.[5]
Not far away, Ares and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) are in a Quinjet searching for Hercules. For some reason Amadeus Cho hasn’t deactivated the tracking device in the laptop he stole from SHIELD, which has allowed them to reach their location. Having Simon take the stick, Ares gets ready by loading his gun with bullets filled with the Hydra’s blood. When Williams ask why they need that, Ares explains that this is what killed Hercules the first time.
Lerna, 1271 BC
During his second labor, Hercules went to slay the Hydra, only to discover that for every head he cuts off the reptile two more grew in its place. As now, Hercules had an intelligent companion. In those days it was a young boy named Iolaus who figured out that if they cauterized the stumps the Hydra could not grow new heads. With the creature completely decapitated, Hercules shoved it into a pit, stole a vial of its blood and sealed it with a boulder that he believed that only he could lift. Hydra’s blood is known as the world’s deadliest poison, and it would prove to be Hercules’ undoing.
The River Evenos, 1260 BC
Long after his twelve labors, Hercules was awarded a bride named Deianira, the Princess of Calydon, after he defeated the river god Achelous. Needing to cross a large river to get back home, a centaur named Nessus offered to carry Herc’s new bride across the waters. However, half way across, the centaur decided to take the woman for himself. When Deianira screamed, Hercules quickly whirled around and shot Nessus with an arrow tipped in Hydra blood. As he lay dying, Nessus claimed to Deianira that the blood soaking into his shirt would give it special properties that would ensure that Hercules would never become unfaithful to her. Deianira bought this lie, not knowing that the only thing the shirt would do would kill her husband with the Hydra’s poison….[6]
Now
Hearing all of this, Wonder Man puts two-and-two together and tells Ares that they are not going to kill Hercules since he has been a long standing Avenger.[7] Ares assures him that history won’t repeat itself because after Hercules’ mortal death, Zeus made Herc a demigod. While Hydra’s blood can’t kill him, they can still injure him enough to be taken into custody. It’s then that they finally reach their location.
Down below, Hercules is telling Amadeus that it is time to go, but Cho wants to remain there and take down SHIELD. When Herc points out that they can’t get aboard the SHIELD helicarrier, Cho explains that he’s already thought of that. That’s because he deduced that Ares would find them and bring them a Quinjet to break into the flying fortress. Just then, Hercules is ambushed by Wonder Man, who orders him to surrender.[8] However, Hercules is still firmly against what Iron Man (Tony Stark) is doing to the world and fights back. That’s when Ares appears and shoots Hercules with multiple rounds of the Hydra blood filled bullets. As he falls to the ground, his mind drifts back….
1276 BC
One night, Hercules took a woman to bed that wasn’t his wife. When Deianira caught him slumbering next to another woman, she decided to use the shirt she took from Nessus.
Now
Hercules awakens in burning agony and out of his right mind. He attacks Ares and hits him with a blow that sends him flying in the air. While Hercules is busy, Amadeus Cho uses his stolen SHIELD laptop to hack into and gain access to the Quinjet. There, he uses Iron Man’s credentials to learn that the Hulk’s stone ship has been relocated to a secret base in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. Unfortunately, he has to bail out of the ship when Hercules uses it to knock out Hercules.
In his maddened state, Herc hallucinates and thinks that Amadeus is Iolaus. Remembering how Iolaus helped Hercules kill himself to end the agony of the Hydra venom, he asks to be brought somewhere to end his life. Cho, seeing this as an opportunity to strike back against SHIELD, tells Hercules to follow him.
Recurring Characters
Hercules, Amadeus Cho, Athena, Ares, Wonder Man, SHIELD, Lernaean Hydra, Green Cross, “Kirby” (in flashback) Nessus, Deianira, Iolaus
Continuity Notes
Around the time of this flashback, Ares had accepted an offer to join Iron Man’s Avengers team in Mighty Avengers #1.
