Incredible Hulk vol. 3 #39Incredible Hulk vol. 3 #39
Title: “Tag… You’re Dead!”
Writer: Bruce Jones
Penciller: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Tom Palmer
Colors: Studio F
Editor: Alex Alonso
The Hulk is walking through the forest. He comes to a river and finds a boy that looks an awful lot like Ricky Myers. Ricky is sitting by the river with a bunch of flowers in his hands. Ricky introduces himself and asks Hulk if he is a friend of his mother’s. Ricky says that she isn’t home right now, but asks Hulk if he would like to play. Ricky shows Hulk how he can make a boat by throwing a flower into the water. Hulk throws all the flowers that Ricky gave him at once. Hulk looks at his empty hands and decides to throw Ricky. Ricky sinks into the water and Hulk stands watching the ripples.
Slater is walking with Sandra’s laptop in one hand and a weapon draped over the other shoulder. Slater spots a giant footprint in the ground. He radios in that he is on the trail again. He emphatically tells them not to interfere and that he is in control now. He says that he will take the subject out alone.
Hulk walks up to a cabin and looks in the
window. He sees a cloaked figure writing something on a pad of
paper. 
Hulk smashes
down the door. The cloaked figure tells Hulk, “Come in,
friend. You’re welcome…” She tells him to rest a
while and that she will get him something to eat. She tells him
that no one is going to hurt him there. She tells him to eat and
that it is only stew. Hulk takes the bowl and puts it up to his
lips.
Slater continues using the laptop. He comes across a broken tree. Slater looks out into the water and notices a part of the tree that looks like a body shaped similarly to the one that Hulk threw into the water. Hulk’s Ricky was just a piece of a tree.
The cloaked woman says that it is good that Hulk is feeling better. She tells him to relax and to see only the metronome. She tells him to watch the swaying hand and relax. Sandra takes off her cloak to reveal that she is wearing a bathing suit like the woman in Banner’s meditation. Despite the bullet hole in her forehead, Sandra does her best to mimic the woman from his mind. She continues calming him with the meditation procedure. Sandra asks him if he is awake now and to answer her, He answers that he is awake. Sandra asks his name. Hulk has turned back into Bruce Banner and Bruce gives his name.
Slater hears something snap behind him. Slater spins and points his weapon at the man standing there. The man introduces himself as McIntire from home base. He says that they are on the same team. Slater says that he said that he was taking the subject alone. McIntire says that he isn’t there to get in his way. Slater says that the man is checking up on him. McIntire tells him not to get paranoid. He says that it is standard procedure, and that he is there to keep him company now that he has split from Verdugo. Slater asks if the man is alone and then shoots him.
Bruce says that she is the woman from the diner that Samson warned him about. He asks how she knew about his personal meditation techniques. Sandra says that she is an assassin and that it is her job to know everything about him. Bruce asks where Slater is. Sandra says that Slater is probably closer than either of them wants. She hands him a drink and says that it is just scotch. Bruce asks if it has the stuff that she put in his drink in it. Sandra says that she had no guarantee that he would drink that so she slipped him something beforehand. She says that her ring was spiked when they shook hands. She says that it wasn’t enough to knock him out, but that it was enough to make him walk in his sleep so he would be easier to track. Bruce says that her spiked ring gave him nightmares and that he dreamed that he drown a boy in the woods. Sandra holds up the pad of paper she was drawing and asks if the boy looked like this. Bruce says that it was indeed Ricky Myers. Bruce says that he was the boy that died in the Chicago building collapse. Bruce asks her how she knew. Sandra says that Ricky is her son.
Slater looks over the dead man’s body. He sees some papers marked “for your eyes only” and decides to read them. As he is reading he notices something silver sticking out of the man’s pocket he takes it.
Sandra says that she is a soldier of fortune. She says that she will work for anyone for the right price. She says that she is considered invaluable in certain circles. Sandra says that a year ago she was accused for killing her own child. She says that she was tried, convicted, and put on death’s row. She says that she thought that was it, but that a man named Geeson came to her with a proposition. She says that Geeson’s employer needed an expert tracker to track something very big and very dangerous. Bruce says that it was the Hulk. Sandra says that is right, and that in return she would get her life back and the life of her dead son. Bruce asks if she escaped. Sandra says that she was executed and that her body was intercepted on the way to the morgue. She says that she woke up in an empty room seated before a television camera. She heard two voices telling her that it was time for her to live up to her part of the bargain.
As Slater is looking at the object he took off the dead man he is shot in the head. Slater falls over. The man that took him out with a sniper walks over to him. The man starts to pick up the object, but Slater spins around and shoots the man in the face.
