Incredible Hulk (Vol. 2) #94
Exile, Part 3
After their victory over the Wildebots, the Hulk and his fellow gladiators are celebrated for their victory. However, the celebrations are interrupted by members of the resistance movement on Sakaar seeking to enlist the Hulk and his allies into their cause. Although Elloe Kaifi wants them to join the group, the Hulk has no such interest. No sooner have the rebels arrived are they attacked and subdued by the King's Death's Head guard. when Ello protests the inaction of the Hulk and her other allies, the Hulk points out that the puny denizens of this world ask for their help when they're needed but will soon call them monsters again. When one of the Death's Head guard tries to apprehend Ello, the Hulk tries to save her life by saying that she is with them, but she refuses and allows herself to be arrested.
Later, the gladiators are heading back to their camp, and Lavin Skee laments allowing Ello to go alone. He tries to get his allies to see the side of the resistance, but the fact that they are off-worlders, Lavin's rallying does nothing to sway them. The guards then tell them that they have gained a lot of popularity after their battle against the Wildebots and tells them to rest up for their next challenge the next day. Pulled aside, the Hulk is told by Primus Vand that he has the making to become the most popular gladiator and to keep his eye to the future. Shown to a private quarters, the Hulk soon finds himself face-to-face with Ciera the Oldstrong, the Red King's bodyguard. She tries to fatally stab him, but the Hulk is getting faster and stronger and is able to deflect the attack. She warns him that she makes it known who the enemies of the King and offers to buy him out of the public eye so he doesn't have to fight again. The Hulk has heard such claims before and refuses it outright. When she warns him that the people will always see him as a monster, the Hulk leaves her to be with the women brought for him, telling Ciera while that might be the truth, they know what a monster wants.
The next day, the Hulk and his allies are brought to the Great Arena in the Imperial Crown City. There they enter the ring for their next match when suddenly a massive Imperial Dreadnought appears over the arena and tries to drop a bomb on the gladiators. The Hulk tells his allies to get to cover and leaps up to intercept the bomb. Korg and the others survive the blast, but Lavin Skee is mortally wounded. Soon they are swarmed by Death's Head guards who have orders to eliminate them. Just as the Death's Heads are about to attack, the Hulk emerges unscathed out of the smoke and single-handedly destroys the robots. Victorious in battle, the Hulk lets out a massive bellow, much to the delight of the crowd. However, despite this victory, there are casualties, Lavin Skee has died of blood loss thanks to a severed arm in the blast. That night in their cells, Hiroim the Shamed offers a prayer for their fallen comrades and the group begins telling stories of their past.
No-Name of the Brood starts first, telling them of how she and her sisters survived the crystallization of their homeworld by invaders when they were consumed by a creature on Broodworld. Kept alive in the crystallized creature they drifted in space for a time before they eventually fell through the Great Portal and landed on Sakaar. Korg continues, telling of how he and his people tried to invade an alien world that was defended by a powerful god-like being. Young and inexperienced, Korg and his fellow invaders fled the Earth unaware that he was the only kind of on his world and eventually found themselves stranded on Sakaar as well where his brothers met an untimely end in the Maw. Next is the Hulk who tells them of his homeworld of Earth where and the puny humans that constantly harassed him there. He tells them of a scientist named Banner who built a bomb to try and kill the Hulk but it only made him stronger, and that the Red King cannot destroy him because he is the strongest there is. This excites Meik who points out that his allies have all stood by his side to save him, from the Hulk, to Korg, to the Brood. This convinces Hiroim to suggest that they all pledge comradery in battle as the Warbound. Over the dead body Lavin Skee, everyone -- including the Hulk -- agrees to become Warbound to the other.
As the Warbound are forming their sacred bond, Ciera the Oldstrong is trying to devise a means of destroying the Hulk to eliminate his threat to the empire. To this end, she is shown one of the more recent acquisitions to the gladiator arenas, a being they recently captured from the Great Portal they have dubbed the Silver Savage. Inside a cell, and clamped with an Obedience Disc is the solemn form of the Silver Surfer, former herald of Galactus.
Recurring Characters
Hulk, Warbound (Miek, Korg, Hiroim, Lavin Skee, No-Name of Brood, Elloe Kaifi), Red King Angmo-Asan, Caiera Oldstrong, Primus Vand, Silver Savage
Continuity Notes
No-Name of the Brood's story tells her perspective of the events of Uncanny X-Men #166. In that story, the X-Men defeated the Brood with the aid of the trapped soul of an Acanti Prophet-Singer, which crystallized the Brood homeworld and their queen.
Korg's recounting is of his people's clash with Thor, as originally seen in Journey into Mystery #83.
Lastly, the Hulk recounts his origins as they were told in Incredible Hulk #1. He is depicted as having gray skin here, the Hulk did not have green skin until his next transformation in the following issue of that series. As explained in Incredible Hulk #377, the different skin tones were representations of Bruce Banner's many personalities.
