Synopsis / Summary / Plot
2 months ago it's Bruce Banner's funeral. As angry protesters wish him in hell, his friends gather round the grave. Tony Stark, Dr Strange, Thing and Hercules all reminisce. Ex-wife (and ex-Red She-Hulk) Betty Ross declines to speak, but Rick Jones comments on how many heroes aren't there. And he counters the demonstrators by reminding them of how many times Hulk/Banner was a hero who saved the world. In reply he gets a bottle thrown at his head.
The crowd rush the police cordon, until Silver Surfer uses the Power Cosmic to share his empathy and calm them down. Then he and Dawn Greenwood fly off on his board. Everyone else leaves too except Betty, Rick and the Warbound (Elloe of Sakaar, Korg the Kronan and No-Name of the Brood, Hulk's allies from Planet Hulk and World War Hulk).
Korg says they must seek out the other 4 Hulks. The Warbound will find Hulk's son Skaar. Betty will talk to She-Hulk when she wakes from her coma (from Civil War II #1), and to her father Gen'l Ross/Red Hulk in prison. Rick Jones will find Amadeus Cho/Hulk who reacted badly to Bruce's death and is on the run from SHIELD.
Skip forward to after Hawkeye is acquitted at his trial for Bruce's murder.
Betty Ross visits her jailed father, whose main concern is verifying that Banner really is dead. He's sorry for Bruce and Betty, but he's glad the menace Hulk is gone. And he suspects that Betty has something planned, which she denies.
Skaar is living in the Pyrenees as a trapper named Santos. He returns from the wild to sell some pelts and learns about his father's death and the result of Hawkeye's trial. He goes back to the woods and turns to stone. Which is where the Warbound find him.
They speak to his inert form about Hulk's deeds on Sakaar, and how his unborn son was lost on the destroyed planet but was later reunited with his father on Earth. They finally get through to him and he de-stonifies himself.
Rick Jones is in 1 of Hulk's old bases in the Mojave desert. he's still not found Cho. Betty turns up and discovers him holding a big gun - and correctly deduces he wants to go kill Clint Barton. But she talks him down.
Then Betty, Rick, Skaar and the Warbound are called by Matt Murdock to the reading of Bruce's will. Stephen Strange and Tony Stark are there too. And Murdock has been able to get hold of Amadeus. (Jennifer Walters is still in her coma.)
It's a video will, and after a general farewell telling them not to feel guilty about feeling relief that Hulk is gone Bruce comes to his bequests.
He leaves Tony the solution to a scientific problem that had been nagging him for some time.
Bruce didn't believe in ghosts, but Hulk could see them and talk to them - or things that said they were ghosts. He gives Dr Strange his notes on the subject.
But his main bequest is to Amadeus, Betty, Jen, Rick, Skaar and the Warbound. As well as an equal share in his fairly small estate he gives them all an equal share in the corporation which looks after his patents. Most of the money from that company goes to recompensing victims of Hulk's rampages. But there's still enough on top for a generous regular dividend for each of them.
Amadeus and Jen will manage the company. But he also has some more gifts for the others individually.
For the Warbound he has drawn up plans to recreate their Sakaarian stone starship which the corporation will build if they ever want to leave Earth. Betty gets the documents for a new identity if she needs to escape her wrecked past. And Rick gets Jimi Hendrix' guitar.
Plus each of them gets a kitchen timer. He advises them to use his old method for controlling anger - wait 3 minutes.
Betty takes her timer to sit with She-Hulk and say goodbye to Bruce. Tears run down from Jennifer Walters' eyes too.
The Warbound go with Skaar back to the Pyrenees. The Warbound are content, but Skaar maybe not so much.
Rick Jones plays the guitar.
But Amadeus Cho can't contain his anger and bounds off as Hulk.