Marvel Novel Series 11 - The Hulk and Spider-Man - Murdermoon

by Paul Kupperberg

  His Ups turned up at the corners when he spotted the cameras. “Stupid-looking guns won’t stop Hulk,” he growled menacingly. “Nothing puny men have can stop Hulk.”

  The jade giant ambled forward, pulling the tattered remains of Bruce Banner’s new parka from his massive shoulders. The reporters continued shuffling backward, always staying well beyond the man-monster’s reach.

  Then a woman glimpsed the Hulk through the throng of reporters. Her reaction was extremely typical of a grandmother from Canton, Ohio who sees a giant green monster coming toward her in an airport terminal:

  She screamed.

  The Hulk started, startled by the sudden piercing screech. But within seconds, others, alerted now to the Hulk’s presence, joined in the screaming. They began a mad dash away from the green-skinned behemoth, running in a blind panic that swiftly turned the thousands of individuals into a single, mindless mob.

  “That’s right,” the Hulk bellowed after them. “Run! Puny people better run from Hulk because Hulk can smash you all! Hulk can smash anything!”

  He squatted and then sprang up toward the ceiling. His emerald fists crashed through the reinforced concrete ceiling. The Hulk pulled himself up to the second level, seeking escape from the screaming, fleeing mob.

  But the upper floor was as crowded as the floor below, thus insuring the man-monster’s spectacular arrival a large audience. Startled passengers gaped in astonishment as the floor buckled beneath their feet and split open with a geyser of dust-and-concrete debris. Great green hands grasped either side of the hole and the muscle-bound body of the Hulk shot up through it.

  He saw still more people and roared in anger. There never seemed to be any escape from them. Everywhere the Hulk went, people waited to hound him. All he desired was freedom and solitude. All they gave him was hatred and an abundance of their number that he could never escape from.

  The Hulk loped off in search of that freedom.

  To the jade-hued colossus, the O’Hare terminal seemed to be one continuous maze from which there was no way out. He bounded past the baggage-check-in area, his battering fists scattering large piles of luggage that stood in his path. Airline personnel and passengers alike ran for cover. One man dove for a phone beneath his counter and called for help.

  But the Hulk continued on, seeking any way out of the terminal.

  Three Chicago policemen stood by the corridor to the boarding gates, unaware of the rampaging creature of chaos that loped toward them.

  “Think it’s ever going to let up, Sarge?” Patrolman Ron Franks asked, staring tiredly at the masses of people stranded by the storm. Because of the emergency created by the weather and the impossibility of transporting replacements to the field, those officers on duty were forced to stay there until the snow stopped.

  “Eventually,” Sergeant Barry Polanski yawned.

  Patrolman Dave O’Donnell found himself yawning along with the sergeant. “Yeah, well, it can’t be soon enough for me. Twenty hours on duty is more than enough for me.”

  “Uh-huh!” Franks agreed. “I don’t know how many more times I can stand explaining to these people that the city of Chicago has absolutely no control over the weather.”

  “Despite what they try to tell you at City Hall,” Franks snickered.

  “You want excitement, join the fire department,” Polanski said. “You ought to know by now that cops spend ninety-nine percent of their time waiting for something to happen and then writing reports after it does.”

  Polanski cast an idle glance into the terminal. Slowly he straightened, his hand going to rest on the butt of his holstered gun. “Uh, guys,” he said. “I think you’re about to find out what it’s like the other one percent of the time.

  “Look!”

  The two patrolmen turned as the seven-foot-tall, emerald-green behemoth lumbered into view. The three cops whipped their sidearms from their holsters simultaneously and aimed them at the Hulk.

  “Okay, fella,” Polanski ordered. “Stop right there and start talking and keep your hands in sight!”

  The Hulk growled and continued toward the police.

  “I said stop!” the sergeant shouted.

  Thick muscles rippled smoothly beneath his emerald skin as the Hulk bounded across the floor, his big, broad feet slapping rhythmically on the cold tile.

  “Sarge,” Franks whispered urgently. “Isn’t that . . . ?”

  Polanski steadied his gun with his left hand. “Yeah,” he nodded.

