Incredible Hulk (Vol. 2) #94

Background

This issue features a tiny, trivial Spider-Man flashback cameo in the midst of the long Hulk ongoing storyline which forms the lead-up to World War Hulk.

Bruce Banner volunteered to be shot into space by Reed Richards, Iron Man, Dr. Strange and Black Bolt, in order to stop a rogue satellite. Of course, as we now know, they tricked him and attempted to send him to a peaceful uninhabited planet and into exile... a dangerous deception which will soon come back to exact a terrible price on them.

The space ship went off course, and instead landed him on the savage planet of Sakaar. Weakened by the trip, Hulk was forced into slavery as a gladiator, joining a team with six other non-humans. Korg, Brood, Skee, Shadow Warrior, Elloe, and Miek. He is nicknamed "Green Scar".

The Hulk's band of gladiators had some initial success battling the Wildebots in a gladiatorial combat staged on an Imperial Pleasure Cruiser. The celebration feast is interrupted when a band of rebels arrive on board, seeking the Hulk's assistance in overthrowing the government.

Story Details

Elloe, one of the Hulk's team-mates, implores the Hulk to help the rebels. But Hulk he has no interest in revolution. The Imperial Death's Head robot soldiers arrive and subdue the rebellious attack, capturing Elloe in the process. Then when things have quietened down again, the Emperor's shadow bodyguard arrives and attempts to buy Hulk. But he declines her offer also, perhaps foolishly, the Emperor does not take rejection lightly.

The team arrives at the Emperor's "great games" - a huge gladiatorial contest sponsored by the emperor. The prize for surviving three rounds is freedom and citizenship. The Hulk's team are favorites for victory, but there's a change in plan. The Imperial Dreadnought turns up overhead and drops a bomb to destroy all the gladiators (and probably part of the audience too).

The Hulk leaps up and confronts the bomb before it can land, making it explode mostly harmlessly out of range. Death's Head robot soldiers arrive to wrap things up. Skee is killed. With the help of the submission disk implanted in his body, the Hulk is wounded, captured and returned to a prison cell with his team-mates.

The team-mates take a page or two each to tell their own stories. The Hulk tells how the puny humans hated him (accompanied by an illustration of super-heroes including Spider-Man). They hated him so much that Bruce Banner (the weakling who hated Hulk the most) created a gamma bomb to try and kill the Hulk. But it failed, and Hulk became stronger. It's not the truth as we know it, but it's convincing as the Hulk's version of events.

The remaining five warriors are Hiroim the shamed shadow warrior and Saka priest, Miek unhived last-one-living, no-name warrior-prime of Broodworld, Korg of Krona (son of O-Korg and Ahna, brother-killer of Margus), and Hulk. Together they swear an oath and become warbound.

But now Green Scar must defeat the Silver Savage, formerly known as Silver Surfer but now a slave of the Emperor.

General Comments

I'm not a huge fan of space stories involving lots of aliens, and I've come in to this one far too late to fairly judge it. But there's a ton of action, and I've nothing to say against the tale. Art and script are perfectly effective.

The Spider-Man cameo is an illustration in flashback. Web-head isn't named and really takes no part in the flashback sequence.

Overall Rating

A right-down-the-middle three webs here. We reviewed this one for completeness of Spidey's cameo, but there's nothing much to say either way about the Hulk story itself.