World War Hulk: Front Line #5

Mar 13

Mar 13 World War Hulk: Front Line #5

Embedded: Behind Enemy Lines Part 5

Drunk and depressed, reporter Sally Floyd walks through New York City where violence and crime have exploded since the Hulk launched his war against Earth's heroes. She feels completely uninterested in what is going on. However, she is forced to confront the lawlessness when she makes the mistake of walking down a dark alley. There she is confronted by a group of men led by a thug calling himself Mushroom. Mushroom attempts to get Sally to drink with them and when she threatens to mace him, he gets violent. However, before Floyd can come to any harm she is saved by Moon Knight. Sally offers to pay Moon Knight for the rescue, but he tells her to get off the streets. She merely laughs this off and walks away, leaving the hero confused.

Meanwhile, Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson watches a new report about how his competition, the Front Line newspaper, has been able to increase circulation thanks to the fact that they have remained able to publish throughout the Hulk crisis. Jameson grimly turns off his portable television and calls in his editor Joe Robertson. When Joe comes in, Jonah asks if he is up for a confession. While down in the city, Sally Floyd is reporting to her fellow reporter, Bun Urich. She agrees to meet up with him near Madison Squad Garden where things have become heated among the people who have refused to leave the city. Sally assures Ben that she is all right and that she hasn't been drinking or looting. She is lying to Ben, however, as she had just broken into a liquor store.

By the time that Sally arrives, a mob of panicked people has begun pushing into a fence that has closed off a massive crater. Caught in the throng of people is Ben Urich who calls out to her and tells her to have police get people back. When she tries to rush to Ben's side, a man tries to stop her. In order to get by, Sally takes the bottle of whiskey that she stole and strikes him over the head with it, knocking him out. As Ben and the others struggle to prevent themselves from falling into the widening sinkhole, Sally is held back by the police. Suddenly, everyone notices something moving across the sky. Looking up, Sally sees the muscular form of the Sentry.

Recurring Characters

Ben Urich, Sally Floyd, Moon Knight, Joe Robertson, J. Jonah Jameson, Sentry

Continuity Notes

This story takes place during the events of World War Hulk #4.

Costume Division: Death of an Android Part 4

Detective Danny Granville has been forced into solving the alleged murder of Arch-E, a robot member of the Hulk's Warbound. Helping him with this task is one of the Hulk's allies, the stone-man known as Korg. However, while examining the crime scene, Danny has discovered that Korg was responsible for killing his friend. Korg is naturally unhappy to be accused of this, picks Danny off the ground and is preparing to strike him. However, before Korg can harm Danny, two uniformed police officers arrive with the witness who say what happened to Arch-E. This calms Korg enough to put Danny down so they can question her and find out the truth.

The woman, a local homeless woman named Cheryl, tells them that she remembers encountering Arch-E early on. She explains that she was stumbling down the street when she suddenly happened upon the looters. They were going to kill her in order to eliminate witnesses. However, the arrival of Arch-E frightened them away. After Cheryl thanked the robot for saving her life, he suddenly began to malfunction and exploded.

This helps Danny explain exactly what happened: He reminds Korg that he gave Arch-E specific orders not to interfere or aid any humans. When the robot inadvertently assisted Cheryl, this created a paradoxical conflict within the robot's logic circuits, the only way out was to commit suicide.

With the case solved, Korg looks out into the night sky and tries to find the location of the portal to Sakaar. He's joined by Danny who looted a bottle of liquor and offers him a drink. Korg explains that they are going to send Arch-E's remains into space for his final journey. He admits that although they all accepted that they might die on some distant world, Korg didn't expect one of his Warbound to die by his own fault. Danny tells Korg not to blame himself because he was not at fault, the incident was something that just happened. Korg remarks how strange humanity is with their constant contradictions in behavior and decides to head back to his Warbound. He tells Danny to go home, spend time with his woman, then leave the city, as Korg would don't want something to happen to him. As Korg leaves, Danny can't help but feel sorry for Korg, although he thinks that when the alien gets back to the Hulk, he might fudge his report. This idea makes him smile.