Beginning in She-Hulk (vol. 2) #4, the Green Cross was set up to provide humanitarian aid to those affected by the Hulk’s numerous rampages. At the time of this story, the Hulk had recently launched an attack on New York to get revenge against the heroes who had exiled him into space. See World War Hulk #1-5.
As will be revealed in Incredible Hercules #119, Kirby (Amadeus’ pet coyote cub) was replaced last issue with a Skrull spy. This is ahead of a planned invasion of Earth that will take place in Secret Invasion #1-8. Kirby goes unnamed in this story as he hasn’t been given one. His name will be given in Incredible Hercules #118.
The civil war was over the passage of the Super Human Registration Act (SHRA) that was passed into law. It requires all superhumans to register with the government. This created a schism in the superhero community between those who supported and those who were against the new law. Hercules was part of the resistance that was against the SHRA. See Civil War #1-7. This law will remain on the books until Siege #4.
Amadeus is mentioned as being an orphaned when his parents were killed by rival genius Pythagoras Dupree, as will be revealed in Incredible Hercules #133-137. He has been on his own since Amazing Fantasy (vol. 2) #15. Hercules, on the other hand, had a family circa 1277 BC. He murdered them after he was put into a blood lust by his step-mother Hera, as we learned last issue.
This, of course, is all part of Greek mythology. However, a version of this tale was originally told in the fiction in Marvel Super-Heroes (vol. 2) #1 as well as Incredible Hulk: Hercules Unleashed #1. Not one version of this story is the same. See below for more on that.
Hercules’ association with the OG Avengers dates back to Avengers #38. He was later granted official membership in issue #45 of that series.
Simon suggests they sit and talk out the whole Hulk situation. During World War Hulk, the Hercules was a member of a team of renegades that were on the Hulk’s side. See Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #106-112. It’s the reason why he and Cho are on the run.
Topical References
The owner of Big Henri’s Alligator Farm states that he is helping Ares take care of the Hydra because of the aid he provided after Katrina. Hurricane Katrina was a category 5 hurricane that struck the southeastern United States in August, 2005. It caused billions of dollars worth of damage particularly in the city of New Orleans when levies broke causing massive flooding in the region. This should be considered a topical reference as this hurricane is referred to having happened recently, making it relevant to the date of publication. Modern readers should ignore the Katrina reference and merely accept that Ares aided after a hurricane, not a specific real world weather event.
Here, Ares states that the NSA monitors for key words and references two real world organizations:
al-Queda, a Islam extremist group that operates in the Middle East. At the time the story was in publication, the United States had specifically targeted this organization after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks one of the deadly terrorist incidents on US soil at the time.
Hezbollah is another Islamist group that originates from Lebanon, it is another group that the United States considers a terrorist organization.
This story was published during the early years of the so-called War on Terror, in which the United States invaded the countries of Iraq and Afganistan in response to 9/11. As such these references should be considered topical as they are referring to real world events in the present tense.
The Shirt of Nessus Myth and its Depiction in Marvel Comics
The flashback involving the Centaur known as Nessus and the bloody shirt is, as you guessed, adapted from Greek mythology. As you can imagine the story has many variations, particularly how the story has been told in Marvel Comic books. A lot of that probably has to do with how the story was told during the time the Comics Code Authority was originally enforced as well as artistic license from the various Marvel creators that have retold their stories. So let’s examine these tales:
The Original Myth: In the original version of the story, Nessus attempted to sexually assault Deianira. The essential plot beats from there are pretty much standard: Nessus dies from the Hydra venom and tells her his blood would ensure Hercules would always love her. She collected the blood in a vail and later used it on a fresh tunic. When Herc put it on, it started to cook him alive. Unable to endure he unbearable pain, then built a funeral pyre and threw himself into it. Horrified by what she had done, Deianira then hung herself in grief.
