Synopsis / Summary / Plot
On the trail of the geneticist Gold who has Gawain hostage, John Eisenhart and Quirk allow a pair of drunken reprobates to lead them to Gold’s secret lab. They manage to talk their way in but are quickly captured by Gold’s genetic freaks. John turns into the Hulk but the sheer numbers of the foes plus Vulx’s quick reflexes with a shock weapon knock the green giant unconscious. Hulk awakens in shackles in the lab of the Golden One, a “perfect human” whose goal is to create a race of “perfect humans” to replace the ordinary people he considers to be his inferiors. He has kidnapped Gawain to try to uncover the secrets of the genetic research the Knights of the Banner were using to recreate the Hulk. The Golden One’s seductive speech about the innate superiority of those like the Hulk and himself over the common rabble apparently persuades Hulk to join his cause. Hulk reveals that he can unlock the desired information from the boy’s mind. When released though, he springs his trap, plowing through the Golden One’s distorted minions and shorting out the power, freeing Quirk and Gawain. Rather than see his work polluted by the normals, the Golden One destroys the lab in a fiery explosion, from which Hulk carries Quirk and Gawain to safety. In a brief epilogue, we find the Golden One has also escaped the inferno.