Again, the Glob!

Bruce Banner is wandering the woods of California trying to find his way back to civilization following his battle with the Avengers, unaware that he is being stalked by his old for the Leader who has come up with another plan to destroy his arch-nemesis. Using his superior powers, the Leader transforms himself back into his normal human form of Sam Stern -- who has no memory of his being the Leader -- with subconscious instructions to pick up a hitch-hiking Bruce Banner and gain his confidence in order to learn of a potential weakness to use against the Hulk.

Sure enough when Stern picks up Banner and takes him into confidence about being the Hulk, the two stop at a diner. There Sterns asks Banner if the Hulk ever had any friends. Banner recalls his fight with the Glob, a creature in the end Hulk considered a friend after its apparent demise in the Florida swamp. Learning this information, Sterns suffers a massive headache and flees the diner, escaping from Banner. Sterns then transforms back into the Leader, who remembers the entire encounter with Banner and uses his ship to fly to the Everglades and revive the Glob and sends it after the Hulk, using its memories of Betty Ross (and how the Glob mistook the girl for the Glob's long lost love from before it became this muck monster).

The Glob goes on a destructive path across the country to meet the Hulk. Over this time, Banner has sequestered himself in the sewers beneath the city, although his loneliness gets the better of him and he begins a trek back to the surface. Along the way, he comes across a newspaper headline that tells of the Glob's rampage. Just then, Banner is attacked by the Glob, causing him to transform into the Hulk.

Their battle rages in the sewers until one of the Glob's blows sends the Hulk smashing through to the street above. There the Hulk grabs a fuel truck and throws it into the sewer, hoping the resulting explosion and flames will destroy the muck monster. However, the Glob manages to escape to the surface and renew its attack on the Hulk. The Hulk forces it back into the flames, however, the creature grabs him and pulls him into the blazing fuel as well. However, they hit the water below and sink to its relative safety.

The Hulk flees the scene, cursing the fact that he considered the Glob a friend, and when he gets to relative safety is attacked once more by the muck monster. Their battle takes them to a nearby power plant, where the Hulk lures the mire monster up the side of a tall standing hydro tower. There the Hulk rips loose a live wire and touches it to the Glob, electrocuting it and sending it falling to the ground where it explodes, seemingly destroying itself and the power plant with it. The Hulk, however, manages to jump to safety.

With the Glob seemingly destroyed, the Leader considers this latest plot against the Hulk a total failure. However, both the Hulk and the Leader are unaware that the Glob survived the explosion as the components of its body are slowly drawing themselves back together.

Recurring Characters

Hulk, Glob, Leader

Continuity Notes

• This story recaps a few past events:

  • The Hulk's first battle with the Glob from Incredible Hulk #121.

  • The origin of the Leader from Tales to Astonish #62.

• The Hulk's battle with the Glob in this issue is recapped in Giant-Size Man-Thing #1.

• Banner mentions how the Hulk befriended the robot known as Mogol in Incredible Hulk #127.