Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Hulk and the Maestro are slugging it out, destroying the insurgents’ underground base but Hulk is unable to get the upper hand because the Maestro knows all his moves. When Hulk is distracted by a collapsing building and the need to save the injured, Maestro seizes him from behind and breaks his neck. When Hulk awakens, he finds himself in a luxurious room with beautiful servants and every amenity the palace has to offer. In an interview with his host, Hulk expresses a desire to kill himself and end the Maestro’s reign. The Maestro hands him a gun and calls his bluff, explaining that they come from separate time streams, so the Hulk’s death will not affect him.
Maestro takes Hulk on a tour of his domain, accepting tribute of an attractive young woman from the survivalists, explaining how he was the only one strong enough to survive the war. The dictator invites the Hulk to join him in his reign; the Hulk agrees to think about it. That night, the Minister sneaks into Hulk’s room to assassinate him as a threat to the Minister’s position and is captured by the insurgents, who have entered through a tunnel dug by the Hulk while he was pretending to recover from his injuries. The Minister leads them to the Maestro’s room but the villain, who can out think the Hulk, is waiting for them and attacked. Maestro kills the traitorous Minister and pursues the Hulk, while the insurgents battle the palace guards. Maestro pursues Hulk’s blood trail to Rick Jones’ museum where he finds the elderly Rick and attacks him; Captain America’s shield is no defense against a savage blow and Rick is knocked across the room to be impaled on Wolverine’s claws. Hulk and Maestro battle, wrecking the museum and the villain is blinded by Betty’s ashes falling in his face. Hulk starts to get the upper hand, but Maestro, like the original Savage Hulk, gets stronger as he gets madder. Pursuing the injured Hulk, the Maestro is lured into Doom’s time machine and hurled back to the New Mexico desert, where he sees two figures running in the distance. Realizing where he is, he looks around to see the gamma bomb just as it detonates. The blast that bathes Bruce Banner with the radiation that will turn him into the Hulk atomizes the Maestro, ending his threat forever. Back in Dystopia, just before he returns to his own time, Hulk and Janis pour Rick’s ashes on Cap’s shield and Hulk hurls it into the sky.