  O’Donnell set his sights on the sweaty green chest and tightened his finger around the trigger. “Wh . . . what d’we do?”

  The sergeant glanced at first one man, then the other, and then back at the Hulk. The monster was almost upon them and showed no sign of stopping.

  What else was there to do?

  Sgt. Polanski opened fire, signaling to the others to do the same.

  The bullets flattened against the Hulk’s thick hide, as effective as a spitball against a charging rhinoceros. “Bah,” the big man spat out in disgust. “Hulk cannot be hurt by guns.”

  The three officers dived out of the way when they saw their bullets had no effect on the man-creature. The Hulk charged past them and swept down the corridor and through a horrified crowd that pressed against the walls to allow the awesome creature passage.

  He barreled into the airport’s X-ray security station with the speed of a racing locomotive. The fragile stand collapsed under the assault of gamma-charged muscles and the Hulk was through, scarcely noticing the obstacle he had just demolished.

  Up ahead waited more police, alerted by frantic calls from Sgt. Polanski over his walkie-talkie. Their guns were drawn and they stood in a line across the wide corridor between the crowded waiting areas.

  “More guns?” the brute-man growled. They were no more than a petty annoyance here with their tiny guns. Only when they brought out the bigger, more powerful weapons and flying machines did men become any of the Hulk’s concern. But here, now? It was far simpler to avoid them.

  The Hulk swerved suddenly to his left and leaped over the counter at a deserted boarding area. It was then that he noticed the far wall was a single, huge observation window that faced the landing field. Through the window he saw the airfield was covered by a thick blanket of snow. Dark shapes dotted with multicolored lights moved through it. An empty, silent Boeing 727 stood by the departure gate, its landing gear buried beneath the snow.

  The man-creature’s eyes flashed briefly as he saw what lay beyond the window. There was his freedom!

  He stood in the center of the lounge, gazing at the windswept snow outside and a twisted smile formed on his emerald lips. He liked the glistening white powder from the sky. It was cool and refreshing against his skin.

  Ka-pow! Ka-pow!

  One bullet and then another bounced off the Hulk’s back as the police rushed into the lounge, guns blazing.

  Grunting with rage, the Hulk turned and grabbed the back of one of the rows of seats and yanked them clear of the bolts holding them to the floor. He raised them over his head.

  “Go away!” he cried in warning to the policemen.

  Bang! Ka-pow!

  The slugs crumpled against his stomach.

  “Hulk warned you!” he roared and heaved the row of seats at the cops, bowling them over like tenpins. Then the man-monster turned, crashed through the window, and leaped to the ground twenty feet below.

  The Hulk landed in a shower of shattered safety glass in the deep snow. He inhaled huge lungfuls of the cold, crisp air and growled with satisfaction—a deep throaty growl.

  Suddenly, a spotlight pierced the white curtain and landed on the Hulk. He swung his arm up in front of his eyes against the glare and cautiously tried to pinpoint the source of this latest discomfort, even though it did not matter. A discomfort was something to be smashed and done away with. And no matter what it was, the Hulk was the one to smash it.

  He heard the muffled roar of a diesel engine moving steadily toward him, br
inging the glaring spotlight closer. He lumbered forward, eyes squeezed shut against the light. The Incredible Hulk did not need to see to smash one of man’s machines.

  The snowplow driver urged his machine forward through the blowing snow. He drove in a straight line toward the giant green behemoth who stood before the terminal building framed in an aura of light. He had heard the desperate calls of the airport security men over the plow’s radio and, while headed back to the garage, had spotted the giant man-thing crash onto the field.

  His plow would put a stop to that thing once and for all!

  He pushed his vehicle to top speed and lowered the plow. The driver smiled briefly when he felt the sharp jolt of his machine connecting with the green behemoth. The plow continued rolling forward, shoving the creature back.

  But the man’s smile vanished as another jolt shook the heavy tractor and it stopped dead in its tracks. He shouted in fear and surprise as the snowplow was lifted smoothly off the snow-covered tarmac.