Bruce asks Sandra who the people are that want him so badly and where they come from. Sandra says that she doesn’t know and that all she wants is her son back. Bruce says that she gets him back by a miracle of resurrection as soon as she delivers him. Bruce pours himself another drink and says that this is all pretty hard to swallow. Sandra says that Bruce saw Slater shoot her in the head and asks if she looks dead. Bruce says that she does sort of. Sandra asks if she sounds dead then. Sandra says that they mean to have him whether she does her job or not. Bruce asks what they want from him. Sandra reminds him that it is the Hulk they want not him. Sandra says that she has only been able to piece together pieces of it, but that they can bring dead people back to life and she doesn’t want to contemplate their plans for the Hulk. Banner asks if she has seen the operation. Sandra says that she only saw the room that she was in, but that when she was unpacking she found a disc. She says that it took her several hours to decipher the encryption.
Slater picks up another sealed paper and another silver piece. Slater notices that the pieces seem to fit together. He says, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Blood pours out from under his headband.
Sandra puts the disc inside Banner’s laptop. She says that she was working with the latest FBI training laptop, but that Slater has it now, and that they just have to hope that Banner’s is up to the task. She says that as soon as they begin though Slater will be able to see what they are seeing and that it will double his ability to track them. Bruce tells her to go ahead with the disc and that he can handle Slater. Sandra says that she admires his confidence even if it is misplaced. Sandra starts up the disc and a picture of a shark coming through the hole in a computer disc.
Slater puts the gun together and then stuffs it into his pocket. Slater looks at his laptop and sees the shark. The computer tells him that a location fix has been established and that an area photo will follow. Slater sees a picture of the cabin where Sandra and Banner are.
Sandra shows Banner a picture of Coleson and one piece of Pitman. She says that they work for the same people that hired her. Banner asks about the chrome objects pictured next to them. Sandra says that it is their newest weapon. She says that it is so deadly and secret that it couldn’t be entrusted to a single agent. She says that they gave a piece to each of their best agents. She shows him what it looks like put together. Banner says that it is a gun and asks what it does. Sandra says that it probably kills, or at least drops, Hulks. Banner says that would make her and Slater obsolete. Sandra says that they were always obsolete. She says that it was always about who could get to him first. She says that she and Slater were just insurance. She says that they lied to them the same way they lied to the media with the faked footage of Ricky dying in Chicago. Sandra pulls a gun on Bruce and says that he is going to help her find her son. She says that he might be at home base or somewhere else, but that once they get the Hulk that Ricky becomes disposable and that she can’t and won’t let that happen. Banner asks him if he is the ransom she will use to trade for Ricky. Sandra says that isn’t quite it. Sandra says that eight years ago that she was running guns for a small Argentine faction, and that while she was there she met an American businessman. She says that they had an affair and that the result was Ricky. She says that she left Argentina in her first trimester and that she never saw the father again until yesterday. Bruce says, “Doc Samson… Samson was hired by your outfit to track me… told me so himself in the diner before he… well… and Samson is no fool. I can’t believe he’d have a son running around somewhere and not know about it. How do I know you’re not the one who’s lying… playing on my guilt?” Slater appears at the cabin door and says that there are so many questions and so little time. Slater says that he expected better of Sandra. He says that first rule of the hunt is to have a back up plan and asks her where hers is. Sandra says that in the basement of the cabin is twenty pounds of plastique explosive. Slater says that Sandra is bluffing and that Banner would die with them. Sandra says that Banner might…she reaches for the keyboard. Slater shoots Sandra in the shoulder. Slater asks Banner if his heart is racing. He tells Banner to let the big goon out because he has a surprise for him. Banner says that he won’t do it. Slater says that the gun will only work on the Hulk and that it would tear a little guy like him apart. Slater is going to kill Sandra, but the gun jams and Sandra hits the keyboard to detonate the explosives. Sandra tells Bruce to find her son as Bruce starts transforming into the Hulk. The cabin explodes.
Bruce Banner finishes burying Sandra and Slater. He sticks the shovel into the dirt and walks away. Banner doesn’t get too far when a hand jots out of one of the graves.
No Excuses rating: 7 out of 10
Kind of a disappointing issue to me. We find out that Hulk didn’t kill Ricky Myers, but that it was faked footage. This seems less like a conclusion to a story and more like another direction. People posting on message boards kept posting that they thought that this would be a good trade paperback, but I think that the lack of a conclusion might ruin that a bit. People are after the Hulk and they’ve managed to produce a gun that would actually hurt the Hulk… I don’t know that I really believe this. They might think that it would hurt the Hulk, but since they never tested it on the Hulk I think it’s more like another red herring. Sandra claims that Samson is the father of Ricky Myers, but this seems kind of unlikely. I also hope that at some point it makes sense that Sandra and Slater’s employers would employ them, others, and then set Samson out to stop them from succeeding. I hope that eventually these things come to a conclusion instead of giving us a tenth of the answers and then giving us more questions. I don’t care much for these dragged out storylines. As an aside I wonder why Bruce Jones said when asked if he would be using the Savage Hulk, Gray Hulk, or the Professor he responded that he wouldn’t be using any of them. What part of this Hulk isn’t the Savage Hulk?