Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #467Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #467
Title: “The Lone and Level Sands”
Ex-Writer: Peter David
X-Penciller: Adam Kubert
Inker: Adam Kubert
Colors: Steve Buccellato
Mourning: Bobbie Chase
An older and bearded Rick Jones sits in a chair. His Bucky costume is behind him and a picture of the gamma bomb explosion is mounted on the wall. Nega-bands sit on the shelf. Rick speaks to the unseen writer, Peter. He says that people forget that it is really his story. He says that he is the touchstone, the everyman. Rick asks if Peter is a freelancer. Peter says that he is there with the Bugle. Rick says that talking about the ten year anniversary of “her” death, the event that started the Hulk down the road that he never wanted to travel. He says that is a hell of a thing to be doing a story about. Peter says that he just goes where they send him. Rick says that sometimes he feels exactly the same way. He asks if Peter wants to ask questions or if he should just talk. Peter says to do whichever he prefers. Rick sets the scene. He says that it is mid-morning, and that he was sleeping in. He says that the phone rings and that Marlo answers it. He says that she listens for a second and then starts screaming. Rick woke up. He says that it took him a few minutes to realize what Marlo was saying, and that he just couldn’t believe that it was true. Rick says that by the time they got to Area 102 that Bruce had already tried his first suicide attempt.
Seconds after Betty dies. Ross is standing there screaming at Bruce. Bruce calmly pulls off his coat and rolls up his sleeve. He walks into the room with Betty and picks up an empty hypodermic off the table. He tries to inject himself, but the doctors grab him. Samson was trying to comfort Ross when he saw what Bruce was doing. Samson stops Bruce. Bruce doesn’t even seem to care. He says, “That’s all right. I’ll find some other way.”
Bruce is put in a room where there are
dozens of tranquilizer guns aimed at him. He was being monitored,
and the second his heart rate started to go up that the guns
would fill him with enough drugs to stop an elephant stampede.
Bruce just stood there staring at the two way mirror in the room.
He seemed to
sense that Ross was on the other side watching him for hours on
end. Ross stood there with Cary St. Lawrence. He says, “I
warned her.”
Rick says that they let him in to see Bruce. Rick told Marlo to stay outside while he went in to talk to Bruce. Rick asks Bruce if he wants to talk. Bruce isn’t even looking at Rick when he says, “Hello Rick, I think you know everybody.” Rick wasn’t sure what Bruce was talking about, but then he realizes that Bruce is talking to people that aren’t even there. To Bruce the room was filled with the Abomination, Gargoyle, Namor, Spider-Man, She-Hulk, the U-Foes, Dr. Strange, Leader, Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Absorbing Man, Thor, Jim Wilson, Half-Life, and Jarella. Rick says that he realized that Bruce had cracked. Rick asks Bruce if he is having a party. Bruce says that it is a going away party for him. Bruce says that nothing is forever. He says that you think they will last, but it is all transitory. He says that it is like the poem by Shelley. Rick asks if he means the chick on Cheers. Bruce says that he means Percy Bysshe Shelley. Bruce goes on,
“I met a traveler from an ancient land
who said: two vast and trunkless legs of
stone stand in the desert.
Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies…
My name is Ozymandias,
King of kings look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay of that colossal wreck,
boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.
Bruce says that he can see it. He says that the legs that stand there are the Hulk’s feet, and the broken face, half buried in the sand belongs to the Hulk as well. Bruce says that his life is the shattered ruins. He says that there is nothing left of it without Betty. Bruce is going on. Rick tells Bruce that they can go to Freehold. He says that knows the Leader’s resurrection machine was destroyed, but that maybe they can fix it. Bruce says that he intends to check that out, but that he was thinking about Armageddon and how sporting he was feeling. He says that he has a sick feeling that he knows what he will find. Bruce says goodbye to Rick. He takes off his glasses and then turns into the Hulk. Rick says that there was no howl of pain, no doubling over. Rick says that the stun gins didn’t go off because his pulse never sped up. Rick says that it was as if changing into the Hulk was the easiest thing in the world. As if the prospect of leaving behind humanity was no longer painful, but a blessing. Hulk looked at Rick with what Rick thought of as envy. Ross shot through the mirror, but the Hulk just left.