  The Hulk hefted the many tons of machinery over his head. With a yelp of panic the driver leaped from the cab and landed on the run in the deep snow. He disappeared into the safety of the terminal building.

  Snarling, the jade-skinned giant tossed the snowplow aside. It flipped through the air and landed on its back on top of a parked fuel truck.

  Bahwhooom!

  The truck and tractor exploded in a mushroom cloud of flame and black smoke, lighting the field with a sudden, eerie crimson glow.

  The Hulk roared his defiance at the flaming wreckage and bounded away from it. Several vehicles were speeding across the field toward him as fast as the snow allowed. Inside were men armed with nothing more than handguns with which to defend themselves against one of the mightiest forces on Earth.

  The four-wheel-drive trucks skidded to a halt in a semicircle before the Hulk. The men leaped from the automobiles with guns in hand and took up their positions, shivering not so much from the brutal cold as from fear.

  His breath forming white clouds of vapor in the air, the Hulk stood beneath the wing of the 727.

  “Hulk has done nothing to you. Why can’t you leave Hulk alone?” the man-brute shouted, his harsh, rumbling voice sounding almost plaintive to the policemen.

  “We won’t hurt you,” one man called back. “Come out and surrender and we promise not to hurt you.”

  “Bah! You think you can hurt Hulk?”

  “We don’t want anybody hurt, Dr. Banner . . .”

  “Not Banner!” The Hulk’s sledgehammerlike hands curled into fists at the mere mention of that hated name. “Little man Banner is not here! Only Hulk is here!”

  “Please, Dr. Banner!”

  “No . . . more . . . puny . . . Banner!” he roared. His thickly muscled arms lashed out and struck the airplane’s landing gear. With a screech of metal, the gear crumpled and the plane toppled to one side with its wing dug into the snow.

  “Banner is dead! Now only Hulk lives!

  “And Hulk will smash you all!”

  The man-beast reached over his head, never taking his beady little eyes from the row of headlights before him. His fingers curled around the edge of the wing and, with muscles standing out like thick steel cables on his back and arms, he ripped it from the fuselage.

  He twisted at the waist, holding the dismembered wing—dangling engine and all—by the narrowest end, and snapped around. The metal wedge sailed through the air like an enormous boomerang at the Hulk’s tormentors. It whooshed toward the semicircle of vehicles and landed directly on top of them. The disbelieving security men barely had enough time to fling themselves out of the way before their trucks were buried under the wing.

  But the emerald colossus’ rampage had just begun. He had pleaded with them to leave him in peace, but, as always, they had ignored his pleas and attacked. Now it was his turn.

  He shambled over to the airplane, now lying toppled over on its side, the remaining wing pointing toward the sky. The Hulk crouched beneath the ruined aircraft and, bracing his broad back against the fuselage, began to slowly straighten. Inch by inch, the plane was lifted from the ground, almost fifty tons supported by the awesome strength of the jade-skinned Goliath. Then, with beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead, the Hulk was standing with one hundred and twenty feet of aircraft balanced on his back.

  The Hulk began to walk forward, increasing his speed until he was running toward the terminal. Suddenly he stopped and snapped his body forward, sending the airplane sailing through the air.

  Propelled by the most powerful muscles in the world, the plane shot forward and crashed heavily into the glass-walled façade of the squat building. The plane slid inside, screeching to a slow stop with two dozen feet of its nose lodged inside the waiting lounge.

  Without pause, he turned, his eyes searching for something else to destroy.

  A train of flatbed trailers stood parked against the wall of the terminal alongside the enclosed boarding ramp attached to the plane at the next gate. He bounded over to the baggage truck and grunted his approval. This would do nicely. He lifted the lead car in the chain as a child might pick-up a toy.

  The emerald-green giant snapped the chain of baggage cars through the air like a giant whip and sent it smashing into the aluminum-sided boarding ramp. It broke through the flimsy alloy and flew out the other side to smash with a deafening crash against the side of the airplane. He pushed against the ramp’s oversized tires and rolled it into the plane until the metal accordioned into a flat, ruined mass against the fuselage. He ripped the wreckage free and flung it across the field.

