As with Hell in the last issue, the plot
of this issue pauses periodically for a definition of the Devil: in
Zoroastrian lore, he is called Angra Mainyu, the opposite to good,
who has the ability to do good but chooses to do evil. In the Old
Testament Book of Job, Satan is the accuser, testing Job. In the
philosophy of Anna Kingsford, Satan is the keeper of the door to
Hell.
Young Bruce is berated by his drunken
father, as his mother tries ineffectually to intervene. Brian Banner
hurls a glass of liquor at the boy while mocking the science toys he
plays with. When Brian leaves, Bruce uses the glass to smash his toys
to pieces, cutting himself in the process.
The emaciated Hulk is in Hell with
Jackie McGee and smashing the remains of the Red Hulk into pieces.
Jackie calms him down and asks to speak to the devil Hulk who she
realizes is in charge of Banner's multiple personalities....
The shade of Brian Banner explains how
he grew up in a home without love and how he found love with Rebecca
while becoming an authority on gamma radiation. He posited a third
form between particle and wave and dreamed that it was seeking him.
He went home in fear to his wife, who revealed she was pregnant. When
Bruce was born, Brian felt that he had been replaced in Rebecca's
love and now he was trapped down there by the monster that possesses
his son. The thing from his dream had been using him as a host
personality but now it has Hulk for that....
Climbing the mountain, Puck and
Absorbing Man see the One Below All, a giant monster with a large
mouth, as Jackie and the Hulk see it too. Jackie calls it the end;
Hulk replies “He's not the end of the world...because that's who I
am.”