Marvel Team-Up #104
Ka-Zar is King!
In his Antarctic Savage Land, Ka-Zar leaps from an over-hanging branch onto the head of a marauding tyrannosaur. As Zabu keeps out of reach of the beast's jaws, Ka-Zar stabs it repeatedly with his knife, until at last it succumbs, never to molest the local villagers again, As Ka-Zar's victory shout rings through the Jungle, he and Zebu are suddenly confronted by a group of four men armed with peculiar rifles. Ka-Zar angrily disarms them before they can shoot, hurling one man dozens of yards to the edge of a stagnant marsh. Annoyed that the group stumbled on Ka-Zar prematurely, the man quickly throws a homing device from his backpack into the water, where it starts to radio his "chairman" as it sinks to the bottom. Meanwhile, Ka-Zar drives off the other three men, but they silently vow to soon return. Thousands of miles north of the southern continent, the Hulk stands defiantly atop the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay. In his arm he holds a little girl, whom he calls his "friend." A police helicopter—"Eagle Three"—circles overhead, and the men radio their partners on the roadway far below to hold their fire. An officer on the bridge tells Captain Taggart that as long as the Hulk holds the girl, their hands are tied, so Taggart removes his jacket and holster and starts to climb the main cable toward the green-skinned giant. One man, alone, might not seem like a menace to the Hulk, he says. He soon approaches the Hulk and asks for the girl, but the Hulk does not want to give up his friend. Lifting Taggart by his lapels, the Hulk warns him not to confuse him and accuses him of having been sent by "Banner." Banner always torments the Hulk, he shouts.
The girl says that if the Hulk is really her friend, he will let her go with the policemen. This puzzles the Hulk, but he lets her go, and Taggart starts back down the cable with the girl on his back. Unfortunately, he slips, and when the Hulk tries to help him, the police misinterpret the action and open fire. This enrages the Hulk, who thinks he has been tricked, and with bullets bouncing off his chest, he leaps into the bay. Captain Taggart and the girl soon reach safety. Sometime later, the Hulk climbs out onto a wharf and sits down, lonely and depressed, as the quiet lapping of the water soothes him, the Hulk changes back into Bruce Banner. Soon Banner makes his way to the local Salvation Army, where he obtains some clothing and a tray of food. Among the transients in the mess hall is a sailor named Jack Haggerty. He tells Banner that he was due to ship out on a freighter, but he met a woman who wants to settle down and has decided to wed her. Haggerty gives Banner his papers, and soon the physicist is aboard the tramp steamer Mordici in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Over the next few weeks, Banner—his alias David Banner on the ship—works hard swabbing decks, polishing brass, and stowing cargo. He also makes friends with some of the drifters who comprise the crew. One day, Banner tries to carry a crate into a hold marked "Authorized Personnel Only," but an armed guard orders him away.
His suspicions aroused, he hastily apologizes and leaves. Later that night he paces the deck, feeling that something is dreadfully wrong. A crewman named Scott joins him and explains that according to the stars, the ship is off course. It is heading south when it should be heading west. Banner wonders whether this might have anything to do with the secret cargo they are hauling, and soon the two men pry open the locked "Authorized Personnel Only" door. The chamber is dark, and when they turn on their flashlights, they see row upon row of sophisticated tanks, hovercraft, and other advanced weapons. There is enough hardware to equip a small army, says Banner as they steal through the hold. Banner notes that several crates are marked with the letter "X." Then Scott finds a large chairlike object. As he shines his flashlight on it, it slowly turns around to reveal Modok, the megalocraniate monster created by AIM. Armed guards quickly cover the two men with weapons. When Scott calls Modok a monster, Modok stuns him with a mental blast. Then he commands them to remove them and to make sure that Banner is kept heavily sedated. Soon the captain informs Modok that the ship's sensors have locked in on the homing device, and Modok orders the ship's camouflage dropped. The steamer's hull is explosively jettisoned, and the ship changes into a sleek, high-speed, atomic-powered vessel that roars away southward.
Sometime later, the ship arrives in the Savage Land. Scott and Banner are chained to a tree to serve as bait, along with other crewmen, for the Savage Land's beasts, which Modok says he will use to "change the face of the Earth." Then Modok directs his men to fill the area with somna-gas. Ka-Zar and Zabu observe the scarlet mist from a mile away, and as they rush to the site, several dinosaurs, attracted by the "bait," enter the region end are gassed asleep. Ka-Zar and his saber-toothed companion soon arrive and start to battle Modok's guards, but they succumb to the somna-gas as well. By the time Ka-Zar awakens, the hold of the ship is filled with groggy dinosaurs. Modok orders Ka-Zar and Zabu thrown into the hold with the beasts to become the first, along with Banner, to fall to his "reptilian vanguard." Modok intends to change the dinosaurs the same way he was changed, making them "the forerunners of an invincible strike force." When Banner, who is chained inside the hold, sees Ka-Zar fall at his feet, his anger and excitement mount despite his sedatives, and he transforms into the Hulk. The green-skinned giant shatters his chains as if they were made of paper and bowls over a reviving tyrannosaur. Ka-Zar attacks the Hulk and thereby tricks him into snapping his chains, but unfortunately this also makes the Hulk think Ka-Zar is his enemy. Ka-Zar dodges the Hulk's punches as the Hulk demands to know where Banner is hiding. But the jungle lord finally manages to turn the Hulk's attention from himself to the dinosaurs, and as Ka-Zar attacks one of them, the Hulk knocks them all unconscious. Then, as the Hulk leaps through the ceiling of the hold, Ka-Zar frees Zabu.
Ka-Zar and Zabu quickly climb up through the hole the Hulk made and find him on deck battling Modok's guards. Modok flees in his rocket-powered chair to the ship's somna-cannon, which he realizes is his last chance. But the Hulk leaps in front of the cannon. Modok bowls the Hulk over with a mental energy blast, but the Hulk shakes it off, twists the cannon into scrap, and hurls it at Modok. Modok catches the object with another mental energy blast and slams it back at the Hulk, burying him. Then Modok starts to gloat, but the Hulk suddenly breaks out from under the debris and shatters Modok's chair. Helplessly immobilized, Modok desperately tries to keep the Hulk away with mental blasts. Then Zabu attacks Modok as well, and the mental blasts cease. Ka-Zar tells Zabu to spare Modok's life, because Modok is a threat no longer. Soon the hostage crewmen are freed, and Modok and his guards are anesthetized with somna-gas and carried aboard the ship. Scott thanks Ka-Zar for his help, saying that the evil-doers will be turned over to the proper authorities. Ka-Zar offers the Hulk a haven in the Savage Land, but the Hulk declines, saying that he wants only peace and a place to call home. Then he bounds away.
Recurring Characters
Hulk, Ka-Zar, MODOK, Zabu
