Mercy Killing

Bruce Banner, Rick Jones, and Clay Quartermain are on the run from SHIELD. Bruce can't recall the events that got them to that point. A woman appears to him in a dream. She proclaims herself to be an angel of mercy. She helps people with particularly burdensome problems by killing them. During a stopover in a diner, Clay has an altercation with an angry trucker. Outside, Bruce is deep in thought when the high tech RV they've been traveling in starts to run him over. It's being driven by the woman from his dream. Bruce grabs onto the underside of the RV and is dragged. Rick manages to jump aboard to stop the vehicle only to find that no one is behind the wheel.

In the meantime, SHIELD has picked up the tracking signal from the device placed on the stolen RV. Bruce, Rick, and Clay go to a hospital looking for Betty. She is no longer there, having left the day before with someone named Ramon. Bruce doesn't remember how Betty ended up in the hospital and he fears that it was his fault. The mysterious woman reappears in the hospital. Bruce narrowly escapes being killed. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., Senator Tidewater is approached by a shadowy man who claims to be an admirer of the Senator's. It is hinted that the shadowy man is the Leader. Night falls and Bruce turns into the Hulk. Rick tries to strike a bargain with the Hulk based on their mutual interest in finding some Gamma bombs, mass manufactured by the government. Just then, the woman appears again to put the Hulk/Bruce out of his misery. She explains herself as being a missionary from another planet before she again tries to kill the Hulk with energy she fires from her hand.

Meanwhile, SHIELD agents home in on the tracking device, only its attached to the 18-wheeler being driven by the angry trucker from the diner. The trucker has mere seconds to bail out before the SHIELD agents fire upon his trailer, destroying it. They find only toilet paper inside. The Hulk redirects the woman's energy back at her. She loses form and turns her into a pile of goo. The Hulk and the goo pile fight it out with the Hulk finding himself being immersed by it. The Hulk smashes into a gas station and is doused by the leaking gasoline. He ignites a flare and burns the goo completely off of him, presumably destroying it completely. The Hulk takes Rick up on his offer on the basis that Bruce will need protection. They continue on their journey. The story wraps with the trucker hauling his decrepit trailer, grumbling about the turn for the worse that his life has taken. He stops to pick up a hitchhiker, a woman... The angel of mercy.

Recurring Characters

Hulk, Rick Jones, Clay Quartermain, Mercy, SHIELD (Agent Trump, Samuel La Roquette), Leader