Synopsis / Summary / Plot
As the story opens, a huge fanged and clawed green monster—Hulk 2099—is running across the desert, heading toward Los Angeles. Entering a backyard on the outskirts, he surprises a woman who calls the Sweet Dreams Security Service. Guards arrive and open fire on Hulk who destroys their tank-like vehicle and, to avoid more confrontations, transforms into the human John Eisenhart.
Returning to his workplace, Lotusland, a virtual reality entertainment company in Hollywood, he discovers he has been removed from the project he was working on, thanks to the backstabbing of his co-worker Keisha. Oddly unconcerned, he is confronted by studio psychiatrist Dr. Phil, who wants to know why he’s been gone for six days. John mentally reviews the events that led up to his predicament: a ruthless Hollywood executive, he went into the desert to find the Knights of the Banner, a warrior sect named after the original Hulk, which he thought he could exploit for entertainment purposes. When the group’s leader, Aeneas, refuses a deal, an angry John vows revenge. Finding a boy, Gawain, admiring his car, John gulls him with tales of Hollywood heroism and tricks the boy into revealing that Aeneas is experimenting with illegal gamma rays.
He is awoken from his reveries by his boss Audra telling him of Sweet Dreams confrontation with the green savage earlier in the evening and ordering him to track down the monster for a story.
Hacking into Sweet Dreams network, he sees that they are planning to murder a young female singer named Quirk, who has been threatening corporate profits by warning people of subliminal messages in music. Sweet Dreams’ armored killers arrive at Quirk’s home, kill her boyfriend and point their guns on her. Hulk breaks through they all, takes the bullets meant for her and clobbers the killers. He carries Quirk off—only to come face-to-face with a pair of tanks. The situation causes him to recall his previous confrontation with Sweet Dreams, when he betrayed the Knights of the Banner. The Sweet Dreams soldiers’ slaughter of the unarmed warriors prompted John Eisenhart to try to save Gawain, who, recognizing John as their betrayer, attempted to trigger Aeneas’ gamma weapon. The subsequent explosion bathed John in radiation…
Back in the present, Hulk, enraged by the memory of their earlier brutality, tears into the tanks and armored killers. As he carries off Quirk, she asks, “What are you?” With a warped grin, Hulk replies, “I’m a man.”