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Rick says that Bruce was right about Freehold. He says that Ross went there himself one day. He says that Armageddon’s troops had leveled the place and killed almost everyone. Peter says that he doesn’t mean to ignore the tragedy of Freehold, but asks why he thought the Hulk was envious of him. Rick suggests that maybe it was because it was because he was happily married to his ex-girlfriend, or that maybe he felt like his life was over and that Rick still had his. Rick says that he doesn’t really know, but that is how he looked at him.
The army tried to stop Hulk, but they never even slowed him down. Rick says that after that came the war between Bruce and the Hulk. Rick says that supposedly that people who try to commit suicide and really crying out for help. Rick suggests that is why Bruce’s attempts on his life were so public. Rick says that people think of the Hulk as an incarnation of Bruce’s anger, but that he views the Hulk as Bruce’s survival instinct. Rick says that the survivalist Hulk and the suicidal Bruce were at major odds. The perverse side of the Hulk would always let Bruce get so far. He says that the more elaborate Bruce’s plan for suicide became that the further Hulk let Bruce get. The first time, Bruce leaped off the Empire State Building. Bruce was the one that jumped, but it was the Hulk that landed. Sometime later, one of Dr. Strange’s enemies got Bruce into black magic. Bruce called up Mephisto or someone to take him off to Hell, but the demon just laughed at him and said that Bruce’s torment on Earth was too much fun to watch. Rick says that there was a face off with Namor, and some other stuff that had nothing to do with Betty.
Rick says that everybody was at Betty’s funeral. Rick says that it was a closed casket at Ross’ request, and that started rumors that Ross had buried a Jane Doe in Betty’s place and that he had her squirreled away somewhere. Rick says that people love conspiracies. It had been raining, when Thor showed up late. Thor looked angry. He stomped his mallet and the clouds parted to shine sun down on Betty’s casket. A rainbow shone down across the sky. Betty was later cremated as was her request. Her ashes stayed with Ross while he was alive.
Rick says that Bruce scared the crap out of
him the night he came back. Rick was alone at the time. He and
Marlo had had a big fight, and that it all seemed to go sour when
Betty died. Rick pulled out his harmonica and started playing a
bluesy tune. Suddenly a voice says, “Remember what you were
playing that first time?” Bruce lights his pipe and adds,
“By the way, no lights, please… if that’s all
right with you.” Bruce was sitting there is Rick’s
wheelchair. He was wearing all black and sunglasses in the dark.
Bruce says that Rick was playing ‘That’ll Be the Day
That I Die’ by Buddy Holly. Bruce says that is kind of
ironic under the circumstances. Rick asks Bruce what he is doing
there, but Bruce ignores the question and asks Rick what he was
playing. Rick tells him that it was just a blues riff. Bruce
says, “They say Blues is nothing but a good man feeling bad.
Me… I don’t get the blues. I get the greens.” Rick
asks Bruce if he is okay. Bruce says that he wasn’t, but
that he is feeling much better now. Bruce then let out a really
weird laugh. Bruce told Rick everything he had been up in a
detached way, as if he was talking about someone else. Bruce
sounded amused that he had tried to kill himself and said that it
was a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Rick tells Bruce
that he has to turn himself in. He says that Bruce needs help.
Bruce says that actually he has never been more clear-headed in
his life. Bruce says that as a scientist he was always trying to
find an explanation. He says that his suicide attempts were just
him realizing that there is no point to to any of it. He says
that nothing really matters. Bruce says that it is like the poem
he told him about. He says that he thought that he was mighty and
making a difference, but that someday it will all be gone, and
that his legacy will be nothing. He says that he was despaired at
first, but that now he is recovered. He says that he is better,
and ironically, stronger for it. Bruce says that he understands
that Rick and Marlo have separated. Bruce tells Rick to
re-prioritize his life and realize what is important. He says
that if there is one lesson he can teach him it is that. Bruce
says that he searched for power, but that the only power is the
power to help one another, and that no power is greater than
love. Bruce says that it is cornball, but that it is true. Bruce
gets up to leave. Rick tells him to come back, but Bruce just
looked back, lowered his sunglasses. 
