Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men and the Avengers

by Greg Cox

  “Get me over there,” he requested, before handing the mike back to Iron Man, who replaced it in his neck assembly while Cap strapped his shield back onto his back.

  The golden Avenger nodded. “You want a ride, you got it,” he said, his voice mechanically amplified once more. He clamped his iron gauntlets around Cap’s wrists and ignited his boot jets.

  Cap felt the wind rushing against his face as Iron Man carried him into the air with impressive speed and much more volume than the Vision had produced in his takeoff; it was like hitching a ride on a man-sized 747. Cap’s own red boots dangled above the rushing Niagara River for only a second or two, then he spotted dry land beneath him. Working together like a piece of flawless Stark technology, Iron Man released his grip on Captain America, who somersaulted through the air, landing on his feet just in time to see the Hulk hurtling back to Earth, with the Vision flying away in hot pursuit of Bruce Banner’s green-skinned alter ego. Iron Man circled overhead, keeping a careful watch over both his teammates, ready to intervene wherever he was most needed.

  Cap looked around him, appalled at the devastation. The northern tip of the island looked like No Man’s Land, with flattened trees and gaping craters, the latter where the Hulk had yanked his boulders from the ground. Shield in hand to defend himself from the whizzing rockets and gunfire, Cap raced across the battlefield, nimbly evading every pitfall, until he came to face-to-face with the X-Men’s youthful leader.

  “All right, son,” he informed Cyclops sternly, raising his voice over the hubbub, “I’m giving you a chance to explain what this is all about.”

  The scarlet glow behind the X-Man’s visor made it impossible to read the younger man’s eyes. Cap waited tensely for Cyclops’s reply, ready to raise his shield at the first sign of hostile action on the X-Man’s part, but hoping sincerely that further violence could be avoided. Bombs exploded in the background, as, beneath his shining visor, Cyclops’s lips moved urgently.

  Cap couldn’t make out a word he said.

  * * *

  THE Hulk had become nothing more than a faint green speck in the sky before gravity finally caught up with him. As the Vision tracked his quarry’s progress via artificial eyes, the Hulk accelerated downward almost as steeply as he had climbed, landing feetfirst midway across the Crestline of the Horseshoe Falls. The splash created by his semi-seismic return drenched onlookers all along the Canadian border and soaked the super-powered occupants of the island as well, all except for the Vision who let the inundating spray of droplets pass through his immaterial form.

  I cannot allow obsolete and outdated memory files to distract me from my task, he affirmed, letting the unsolicited recollections of his wedding slip back into his memory banks. Instead he carefully considered the Hulk’s latest tactic.

  The raging current rushing over the Falls would be more than enough to push anyone else over the brink, but not the Hulk. He stood hip-deep in the cascading foam, adamantly immobile despite the countless gallons of water surging past him.

  “You clowns want me?” he hollered at the Vision and the X-Men, as fixed in his footing as the ancient cliff itself. Surging white water was forced to flow around the pillars of his legs. “Come and get me!”

  Cyclops’s mouth gaped open, only half of his startled expression concealed by his gleaming metal visor. Wet brown hair lay plastered atop his skull and water dripped from his soaked blue uniform. Obviously, there was no way the X-Man could follow the Hulk out into the river; the torrential current would wash him over the Falls almost instantly, eyebeams or no eyebeams.

  The Vision was not so readily thwarted. Leaving the X-Man behind, he reduced his weight as well as his density and floated off the ground and out over that fork of the river which flowed between Goat Island and Ontario. “Stay where you are, Hulk,” he commanded coldly, the wind blowing through his face. “I do not fear to join you upon the very precipice you have chosen.”

  As easily as he could make himself lightweight, he could also increase his density until he became as hard as diamond and as heavy as solid neutronium. Sinking into the frothing white water only a few feet away from the Hulk, he let his swiftly-accumulating mass anchor him to the rocky riverbed no less steadfastly than his emerald opponent, until his boots were deeply embedded in the silt and stone below the rushing current. Epidermal sensors in his legs registered the lower temperature of the icy water as opposed to the open air, but he experienced little discomfort; the solar energy that powered him also helped his more heat-sensitive components resist the sudden chill. His lengthy yellow cloak, composed of unstable molecules, remained selectively intangible, the better to avoid becoming tangled in the rapids.

