Look! The cover of issue #46 is a wonderful tribute to Apocalypse Now.
Home Base’s Agent Pratt returns and attacks Banner, but Sandra Verdugo is also alive–and she intervenes to save him. Pratt’s nearly invulnerable so he survives Verdugo shooting him in the face repeatedly. As for Sandra, she is a kind of vampire (but not actually a vampire) who needs blood to regenerate–but doesn’t have to kill her “donor.”
At one point, she takes blood from a kid with leukemia and cures him…
Which brings us back to Banner’s cancer. Sandra can cure him by transferring her blood to him–but it stops him from turning into Hulk until the end of the arc.
We finally get to the big showdown of Banner vs. Pratt in issues #48 and 49, and #49 gives us another wonderful tribute cover…
Pratt snaps Banner’s neck, seemingly killing him…
…But apparently he is immortal…
Hulk then smashes Pratt into 78 pieces.
The story ends with Banner and Verdugo splitting up and going their separate ways. The Home Base plot is still percolating.
There are quite a few horror elements here, as well as a subplot where Banner has been framed for murder.
I love this run on Hulk.