  The Hulk began pummeling the parked aircraft, smashing through its thick metal skin and tearing loose large hunks of wires and machinery. He pulled free one large jet engine and shoved it through the plane’s underbelly. A wing was pounded out of shape, the flaps hanging from it by partially severed cables.

  Minutes later, the Hulk stepped back, breathing hard. His work was finished.

  “Dr. Ba . . . eh, ah . . . Hulk.”

  The man-monster turned slowly from the wreckage and growled, “Urr. Who is bothering Hulk now?”

  Dr. Irvine stepped hesitantly onto the field from a crew entrance. He blinked nervously at the staring green eyes, devoid of any hint of intelligence and blazing with bestial fury, that watched his every move.

  “It’s me, Hulk,” he said slowly. Irvine held up his shaking hands to show he was unarmed. “I’m your friend, Hulk. Don’t you remember?”

  The Hulk snarled, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Hulk does not know you, little man,” he rumbled. “How are you Hulk’s friend?”

  “Y . . . you must trust me, Hulk,” the scientist said, fighting to remain calm in the face of the angry man-monster. “I can help you.”

  The emerald giant pounded a massive fist against his chest. “Bah! Hulk does not need help from any puny man. Hulk is the strongest one there is!” The big man’s brain whirled. All this talk confused the Hulk, made his head hurt.

  The raven-haired Miss Winters stepped from the shadows behind Dr. Irvine, tugging her hood away from her face. “Let me try, Doctor,” she said softly.

  “No,” Irvine said quickly. “There’s no telling what he might do to you—and me right now. I don’t think . . .” he started, but the girl brushed quickly past him and stood in front of the Hulk.

  The Hulk looked at the girl, his lips curled in an angry snarl.

  “Hulk,” she said softly.

  “Hunh,” the green Goliath grunted.

  She extended her hand and reached slowly toward the big green man. “Do you remember me?” she asked with a smile.

  The green giant cocked his head to one side. The girl’s face slid momentarily through his mind, partially obscured by a translucent veil of confusion.

  “Hulk—remembers,” he said at last. “Is girl Hulk’s friend?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, her smile broadening. Miss Winter’s fingers brushed lightly against the big green man’s tough hide. �
�I’m Leslie,” she told him, “your friend.” She laid her hand on his arm.

  The Hulk looked at the slim, smooth hand resting on his arm and then at the girl.

  “Less-lee,” he repeated slowly. His emerald lips curled suddenly into a smile. “Less-lee. Less-lee is Hulk’s friend.”

  Leslie Winters sighed in relief. The creature’s broad smile had startled her. It was not the smile of an evil, deadly monster. It was the smile of a young child delighting in the discovery of something new and wonderful.

  “Will you come with me, Hulk?” she asked. “We want to help you.”

  The man-beast pondered this for a moment before nodding. They were his friends because they had not tried to hurt him like the others did. “Hulk will go with Less-lee,” he announced.

  The Hulk put out his massive hand. Smiling, Leslie took it and together, they went back into the terminal building. Shaking his head in wonder, Dr. Irvine followed.

  Half an hour later, while tense security guards scoured the airport for the Hulk, a Lear jet lifted into the sky from O’Hare’s runway 32 Right and disappeared into the falling snow, traveling due east with the thick, storm-swollen clouds.

  Twelve

  “That was just swell,” Tim Coswell grumbled. “A day and a half at sea and what do we get for our troubles? The runaround!”

  Peter Parker brushed a lock of brown hair from his forehead and sighed as the wind blew it back a moment later. What the heck? Just another of life’s little frustrations to go along with all the others. The navy’s been playing their soggy cards close to their braided chests since StarLab made the big bye-bye from the sky yesterday—and if that doesn’t frustrate your average, everyday mild-mannered reporter, I don’t know what will!

  The two reporters slumped moodily down the gangplank from the USS Alexander Hamilton to the pier in New Jersey. It was a dark, dingy afternoon with dirty-looking gray clouds rolling lazily across the sky. A light, frozen drizzle fell against Peter’s face, further adding to the young photographer’s misery.

  Tim Coswell was not much happier.