Incredible Hulk #246
The Hero and the Hulk!
The Hulk has come to Gamma Base to recover the body of Jarella leading to a battle with Glenn Talbot in a suit of Mandroid armor. With Talbot at his mercy, the Hulk was willing to slay his frequent antagonist when he was stopped by Captain Marvel. Marvel offered to help the Hulk recover Jarella and bring her body back to her world. When the Hulk refuses to stop harming Talbot, the Captain is forced to attack the Hulk. Furious, thE hulk tosses the incapacitated Glenn Talbot at Mar-Vell, the collision causes part of the roof to collapse on them. With the immediate threats out of sight, the Hulk begins his search of Gamma Base to find Jarella's body.
When Captain Marvel recovers, he digs himself and Talbot out of the rubble and frees the Colonel from the damaged Mandroid armor. With soldiers arriving on the scene, Captain Marvel tells Talbot that he should leave the Hulk to recover Jarella and prevent further destruction. Glenn pretends to agree, but Captain Marvel's Cosmic Consciousness allows him to tell that Talbot is lying. Mar-Vell decides to create a deception of his own, by pretending to leave. No sooner is the Kree warrior seemingly gone does Talbot order his men to gear up as they are going to hunt down the Hulk and destroy him. Elsewhere in the facility, the Hulk eventually finds the cryogenic storage and forces his way inside. There he finds the suspension chamber where Jarella has been kept since she died. When Captain Marvel eventually catches up with the Hulk he is shocked to see the moment where sorrowful Hulk cradling the body of his lost lover.
Meanwhile, Doc Samson has brought General Ross to a secluded cabin in the Colorado Rockies to try and cure him after his mental breakdown. He tries to get Ross to play chess, but when a radio report about the Hulk's recent attack plays, Thaddeus gets upset and pictures a chess piece as looking like the Hulk. Panicking he tosses it across the room. Doc Samson fears that all the work on Ross could have been undone by a single radio report.
Back at Gamma Base, the Hulk begins to cry at the sight of Jarella. He recalls his first trip to her microworld of K'ai, the time that Jarella came to Earth, his last trip to K'ai where he battled Psyklop, and lastly her death at the hands of the Crypto-Man. Seeing the brute in sorrow and grief comes as a shock to the Hulk. He reaches out to offer his aid, but the Hulk lashes out knocking Mar-Vell aside with a powerful blow. When the Hulk tries to battle Captain Marvel, the Kree warrior uses his Cosmic Consciousness to convince the sorrowful monster that he does indeed plan on helping the Hulk.
As Captain Marvel leads the Hulk to the sub-molecular shrinking device, Glenn Talbot is gearing up his soldiers including a Beta-Borer device, a space exploration device that Talbot had adapted into a weapon. Using his Cosmic Consciousness, Captain Marvel is able to determine how to operate the machine as well as how to locate K'ai. As the Hulk and the body of Jarella are shrunk down in size, Talbot and his men come bursting into the room. A blast from the Beta-Borer destroys the device, seemingly trapping the Hulk somewhere in the Microverse.
Recurring Characters
Hulk, Captain Marvel, Doc Samson, General Ross, Glenn Talbot, Jarella (corpse)
Continuity Notes
Hulk recalls his last battle with Captain Marvel which took place in Captain Marvel #21.
General Ross suffered a mental breakdown in Incredible Hulk #234.
The Hulk recounts his past moments with Jarella:
His first meeting and visit to K'ai from Incredible Hulk #140.
The time that Jarella came to Earth and he saved her from Fialan in Incredible Hulk #148.
When he returned to K'ai and battled Psyklop in Incredible Hulk #202-203.
Lastly, Jarella's subsequent death at the hands of the Crypto-Man in Incredible Hulk #205.
Mar-Vell can relate to the Hulk because his first love Una was killed back in Captain Marvel #11.
Captain Marvel states that Jarella's world lives within the atoms of this one. This is not accurate. Per Fantastic Four #282, while accessing the Microverse does require shrinking it doesn't actually exist within atoms. When one shrinks enough they cross the dimensional thresshold into the Microverse.
