Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #444Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #444
Title: “Cable Vision”
Writer: Peter David
Penciller: Angel Medina
Inker: Robin Riggs
Colors: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Bobbie Chase
CONTINUED FROM CABLE VOL. 2 #34
Storm flies after Hulk as Hulk is leaping
away with Cable over his shoulder. Storm causes Hulk to get
caught up in the wind and whips him around. She tells him that he
is not in his right mind and to release Cable. Hulk stands atop a
building and says, “Make me!” He claps his hands
together. Cable starts to come to. He launches himself into Hulk
and knocks him off the building. Storm swoops down at Hulk. She
shouts for Cable to release Hulk and get clear so she can attack.
Cable doesn’t hear her, and probably wouldn’t have made
much difference. Hulk hits the ground with Cable on his back and
launches right back into the air.
Janis lies on a bed in a cool dark room. A fever wracks her body and she sees visions of “Gramps”, Rick Jones from the future, telling her to snap out of it. The merged Hulk tells her to get her act together and that she has work to do. The Maestro tells them all that she is weak as the rest of her kind is. Janis tells Maestro, “Flark you… Maestro…” She says that she sees what they are trying to do. She rolls out of the bed and falls to the floor. “Hulk” sits across the room from her. He says that she is ill. Janis says that it is from the time travel and the cold water. She asks where it is that Hulk brought her. Hulk says that it is one of many Pantheon safehouses. He says that he used a similar one recently to escape a bomb blast, or that he tried to at least. Janis asks why Hulk helped her. He says that it amuses him. Suddenly Hulk grabs his head. He says, “Cable… have to… have to destroy…Cable…” Janis tries to stop Hulk from leaving, but falls on the floor. She remembers that she can’t stop him, and that this all happened hours ago.
Hulk and Cable smash through the roof a magazine distribution house. He slams Cable against the floor and pulls his fist back to hit him. Cable knows that this is it, but something stops “it” from coming. Hulk stares at the wall where a pin up of Betti Page is on the wall. Hulk says, “Betty? Betty…” Cable takes the moment to blast Hulk in the face. He realizes that just as he is trying to keep himself together physically that the Hulk is struggling to pull himself together mentally. He decides to slam his mind into Hulk’s “personal space” and that maybe he can help Hulk… provided he lives that long.
Cable finds himself on a mindscape. He is standing on an unending stairway. Onslaught asks Cable if he thinks he can match minds with him. He asks if he thinks that there is a connection between the two of them. He says that, in fact, there is and that they are both victims of Onslaught. A giant boulder starts rolling down the stairs at Cable.
Storm lands where Cable and Hulk are. She yells for Cable to snap out of it. She says that the techno-virus is spreading. She says that he has to concentrate on his own plight.
Cable ducks under the boulder as it bounces down the stairs. Cable gets up and runs up the stairs. He comes to an enormous door at the top of the stairs. Cable says that all the secret’s of the Hulk’s psyche could be behind the door. Cable pulls on the door. He figures that he can break Onslaught’s hold on the Hulk. He manages to pull the door open. He thinks that he might even be able to help fix his fractured personalities. Cable looks through the door and sees a giant void. He realizes that he has been set up. The giant boulder hits Cable from behind and knocks him into the void. As they fall down into the void Cable hears the rock with the Hulk’s face on it say, “Help me…”
Cable wakes up. He looks over at the clock and sees that he was only a few seconds. He looks back and sees that Hulk is bearing down on him. Suddenly Cable and Hulk are swept up in a tornado. She keeps hitting Hulk with lightning. Hulk snatches a hunk of the floor out of the air and hits Storm with it. She is knocked out of the window of the magazine distributor’s window. She falls into the water outside.
Cable struggles to get to his feet. He asks some passerbys if they could help him. They run away. Cable thinks about a time in his past, and in our future, with a downed opponent that tried to kill him. He asked for Cable’s help. Cable went for help, but by the time he got back the man was dead. He says that he has dwelt on that moment and wondered if he wanted the man to die in retaliation. He wonders if he did everything that he could. Cable pushes the memory away and tries to concentrate on his survival. He looks over at a gun store.
Cable hears Hulk inside shouting for him, but he can hear the choked frustration as if the Hulk were wracked with conflict about the way he is being used. Cable says that he would be more sympathetic if Hulk wasn’t trying to kill him.
Cable walks out of the gun store with a very large gun. Hulk storms out of the building and Cable fires gas into Hulk’s chest. Hulk leaps into the sky, but the gas follows the stream of wind caused by the leap. Storm returns and causes the gas to follow up to Hulk’s face. She tells Hulk not to force her to use harsher measures against him. Cable contacts Storm telepathically and gives her his plan.
At the Pantheon’s safehouse, Janis is woken from her sleep by a loud booming footstep. She reaches out for her staff, but Ajax’s foot blocks her way. He asks who she is and what she is doing there.
Hulk leaps at Cable. Cable and Storm hit Hulk at the same time with a telepathic jolt and a bolt of lightning respectively in an effort to try and “reboot” his mind and free him from Onslaught’s control. Hulk is jarred with pain. He drops to the floor. Cable goes over to Hulk. He says that he thinks that he is dead. Storm says that is a pity, but that the police are approaching. She says that they have to get him out of there. Cable says that they won’t have time to move him, and that he isn’t leaving anyone behind without doing everything he can.
Cable re-enters the mindscape. The rock is still falling toward him. The ground in far away, but they are coming towards it fast. Cable smashes at the rock and starts to break it away. Suddenly, Banner’s arm comes through the rock. The rock shatters and Banner is free. Banner and Cable stand face to face.
Storm clears everyone off Hulk and zaps him with lightning. Hulk sits up immediately. Cable asks Hulk if he is okay. A cloud of smoke comes out of his mind as he says, “Oh… perfect.”
As they fly away, Cable asks Hulk if he is sure that he is up for this. Hulk says that he isn’t sure of that, but that he is sure that he wants a piece of whoever is screwing with his mind. Hulk says that if there is one thing he believes in it’s doing everything you can.
No Excuses rating: 6 out of 10
Not one of Peter’s better issues of the Hulk. Hulk had to be freed from Onslaught’s control so he had to lose, but it doesn’t make this lose more palatable. Cable and Storm effectively kill Hulk, and though we’ve seen that death doesn’t necessarily stop the Hulk, it still shows a lot more vulnerability that Hulk is used to having to deal with from just two people. We’ll chalk it up to his being controlled and move on. Angel Medina’s pencils continue to annoy. He seems to have a good grasp of storytelling, but his style is just really bad. 3 out of 5 for both the writing and art.
Review and pictures by The Leader