It’s no secret that Bruce Banner doesn’t exactly have his alter ego, the Hulk, under control. But what happens when the Hulk takes over completely? In Greg Pak’s Planet Hulk, we’re about to find out.
After an attack on the Hulk ends in tragedy, a group of heroes devise a plan to keep Earth safe from the Hulk for good, even if it means banishing Bruce Banner and condemning him alongside the Hulk. The group, called the Illuminati, trick Banner into boarding a space shuttle to repair a damaged satellite, and plan to send him to a planet where the Hulk can’t hurt anyone … and no one will hurt Bruce Banner.
Banner discovers the Illuminati’s treachery and transforms into the Hulk halfway through his space journey, crashing the ship into the planet Sakaar. He is captured and sold into slavery, forced to fight in gladiatorial competitions under the mantle of “Green Scar.”
It’s not long before Hulk is Sakaar’s most popular gladiator, but his fans and masters don’t know all that he is capable of. With fellow gladiators Miek, Brood, Korg, Hiroim, and Elloe Kaifi, Hulk sparks a revolution. But will he improve Sakaar or destroy it? After all, the Hulk is known to be destructive, and with revenge fueling his actions, just how calamitous could he be?
To discover how Bruce Banner survives the Hulk’s time on Sakaar — and witness the war Hulk wages on the corrupt planet. Check out the first chapter of Planet Hulk by Greg Pak below, and download the eBook today!
____________________
____________________
Planet Hulk
Prologue
The puny human opened his eyes and sobbed.
He lay in a crater in the middle of the desert, chest bare, pants shredded. He couldn’t remember a thing. But his muscles tingled, alive and burning.
He knew what had happened.
He’d smashed.
He could still feel the sting on his knuckles, the tight thrum of joy in his heartbeat. It had been glorious and violent and entirely out of control. An image of shattering stone and glass flashed through his brain. A thunderous crash and thrilling, vertiginous disorientation as 20 stories of concrete and steel twisted, swayed, and crumbled—
He gasped for air, sobbing. He’d toppled buildings. Destroyed a block. Maybe even a city …
Oh, god.
Had he finally killed someone?
A sharp, hissing whine filled the air and he spun, rising to a crouch, as dust and sand swirled around him. A piercing ray of sunlight reflected off a curve of titanium and burned his eyes. And then the thing was upon him with a great roar.
A shuttle descended before him, engines blazing, turning sand to glass as it touched down. Its hatch cracked open and a tall, thin figure shimmered into existence, his long arms impossibly extended, swirling around his body.
This was the age of heroes, when humans and mutants and gods walked the Earth with unbelievable powers. Fantastic, amazing, uncanny, and strange, they had banded together to save the world, time and time again.
A holographic projection of Dr. Reed Richards—the smartest man on the planet, with the ability to stretch his body impossible lengths in all directions— gazed down at the puny human and smiled gently.
“Bruce, how are you?”
Bruce Banner, his face crumbling, stared up at his old friend.
“Reed … What happened? What did—what did I do?”
Reed took a breath, composing his face, and Bruce’s heart plummeted into his gut. Reed was brilliant. But he never could hide anything he was thinking.
“It’s not your fault, Bruce.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What happened?”
“A rogue general tried to take you out. Hit you with a gamma MOAB a mile outside of Vegas. You rampaged. Tore into the city, smashed some cars, ripped up some streets. And then he hit you again.”
“Wait, what?”
“He bombed Vegas. Three buildings fell. Thirty-seven people died. And two dogs.”
Bruce stood in silence, swaying slightly. His head felt light, his skin cold. A great shudder rippled through his entire body. He was going into shock, about to pass out … or worse …
“Bruce. Listen to me.” Reed’s voice took on a subtle tension. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t bring down those buildings. You’re not a murderer. You never have been and never will be.”
Bruce turned away and stared out over the desert. Thirty-seven people. He pictured their bodies. Imagined their relatives in the morgue, coming to identify them. Their faces breaking, their terrible grief flowing like blood from an open wound. And two dogs? What kinds of dogs? He closed his eyes, shook his head. Dumb question, didn’t matter … but he imagined a corgi and a medium-sized mutt with gray hair and a big, goofy grin, and tears welled in his eyes. And what about kids? Babies? He opened his mouth but couldn’t form the words. Didn’t matter who pulled the trigger, who dropped the bomb. If he’d never come to their town; if he’d never entered their state; if he’d never existed …
“Bruce …” Reed’s voice pinged away in the background, quietly but insistently. Something about the shuttle. A crisis. A mission. An artificial intelligence taking over a satellite controlling 10,000 nuclear missiles …
“We need you, Bruce.”
