One year ago, a
band of robbers entered a newly discovered tomb in Iraq, only hours before a university
team was to arrive. They discover a huge headless monster on a throne, with mummies
at its feet. As they look around for valuables to steal, Trudy, a female member
of the team, picks up a small skull and is possessed by a spirit. A huge monster,
crocodile jaws and huge claws, bursts through her skin and slaughters the
others. It then addresses the mummies, promising to free them now that the
Green Door is shut….
Bruce Banner
shows up at a Kentucky diner, ordering sandwiches to go. He stops to feed a
fellow patron’s dog. Then the waitress speaks to him in Hulk’s voice, “Warned
you, Banner. Should have stayed away.” Terrified, he flees the diner for the
woods nearby, pursued by the voice of the Hulk///
///then he wakes
in the woods, dressed only in tattered pants, with a dead dog by his side. He
pops a dislocated shoulder back into place and sees police and emergency
vehicles at the diner, wrecked, with the words “Your fault” written on the wall
as the lady’s dog sits alone, barking at him….
A teen girl
called Charlie sneaks out of her home past her drunken father and tries to put
the car into working condition so she can run away from home but her dad
catches her and she dashes into the woods….
An FBI team convenes
at the diner, suspecting the Hulk and taking all cautionary measures. Another
group, the family of monsters in human form led by the Eldest (resembling Trudy
from the prologue), also arrives to search for Hulk. One of them asks Eldest for
permission to feed. It is granted and the monster bursts through its human skin
and heads out….
Charlie’s dad
in the car catches up to her on the road. She dashes to the side and the car
hits a tree just as, mere yards away, the FBI team has caught up with Bruce and
has him trapped in a force field. Bruce tries to explain that Hulk is now his
enemy, bitter about being trapped in Bruce’s psyche to power Starship Hulk—and then
Hulk bursts out, clobbers the Agents, telling them “Leave me alone,” before stomping
off into the woods. Charlie’s dad drags himself out of the wreckage and years of
pent-up anger over abuse she has suffered lead to Charlie beating and kicking
the injured man, screaming “Leave me alone!” She walks away and the monster
seen earlier drops from the trees and feasts on the man’s body, taking his form.
The rest of the family arrives and he is able to tell them where the Fractured
Son, the one called Hulk, has gone. Eldest is glad the vessel (Bruce) wants to
be free of the godflesh. It is then revealed that a mind-controlled Betty Ross Banner is with them, called a child of the Mother of Horrors. The Eldest then
calls on all the monsters of the world, to seek out the Fractured One,
mentioning that his flesh is the key to freeing the Mother of Horrors, issuing
the Age of Monsters….