Incredible Hulk #186
The Day of the Devastator!
Following the deaths of Colonel Armbruster and Glenn Talbot (after Talbot's unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the President) General Ross succeeded in capturing the Hulk and has the beast placed in sedation in a deprivation tank. In overseeing the operation with Captain Kirkman, Ross is convinced that the Hulk will remain incapacitated so long as the fluid in the tank maintains a temperature of 250 degrees below zero. The General then takes a moment to visit her daughter the widowed Betty Talbot. Betty is not happy with the visit and accuses Ross for the death of her husband and breaks down into tears.
Returning outside to find Kirkman still waiting for him, he orders the Captain to go and check and see how the autopsies on Talbot and Armbruster's corpses are going. As Ross walks away, Kirkman doesn't follow orders, instead, he goes into a secret bunker on Hulkbuster Base. In reality, Peter Kirkman is really a Russian spy known as Kirkov Petrova. Kirkov was the Russian's contingency plan should Talbot had failed at assassinating the President and puts on an armored uniform that he has smuggled on the base, calling himself the Devastator he intends to use the suits powers to destroy the Hulkbuster Base.
While elsewhere on the base, the autopsies of Armbruster and Talbot's bodies is well underway. The pathologists learn that somehow Talbot was engineered into a living bomb, and upon closer inspection of his corpse, they find something even more interesting. Back at Betty's quarters, General Ross returns to make amends with his daughter trying to explain his feelings and that he has to be a soldier on top of a father. Just before they can make amends, the base is attacked by the Devastator, who power by a Russian satellite begins to lay waste to the Hulkbuster Base. The military sends everything they have to try and stop the Devastator but nothing works.
As the rampage carries on, the autopsies continue and the coroners find a shocking revelation on Talbot's post moretem print out. The attack on the base also has one unforeseen effect: It manages to disturb the deprivation chamber allowing for the Hulk to break free. Spotting the Hulk, the Devastator attacks him, and the confused brute fights back. Being able to fight off his attacker's blasts, the Hulk realizes that they are coming from his gauntlets and crushes them. The Devastator then attempts to blast the Hulk with his damaged gauntlets, however, the damaged devices serve only to incinerate him instead. With the battle over the exhausted Hulk passes out and reverts back to Bruce Banner. As General Ross and Betty run to his side, one of the coroners catches up to them and shows them the information gathered from the computer indicating that his finger prints peeled right off after his death. This leads Ross to the conclusion that the man who killed Armbruster in his botched assassination attempt wasn't Glenn Talbot at all.
Recurring Characters
Hulk, General Ross, Betty, Ross, Devastator, Jack Armbruster (corpse), Gregori Kronski (corpse)
Continuity Notes
This issue rehashes much of what happened to Glenn Talbot. When General Ross was captured by the Russians, Talbot was among a team to rescue him. Talbot was captured and presumed dead. This happened between Incredible Hulk #163-166. As revealed in Incredible Hulk #188, Glenn was replaced by a spy named Gregori Kronski from Incredible Hulk #176-185.
Although Kirov Petrovna dies here, the identity of the Devastator was passed on to Gregori Larionov starting in Rom #44.