Reed’s hologram stepped aside and gestured toward the shuttle door.
“You’re the only one with the technical know-how and the brute strength necessary to handle this threat.”
Bruce blinked. His brain ran over Reed’s words a thousand times in an instant. But he couldn’t wrap his mind around them. What was Reed offering? Cracking open a door, filling the room with light, with hope? No. Thirty-seven people. Two dogs. Bruce squeezed his eyes shut.
“Bruce. Listen to me. You’re a hero. You always have been. Now get in that shuttle and save the world.”
Reed smiled gently. Then his image shimmered and vanished.
Bruce stood alone in the desert, staring at the gleaming shuttle. He felt the hot sun on his back. A hundred miles behind him was Vegas. Mayhem and blood and death and guilt forever and ever.
But cool air from the shuttle’s interior drifted over his face. Screens inside glowed with images and data streams of the threat in the stars. His brain had already begun to manipulate the information, puzzle through the code, find a solution. The door in his mind creaked open. Light filled the room.
Save the world.
Bruce took a shuddering breath. A broken smile trembled on his lips. He stepped inside.
Amadeus Cho, a 16-year-old Korean-American super-genius with a coyote pup tucked into his oversized army jacket, raced down the highway on his Vespa. He screamed into his headphone mic, his heart pounding with righteous fury as he stared at the sky.
“Banner! You gotta get out of there, now!”
But high in the sky, the sun caught the shuttle’s gleaming hull with one final wink; then the engines fired and the shuttle disappeared, blazing up into the stratosphere. Amadeus screeched to a halt, pulled a small tablet out of his pocket, and began tapping furiously. He focused hard, staring at the code, puzzling through it, and his brain did what his brain did and kicked into high gear like a rocket catching fire. Amadeus grinned.
Inside the shuttle, Bruce blinked, confused, as the boy’s voice crackled out of the hacked comm system.
“Banner! Can you hear me? You gotta Hulk the heck out and rip through the hull right now! It’s all a trick! You’ve got 30 seconds before you hit the exosphere and—”
Amadeus’ voice crackled and broke off.
Reed’s hologram shimmered before Bruce. Three other solemn, shining heroes stood behind Reed—Iron Man, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange. So righteous, so just. But when Reed spoke, his voice was tight and strained.
“I’m sorry, Bruce. I know it’s not your fault. Like I said, you didn’t kill those people in Vegas…”
Bruce’s heart began to pound.
“… but they’re dead nonetheless. Time and time again, your anger and power have endangered innocents. Someday, someone could use you to threaten the entire planet.”
Bruce hunched, clenching his fists, feeling the blood surging through his veins and muscles. Amadeus had told him to Hulk out, to let out the monster, to tear this stupid shuttle to pieces. But Amadeus didn’t understand. He’d only met Bruce a year before, just after the Hulk had saved the boy from secret agents in black helicopters in the desert. They’d bonded for an instant—a puny teenager and a green giant whose shared impulse-control issues seemed to terrify everyone else on the planet. Amadeus loved the Hulk, thrilled at his righteous anger. But the boy had no idea what Banner was really capable of … what the Hulk could do if he ever really …
Banner pictured the Hulk tearing through the hull, tumbling through the sky, hitting the sand in a shower of fire and debris. And then grinning darkly and bounding east across the landscape, heading for the stupid, puny heroes in their shining towers. He’d tear them to pieces, rip them out of the sky and smash and smash and smash …
Banner fought his racing heart, fought the anger welling up in every cell in his body. He whispered to himself, scrambling through the countless mantras, prayers, and wards he’d tried over the years, all adding up to little more than one eternal word echoing in a thousand different ways:
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
“I have always thought of us as friends, Bruce,” Reed continued. “So I am truly, genuinely sorry for the trickery. But for your sake and ours, we’re sending you away. It’s the only way we can be sure. I know that you must hate us, but I believe in my heart that this may be the greatest opportunity of your life. We’ve picked your destination carefully. A lush planet, full of vegetation and game, but no intelligent life-forms. There will be no one there to hurt you. And no one you can hurt. You always said you wanted to be left alone. May you finally find peace. Goodbye, Bruce.”
But Bruce Banner was gone.
Now there was only the Hulk.
