We return to the “Home Base” storyline. Home Base is a clandestine group that has been trying to kill or capture Hulk for about two years now. Agents of Home Base confront Doc Samson—who has been helping Banner as he lays low and tries to elude them—but Sandra Verdugo intercedes and kills the agents. I’m not going to get into all the details, but it seems Doc Samson and Sandra had a child together, and that’s the recurring character who has been in several of the prior arcs involving Sandra. The kid is taken by Home Base. Samson and Sandra decide to find Mr. Blue, hoping that Blue can help them find Bruce who can then turn into Hulk and rescue their boy. And, it turns out, the kid (Ricky Meyers) may be able to clear Banner of the murder charges that started him on the run in the first place.
“Mr. Blue”—the double agent for Home Base who has been helping Bruce—is revealed to have had plastic surgery to hide her true appearance and we finally see that it’s really Betty Ross. (Thought she was dead? Me too.) The Leader, who is the head of Home Base, dispatches creatures known as The Krill to kill Mr. Blue.
Finally, Bruce Banner also is heading to Mr. Blue’s location.
The three storylines converge. Hulk fights the Krill.
Turns out they are vulnerable to water towers! I used my “NYC Water Towers” tag here, even though we aren’t in NYC. If you don’t like it, I’ll give you your money back.
A few escape, and the group follows them back to Home Base, where we finally get out big fight.
Nadia seems to escape the base with Banner only to learn it’s a clone…
We still never CLEARLY see that Leader is behind all this, but there are enough partial shots of his face to tell.
The base is destroyed, and Sandra Verdugo and her son are seemingly killed in the nuclear blast. Also, Leader still has a sample of Hulk’s blood and has escaped with it.
This story resolves a bunch of questions and dangling storylines that have been hanging out for a long time. It’s not very satisfying, though, because Leader escapes in the end and because it’s not clear how Betty is still alive. I see the next arc is called, “Dead Like Me,” so maybe we’ll get some answers.
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