  “So, just can’t take a hint, huh?” the Hulk rumbled, his words almost lost beneath the clamor of the Falls at their feet. He leered barbarically, savoring the prospect of physical violence. “Okay, let’s do this the hard way… just the way I like it.”

  He reached out for the Vision, presumably with the intent of breaking the synthezoid in two, but the Vision grabbed onto the Hulk’s wrists, holding him back for a few moments. His gloved fingers failed to reach all the way around the Hulk’s thick wrists, making it difficult to keep his grip as the Hulk leaned forward, pushing against the Vision’s defense with all the force of oncoming bullet train. The Vision had to increase his corporeal density to its utmost limit, his feet sinking deep into solid rock, just to keep the Hulk out of arm’s reach.

  “You’re tough, robot,” the Hulk grudgingly admitted, “but not tough enough. Get ready for a really big fall.”

  They grappled like mythic champions above the awesome spectacle of the Falls, the dark green of the Vision’s skintight costume contrasting against the chartreuse hue of the Hulk’s coarse hide, the synthezoid’s spectral cape spreading out from his shoulders like a streaming yellow banner. Despite his considerable mass, the Vision felt his heels sliding backwards, digging parallel trenches into the stony riverbed. He fought to regain his footing, only to realize that he could not long resist the unremitting pressure of the Hulk’s advance. But perhaps his opponent’s overpowering momentum could be turned against him?

  With an instant’s thought, the Vision shed his dense solidity, becoming vaporous once more. The sudden evaporation of all resistance caused the Hulk to topple forward, falling face-first into the foaming water, which rolled him inexorably toward the crest of the awesome cataract—and a staggeringly rough descent.

  Weightless and watchful, The Vision levitated in the air a few feet past the brink, not to mention over one hundred and fifty feet above the misty pool below. He had no fear that an unwanted trip over the Horseshoe Falls would kill or even seriously injure the Hulk, but perhaps the rocky plunge would knock some of the combative spirit out of the ferocious malefactor, making him more amenable to the Vision’s planned interrogation. There was even some slight possibility, which the synthezoid estimated at approximately 15.64%, that the arduous plunge would be sufficient to trigger the Hulk’s metamorphosis back into Bruce Banner, who was, in fact, the very individual the Avengers most desired to question.

  I can only hope for such a fortuitous development, the Vision thought, looking on dispassionately as the Hulk clung desperately to the crest of the cataract, struggling to keep from washing over the edge. The Vision began to descend slowly toward the pool, readying himself to fish either Banner or the Hulk from the churning water at the foot of the Falls.

  But, to the Vision’s surprise, the Hulk did not plunge as promptly as the android Avenger expected. Instead, the Hulk fought back against the relentless current, rising slowly to his hands and knees amidst the savage torrent, throwing back his head to gasp for air above the waves crashing against his head and shoulders. He sputtered, coughing out great mouthfuls of water that ran down his chin and back into the river. Even the Vision’s imperturbable plastic face displayed a degree of astonishment and open wonder as, defying all probability and reasonable expectation, the obstinate green titan rose again to
his feet.

  “Gutless coward!” he accused the hovering Vision. Water streamed from his matted emerald hair, irrigating the crevices between his bulging muscles. “A cheap trick like that can’t stop the Hulk! Come back and fight me like a man, you chicken-hearted mannequin!”

  The Vision felt no need to defend his man-made masculinity, but acknowledged that his ploy had failed to overcome the Hulk’s truly remarkable perseverance and stamina.

  Very well, he cogitated. I have other strategies to employ.

  Reversing his gradual descent, the Vision floated back to the Crestline. “This conflict is unnecessary,” he reminded the Hulk, regaining sufficient mass to immerse his legs in the current a second time. He waded across the rapids, waist-deep in the spewing water, until he came close enough to thrust an intangible arm deep into the Hulk’s inhumanly broad chest. His right forearm disappeared entirely within the Hulk. The tips of his ethereal fingers emerged from the monster’s back. “All we desire is information, followed by your peaceful departure from this venue. Spare yourself further discomfort.”

  “Spare this!” the Hulk bellowed, throwing a gigantic fist at the Vision’s face.

