Incredible Hulk (Vol. 2) #39

Mar 12

Mar 12 Incredible Hulk (Vol. 2) #39

Tag...You're Dead!

Along the side of a river, the Hulk happens across a young boy tossing plucked flowers into the water. The boy introduces himself as Ricky. He tells the Hulk that his mother isn't home and asks if he would like to play. The two throw flowers into the water until there are none left. The Hulk then grabs the boy and tosses him into the water.

The Hulk is being tracked by Jink Slater using an FBI laptop procured for him by Home Base. With his partner Sandra Verdugo apparently dead, Jink reports in when he picks up the Hulk's trial and warns Home Base against interfering with his solo mission from here on out. Meanwhile, the Hulk finds a cabin nearby. There he is greeted by a woman wearing a full-body rope. She invites the Hulk in and offers him some stew to eat. The Hulk accepts the invitation and welcome accepts the food. Meanwhile, Jink walks past the river the Hulk was just at. However, the "body" of the boy is actually a vaguely human-shaped log.

Back inside the cabin, the mystery woman turns on a metronome and tells the Hulk to watch it. Soothing the savage creature, the woman removes her robe revealing herself to be Sandra Verdugo, wearing a bikini. This triggers a mental suggestion that Banner implanted in his mind, calming him enough to cause the Hulk to revert back to human form. While outside, not far away, Jink catches some Home Base agent McIntire. When McIntire tells him that he is only here to fulfill his own mission parameters, Jink doesn't like this sort of interference and shoots the agent dead. Back inside the cabin, Bruce recognizes Verdugo as the woman from the diner. She warns Banner that her former partner might not be far away. She gives him a drink and assures him that she has not drugged it. Banner tells her of the strange dream he had about drowning a boy. Sandra shows him a sketch and he recognizes it as Ricky Myers. Sandra tells Bruce that Ricky is his son.

Outside, Jink checks the body of McIntyre and finds a top-secret mission briefing and a strange ammunition clip in his pocket. Back in the cabin, Sandra explains that she was a very popular soldier of fortune. She explains that she was later accused of the death of her son and put on death row. She was approached by agents of Home Base and offered a chance to live and get her son back if she helped capture the Hulk. She explains how she was executed for her supposed crimes but somehow Home Base managed to find a way to bring her back to life. At that moment outside, Jink is shot by another Home Base operative, Agent Pitman. However, Slater survives and shoots his attacker dead when he comes to check on him. Back inside the cabin, Sandra admits that she isn't sure what Home Base wants with the Hulk, he only interest is to get her son back. Banner finds this all hard to believe, especially the claims of being able to resurrect people from the dead. However, Sandra points out how Jink shot her in the head and she is still alive.

As they talk, Sandra pulls out Bruce's laptop and a disc she found in her hotel room. She explains that she managed to crack the encryption on the disc. At that moment, Slater finds what appears to be a strange gun on Pitman's body. Back inside, Sandra puts the disc into Banner's laptop and accesses the data on it. However, before she looks into it, she warns Bruce that the data will allow Jink to track them from his laptop. Still, he insists that they look. Sure enough, the moment that Sandra accesses the information on the disc, it alerts Slater's computer and gives him a precise location. As the pair go over the data they learn that Home Base has been developing a gun that can harm the Hulk. When Banner deduces that this news makes Sandra and Jink obsolete, she explains that multiple assassins were hired to see who got to him first, that they lied to everyone especially Banner for creating the fake news footage of Ricky being killed in the Hulk's rampage in Chicago.

Sandra then pulls a gun on Bruce and demands that he help her recover his son. She explains that it is more than just getting her son back. She tells Bruce about when she used to run guns in Argentina eight years prior and the man she met. The result of their union was Ricky, a man she had not seen until today, Doc Samson. They are interrupted by Jink who is armed with the anti-Hulk weapon. Sandra warns Slater that she has lined the cabin with explosives and threatens to set them off. He doesn't believe that she will sacrifice Banner as well. However, when he shoots her through the shoulder, Sandra sets off the ignition on the explosives. As Banner begins to transform into the Hulk, Sandra tells him to find her son. Suddenly, the explosives go off, seemingly killing both Sandra and Slater. Banner survives thanks to his transformation. Later, once he has reverted back to human form, Bruce buries both Slater and Verdugo. As Banner walks away, a hand bursts out of one of the graves he just finished burying.