With Mercy for the Greedy

This story continues from Indestructible Hulk Special #1…

The X-Men and Spider-Man had just battled a seemingly time-displaced and gamma irradiated Doctor Octopus. This led to recruit the help of Bruce Banner to learn what was going on. They were then attacked by the Abomination, prompting Banner to turn into the Hulk. Ultimately, they discovered that the Doctor Octopus and Abomination they were fighting were actually robots created by Beast’s former professor Dr. David Jude. With is ruise uncovered, Jude blew up the helicopter carrying the heroes.

Luckily, everyone survives the explosion thanks to Marvel Girl protecting them in a telekinetic bubble. Now everyone is falling to the ground and Spider-Man orders Jean to use her powers again to slow them down.[1] Unfortunately, the novice X-Man doesn’t think she can do this. Quick thinking, Spider-Man spots the mechanical arms of the robotic Doctor Octopus falling to the ground. Since he is the real Doctor Octopus — having stolen Peter Parker’s body[2] — quickly works to re-wire the harness to respond to “Peter Parker’s” brainwaves and uses the mechanical arms to save himself and the X-Men. Now that they are all safe, Iceman asks the obvious question: where are they?

Meanwhile, the Beast and Molly are looking around Dr. Jude’s lab and discovered that he had been making robotic duplicates of super-villains for years, but they have no idea why. They also come across some early prototypes of his Doctor Octopus and Abomination robots. That’s when Molly finds one of Jude’s journals which is filled with complex math equations. As Hank looks over the journal, the prototype robots suddenly come to life. He shields Molly from harm but the robots flee the lab instead of attacking them. That’s when Spider-Man calls them from a roadside phone. They have no idea where they are, but they do know that Jude is heading for the Jean Grey School. They all theorize his motivations and that’s when Jean suggests that he might be going after the time machine that brought them to this era.

Coming up with a plan, Spider-Man instructs the Beast to figure out what kind of powers Dr. Jude has and a way to neutralize him while he and the rest of the X-Men track him down. With the call over, the wall-crawler begins disassembling the phone for parts as part of a back-up plan. Spider-Man then goes searching for Jude with Iceman. Along the way he begins piecing Jude’s plan together. The man is obsessed with gamma radiation and time travel. Thus, when he encountered actual time travellers, he used his robots to convince them that their machine was malfunctioning so they’d go back to check it, inadvertently leading Jude to the time machine.

They eventually track down Dr. Jude whose growing power causes nearby electronics to short out. They catch him as he is trying to steal a truck. After Cyclops destroys the truck with his optic blast, Spider-Man and the X-Men attack Jude but he manages to rebuff them with a powerful blast of energy. Spider-Man decides to change tactics and orders Marvel Girl to use her mental powers to shut down Jude’s mind. However, before she can do so the Abomination robot arrives on the scene.

Back at Empire State University, the Beast and Molly wake up Bruce Banner to get some help with the work they are doing. Banner takes a look at Dr. Jude’s journal and finds the equations kept to be quite disturbing. He is so engrossed in deciphering the equations he doesn’t notice that he’s completely naked.

While upstate, Spider-Man easily takes down the Doctor Octopus robot, but the X-Men are having trouble with the Abomination construct as it is built of more durable materials. Otto spots a weak spot and orders Cyclops to fire his optic blast at the two-centimeter spot. Unfortunately, Scott’s ability to dilate his beam can only be narrowed to fou-centimeter. Quick thinking, Spider-Man has Iceman create a funnel out of ice that will constrict the optic blast to the needed size. They then quickly take down the Abomination robot and begin planning how to incapacitate Dr. Jude. While Marvel Girl and Iceman plan to use their powers to immobilize their foe, Spider-Man has decided he just wants to pummel Jude until he falls down, leaving the more nuanced work for the Beast to figure out.

Meanwhile, Hank McCoy has gone over Jude’s journals and discovers that the scientist work on gamma radiation reached a stopping point causing him to shift his focus to time travel. However, none of his theories were correct and so he switched over to robotics basing his designs on the work of Doctor Octopus. At the same time, Bruce Banner has determined that Jude’s powers are gamma based but cannot be used without giving off gamma radiation. As such, there is no way they can contain him without siphoning this radiation from his body.

As Spider-Man and the X-Men try in vein to take down Dr. Jude, the Beast and Bruce Banner work together to build a containment unit that can keep Jude imprisoned. Their next challenge is trying to figure out how to get Jude into it. That’s when the phone begins to ring.

Back at the scene of the battle, the X-Men are down and Spider-Man is at Dr. Jude’s mercy. The mad scientist is furious, and explains that he was supposed to be the leading expert on gamma radiation until mutations like the Hulk and Abomination made it impossible to get funding. He then gave himself gamma power and vowed to go back in time and ensure that there would be no Hulk, or Abomination. That’s when Spider-Man pulls out the device he created out of the phone. Apparently, Jude’s radiations powered the device which connected it to the phone back at Jude’s office and that both Banner and the Beast have been listening to his rant. That’s when the Hulk arrives carrying the containment unit, landing on top of Jude and ending his threat. Soon a SHIELD unit has arrived to recover Dr. Jude.

In the aftermath of the battle, Cyclops asks to speak to Bruce Banner in private. He asks Bruce why he’s never tried killing himself to end the danger posed by the Hulk. Banner admits that the thought has crossed his mind many times but most recently because of three million children in Sub-Sahara Africa. He explains that he just created an inexpensive water purification system that will save their lives. While the Hulk may cause destruction wherever he goes, Bruce has developed a new philosophy, “Hulk smashes, Banner builds” where he uses his genius to build inventions that will help mankind to hopefully offset the damage caused when he is the Hulk. Banner also knows why Scott asked him this, because the young man has seen what he will become in the future, someone who might hurt innocent people. He reminds Cyclops that he will also be a hero and that to aton for the sins of the past he needs to become an even greater one.[2]

Meanwhile, Spider-Man thanks for the Beast and now understands how McCoy became such a great scientist. When Hank offers to show Spider-Man their time machine, Otto considers using it to steer his past self into becoming a hero and decides against it. Spider-Man parts company with these young X-Men, confident that they will do well since they know what it means to be a hero.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, X-Men (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman), Hulk, David June, SHIELD

Continuity Notes

1. To be clear, these are time-displaced X-Men from early on in their career. (circa X-Men #8) They were pulled forward in time by the Beast to remind the fractured modern day X-Men of who they are and reunify the team. See All-New X-Men #1.

2. At the time of this story, the modern day Cyclops has become a renegade mutant after being touched by the Phoenix Force in Avengers vs. X-Men #1-12. Since his escape from custody in All-New X-Men #1-4, he has been trying to start a mutant revolution.

Topical References

• Dated technology: Molly is depicted as owning an iPod. These portable music players were ubiquitous during the first 10 years of the 21st century. However, the advent and proliferation of smartphones have made them increasingly obsolescent.