  Simultaneously, the Avenger resorted to his most aggressive, and consistently effective, offensive tactic, partially materializing his arm within the very substance of the Hulk’s body. As two solid objects could not occupy the same space at the same time, the subject of such an invasion invariably suffered intense and incapacitating pain. It was a delicate procedure, requiring acute concentration; if he allowed his arm to become too fully solid, he could easily kill even so indestructible an entity as the Hulk.

  Said concentration was not made any easier by the physical shock of the Hulk’s fist smashing into the Vision’s face. Knuckles like concrete slammed into a diamond-hard mask, although some portion of the force of the blow was sapped at the last minute by the convulsive agony that spread from the Hulk’s chest to the rest of his Herculean body. Even still, the punch rattled the Vision’s cybernetic synapses and knocked his entire super-hard body back a few inches, dangerously dislodging his precarious footing upon the watery ledge. On the other side of the Hulk’s thick torso, the Vision’s extended fingers sank back into the chartreuse flesh as if it were a pool of quicksand.

  “Arrgh!” the Hulk howled, throwing back his head in agony, his emerald eyes bulging from their sockets. He clutched at the phantom arm invading his flesh, but his beefy fingers passed through it fruitlessly. “What are you doin’ to me?”

  “Surrender,” the Vision said concisely, declining to explain the precise nature of his attack. Still reeling from the Hulk’s single blow, he considered rendering his entire body as insubstantial as his arm, but feared that he would not be able to hold his position without the excess mass weighing him to the rocky floor below. No matter what other blows he might endure, he could not allow the Hulk the slightest chance of dislodging the synthezoid’s invasive arm before it had completed its task of subduing the bellicose colossus.

  Already the Hulk had resisted his transcorporeal assault longer than the average organic being. Most foes succumbed almost immediately, the acute systemic shock reducing even the most intransigent of adversaries to unconsciousness within a matter of seconds. As with the Hulk’s triumph over the current only moments ago, however, the verdant giant’s astonishing recuperative powers again undid the Vision’s carefully reasoned calculations. To his confoundment, the very substance of the Hulk’s being seemed to resist the synthezoid’s intrusion on a cellular, even a molecular, level. The Vision grimaced in unaccustomed discomfort as the Hulk’s atomic structure refused to give way to his own synthetic flesh and bone, squeezing his semi-solid atoms all the way down to their collapsing nuclei. A surprisingly human gasp escaped the Vision’s sculpted lips.

  “Hah! Didn’t expect that, did you?” the Hulk gloated. His enormous body quivered in pain, but the Hulk somehow managed a malignant sneer, as if daring the synthezoid to push the fight further. The surface of his skin seethed and bubbled where it intersected with the Vision’s ethereal limb, a visible symptom of his flesh’s tireless struggle to expel the foreign material. Irrationally, or perhaps not, the Vision imagined that he was trying to subdue an unusually malignant, humanoid form of cancer. “Give me your best shot!” the living green cancer dared him.

  Wanda is in danger, the Vision recalled. I cannot fail. The Hulk’s gamma-charged body had become a battleground upon which the Vision knew he dared not lose. The Hulk defied logic, overthrew all standards of rationality; if unreliable emotional responses could provide him with whatever extra capacity he required to vanquish this indefatigable beast, then for once the Vision welcomed them. He thrust his arm so deep into the Hulk’s breast that his gloved yellow hand penetrated straight through the monstrosity’s spine and came out the other side. Wanda, my wife…

  “You don’t get it, do you?” the Hulk mocked him. Spidery tracings of green streaked the Hulk’s bloodshot eyes. “You can’t beat me. You can just make me mad.” The Hulk glared at him with gleeful malice, a rictus-like sneer distorting his bestial countenance. His hot, foul breath offended the Vision’s olfactory sensors. Stubborn green flesh writhed at the point of contact between the Vision’s untouchable limb and the Hulk’s palpitating muscles. “And you know what? The madder I get, the stronger I get…!”