His eyes glowed
green in the darkness and he said, “Sometime it’s best
to move on.” Rick says that was the last time he ever saw
Bruce.
Rick says that Thunderbolt Ross died a few years after that in the Hell on Earth war. He says that Janis was killed when she confronted the Abomination who had his own plans for revenge against the Hulk. Rick says that a year after that the Hulk changed again. He says that Hulk and Cary St. Lawrence got together after that, but that Peter doesn’t want to hear about that. Peter says that from Rick’s point of view he would like to hear. He says that considering what really happened to Betty, the death and destruction that followed, and the many ways that it all could have been avoided. Rick says that maybe none of it happened. Peter says that he doesn’t understand. Rick says that he has some experience with alternate timelines. He says that maybe they are an alternate timeline. He says that maybe there are no absolutes, only possibilities. He says that maybe the Hulk’s life is something else entirely. Peter says that the Hulk is still out there, and that no one really knows how he regards Rick these days. Peter asks Rick if that makes him nervous. Rick says that sometimes he wakes up sweating, or that when a truck rumbles by he thinks the Hulk is coming for him. Rick says that you deal with it because he has other things to live for now. A voice says, “Daddy?” The little girl sits on Rick’s lap and asks if he is going to be much longer. She reminds him that he was going to play with her. She asks who the man is. Rick says that he is a writer. Rick introduces his daughter Betty. Peter says that she is lovely. Betty asks her father if he is okay. She says that it looks like he is going to cry. Rick says that he is fine. He asks Betty to show Peter out, and then they will play. Peter says that there are still so many things that he wants to hear. Rick says that he will have to hear them from someone else. Rick holds Betty’s urn in his hands. He says that he could keep telling stories about the Hulk, but that there are other things in life. He says that it is like Bruce told him, and that he realized the important things. He says that at some point something stops you from talking about it. Rick says that he has said enough about the Hulk and Betty. Rick says, “I kissed her once… just once, but I can still taste the sweetness of her lips… I… “ Rick asks Peter not to print that. He says to just writer that he loved both him and her, and that is all he can say. Rick says that he has said enough.
No Excuses rating: 12 out of 10
“Sometime it’s best to move on.”
Yeah sometimes it is, but this isn’t one of those times. Peter David wrote this issue to let the powers that be know what they missed out on by losing him as a writer, and the Hulk has never been the same since. The majority of those “powers” have since been fired, and the Hulk has only recently, some four years later, regained the popularity that the Hulk was enjoying under Peter’s helm. And don’t get me started on that. The book seems to derive popularity from its lack of Hulk. Peter’s tales of the Hulk are the stuff that legends are made of. His run on the Hulk will never be matched as far as I can see. I quote Peter’s Abomination, “Gods, I miss him.”
Save us from the powers that be.
Title: “Epilogue”
Writer: Joe Casey
Penciller: Javier Pulido
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colors: Steve Buccellato
Ross walks down some stairs. He puts his palm on a scanner and gains security access. He enters the room and pulls up a chair to the chamber holding the body of Betty Ross Banner. He says that he couldn’t bury her. He says that everyone grieved over his uncle’s ashes. Ross says that he should know that nothing is forever and that death is a temporary state. Ross says that he doesn’t have the power to bring her back. He says that now he has an objective and focus again. He says that this will be the last time he visits her until ‘he’ is dead. He says that he won’t speak her name in front of him. Ross says that he has done what he could for her and that no one will know about her being there. He salutes Betty and tells her to be as brave in death as she was in life.
No Excuses rating: 0 out of 10
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like I even need to say anything
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Review and pictures by The Leader