Inside the Soul Cage, Bruce Banner has
challenged Sumanguru to Neferib’s Riddle Game. If Bruce wins he gets the Hulk’s
body back; if he loses, he offers Doctor Voodoo as the prize. Sumanguru,
wearing Hulk’s body, begins by binding Bruce and Voodoo to tall thin trees,
noting that Neferig’s game was rigged in the wizard’s favor and only the most
arrogant of sorcerers have thought they could win….
In West Virginia, Charlie, wearing
the skin of Lycana, fights the Infernal Hulk’s general, Bridger. Then Carl, a
local, comes out to fire a shotgun at them but ends up detonating a pump at the
gas station; Lycana swoops out to rescue him from the fiery backblast,
surprising Bridger….
Sumanguru asks Bruce the riddles
and Banner answers them, with each one right their bonds loosen, dropping
Banner and Voodoo into the lake where they are menaced by sea monsters….
Charlie enters Bridger’s mind and
sees that he is dead, a monstrous seed growing inside his mind—and it’s not the
Hulk. Whatever it is grows silent and Charlie doffs the skin to tell Bridger about
herself as he suggests the good guys need her on their side. He also mentions
that Infernal Hulk has allies growing in the New York City subways….
Sumanguru has had enough of the
Riddle Game and prepares to execute Bruce and torture Doctor Voodoo. But Buce
catches the sword with one hand, pointing out that Sumanguru asked one question
at the beginning that he never answered. It was about where Bruce Banner learned
about Neferib’s Riddle Game; the answer? Doctor Voodoo told him and they plotted
together how to cheat Sumanguru at the game. Voodoo placed a rune on Sumanguru
and Banner and they have slowly been leeching Hulk’s power back to Banner. As
we watch, Banner slowly morphs into Gray Hulk as Sumanguru shrinks into an ordinary
and frightened little man; Bruce asks a riddle of him: “What is the greatest
killer of man?” As Sumanguru’s riddles all concerned dangers to mankind, this
is appropriate. Sumanguru warns Hulk his return is only temporary; Hulk demands
an answer to the riddle and it is that the greatest killer of mankind is himself.
Hulk kills the pathetic little wizard and heads out on his mission….
Rows of troops guard the bridges
to New York City, terrified of what is to come. A radio broadcast from the city
warns them that hordes of red monsters are swarming out of the subway stations.
As a soldier notes, “This is actually the end of days, the Age of Monsters….”
Story continues in INFERNAL HULK
VS. WOLVERINE.
Excelsioring your collection