  That is scientifically improbable, the Vision thought, with something resembling desperation. Nonetheless, the Hulk’s endurance indeed appeared to be increasing at a geometric rate; new muscles, unseen in any anatomy text, formed atop preexisting layers of sinew. The Vision willed his arm to near full substantiality, exceeding every humane safety limit he had ever maintained, yet the Hulk remained standing. Beads of greenish sweat broke out on his sloping brow, and his rippling thews pulsated convulsively, but he stayed fixed in place like some solid green outcropping of the cliff beneath him.

  The Vision looked no less unbending, his arm thrust out in front of him, buried up to his elbow in the Hulk’s breastbone, a yellow hand protruding between the monster’s shoulderblades. Spasms of pseudopain ran up the Vision’s arm, triggering his innate programming for self-preservation, but he did not withdraw his arm or abandon his attack— until the Hulk, grinding his teeth together loud enough to be heard over both the Falls and the artillery, grabbed onto the not quite solidified arm at the shoulder, right where it connected with the rest of the Vision’s ultradense body, and ripped the entire limb from its socket.

  Sparks flared from the ruptured torso. Oily lubricants and hydraulic fluid sprayed from severed tubing, disappearing rapidly into the constant flow of the river. The Vision’s head jerked spastically, his overloaded circuits struggling to process the full effect of his arm’s brutal amputation.

  “W-w-warning,” he stuttered, like a malfunctioning tape recording. The jewel in his brow flashed on and off. “M-m-major damage to structural integrity. Im-immediate repair is nec-necessary—”

  The severed arm, semi-liquid in appearance, dangled like a tendril of green and yellow jelly from the Hulk’s chest. He raised a dark green eyebrow and, with a surly wince, plucked the invading arm out of his body, producing a slight sucking sound that the Vision was in no position to hear. He carelessly tossed the gelid limb over the Falls, then shoved the tottering, sparking synthezoid with the flat of his hand.

  “W-w-warning,” the Vision repeated automatically. He was dimly aware of gravity seizing him as he toppled over the brink of the Horseshoe. “W-w-w-warning—” The Hulk vanished from his field of vision, supplanted by a kaleidoscope of rotating images that spun in front of him as he accelerated downward through empty space, unable to stabilize his internal systems fast enough to discard the weight that was pulling him toward a rough landing in turbulent waters. His yellow cloak wrapped around him like a cocoon.

  My apologies, Wanda, the Vision thought, as he hurtled toward the churning surface of the pool. This mechanism has failed you again…

  * * *

&
nbsp; “I’M not sure this is such a good idea,” the cameraman said as he climbed aboard the boat, stepping awkwardly off the gangplank onto the riveted steel deck. He stared nervously at the looming Falls, towering above them at the far end of the pool. His blue rain slicker was already damp from the spray.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the anchorman replied, a note of impatience marring his mellifluous baritone. He paced impatiently toward the prow, leading the way. “This is the biggest story to hit Niagara since Marilyn filmed that movie here in 1952.”

  Not to mention my ticket to the big time, Cliff Barron thought; he’d spent enough time paying his dues at that dinky local station in Buffalo. This was his chance to impress the bigwigs at the networks, maybe even land a spot on the evening news. “This story belongs to me, and I want to be live on the scene, right at ground zero!”

  “Yeah, sure,” the cameraman said unenthusiastically. His name was Muckerheide, but everyone called him Muck. His portable camera sat poised upon his shoulder. “But what about the cannons and stuff?” Even as he spoke, shells exploded at the top of the Horseshoe Falls, adding to the chaos in the distance.

  The flunky’s foot-dragging just annoyed Barron, who was anxious to be underway. What if the Hulk surrenders before we get there? “They’re firing at the Hulk, not us,” he insisted. “Besides, they wouldn’t dare put us in danger. We’re the press. We have a First Amendment right to be here.” He paused and looked to the west, toward scenic Ontario. “Um, they do have a First Amendment in Canada, right?”

  Muck shrugged, apparently resigned to his fate. He dabbed at the lens of his camera with a dry cloth while Barron nodded at the ship’s captain to set sail. The grizzled boatman muttered under his breath, like he was already regretting his decision to ferry the avid newsmen in exchange for a generous bribe, but took his place at the helm, a deck above his two passengers. A few minutes later, the all-steel, double-deck tour ship chugged away from the dock, with Barron and his one-man film crew standing at the prow. A matched set of American and Canadian flags waved from the back of the small craft.