During the CAC days, having a character getting raped and then another immolate himself was a big no-no, so obviously the myth had to be tone down in order to pass Code muster. That said, even the version told in Incredible Hercules (printed post CAC) wouldn’t contain such brutal story elements outside of a Marvel MAX title. So let’s take a look at the different accounts:
Marvel Super-Heroes (vol. 2) #1: Hercules dreams about the incident in the present day. In that version of events, Nessus merely kidnaps Deianira and is felled by Hercules and the poisoned arrows. This takes place in a Greek city as opposed to a river. This version of events do not show Hercules cheating on him, she just gives him the bloodied shirt as a gift (weird) and he drops dead. It mentions that Deianira took her life, but that’s about all the detail it gets into.
Incredible Hulk: Hercules Unleashed #1: In this version of the story, a very swoll and grey skinned Nessus tries to abduct Deianira while Hercules and the Argonauts are away, thinking Hercules will die in battle and never return. In this version of events, Hercules returns just in time to kill Nessus. Where this version differs, Nessus gives Deianira a charm instead of a blood soaked shirt. Later, she and Hercules get into an argument about rumors that he was having an affair and she gave him the locket as a peace offering. In this tale, Hercules is set on fire and he tries to put himself out into a nearby river but dies anyway. There is no mention of her fate after that.
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #5: In the profile for Hercules, this event is described in a way that is similar to the accounting in Incredible Hercules #113.
As of this writing (August, 2024), Marvel seems to favor the Incredible Hercules version of events, but has yet to provide explanation for the differing accounts. I think we can assume that the myth itself is just based on those events as Marvel has always taken creative license when it comes to adapting from mythology.
When it comes to the these different versions in the fiction, we have to consider how the story is being told and some of the generalized rules when it comes to gods and their memories of centuries old events.
The version of events in Marvel Super-Heroes (vol. 2) #1 is told through a nightmare that Hercules is having. I think that the differences between it and other tales can be chalked up to it being a dream. Think about your own dreams: They don’t always follow logic, or can be wildly different from our real life experiences. Dreams are often coloured by our own experiences and imagination. It then stands to reason that the same can be said about the dream that Hercules has in that story.
Incredible Hulk: Hercules Unleashed #1, on the other hand, is not quite so easy to dismiss in the same way. In that story, Hercules is reminded of these events during an all out brawl with the Hulk. I think that we can chalk up his recollection of events to Hercules’ state of mind at the time of this story. This took place shortly after the Onslaught event when most of Hercules’ friends in the Avengers were believed to have died. This led to Hercules falling into a state of deep despair and he started heavily drinking (as seen in Heroes for Hire #1-3). I think a combination of grief, his binge drinking, and the fact that took a few blows to the head from the Hulk would have probably affecting his memory.
I would chalk up that the previous accounts are unreliable due to the circumstances in which they were told and that the official telling in the fiction is the one told in Incredible Hercules #113.
World War Hulk Reading Order
Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #106, World War Hulk Prologue: World Breaker #1, World War Hulk #1, Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #12, Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #19, Heroes for Hire (vol. 2) #11-13, Irredeemable Ant-Man #10, Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #12-13, World War Hulk: Front Line #1, World War Hulk :Gamma Corps #1, 2, 3, 4, Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #20, World War Hulk: X-Men #1, 2, 3, World War Hulk #2, Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #107-108, World War Hulk: Front Line #2, Punisher: War Journal (vol. 2) #12, Avengers: The Initiative #4-5, World War Hulk: Front Line #3, World War Hulk #3, Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #109-110, Heroes for Hire (vol. 2) #14-15, World War Hulk #4, World War Hulk: Front Line #4-5, World War Hulk #5, Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #111, World War Hulk: Front Line #6, Incredible Hercules #112, 113, 114, 115, World War Hulk: Aftersmash #1, World War Hulk: Aftersmash - Damage Control #1, 2, 3, World War Hulk: Aftersmash - Warbound #1, 2, 3, 4, 5