Marvel Novel Series 11 - The Hulk and Spider-Man - Murdermoon

by Paul Kupperberg

  “No. Hulk is tired of running away from lights.”

  “C’mon, this’ll only be the second time.”

  The man-brute snarled at the sky. “Hulk does not run away from lights or anything else anymore. Hulk is staying!

  “And Hulk fights!”

  The Hulk loped over to the bubbling pit created by the maser beam. He turned his face to the sky and awaited the next blast with fists clenched and snarling in defiance.

  The green Goliath did not have to wait long.

  A slender finger of light reached from the sky and burst across the Hulk’s chest. The maser beam washed over him and forced the big green man down on one knee.

  “You big, stupid . . . !” Spider-Man growled to himself as he ran to the Hulk’s side. That idiot’ll keep standing there until that thing turns him into one big strip of overfried bacon!

  Spidey slammed into the Hulk’s back as hard as he could. Weakened by the searing heat of the masers, the emerald colossus fell to the ground and rolled out from under the deadly fire.

  “Hulk . . . thought bug-eyes . . . was his friend,” the Hulk grumbled weakly. “Wh . . . does bug-eyes . . . attack Hulk?” The giant seemed wounded by the Wall-crawler’s action.

  “Nothing personal, big guy,” Spidey assured him in a hurry. “But you can’t fight these things like this. We’ve got to smash this beam at the source.”

  “Hulk is not afraid of stupid lights!”

  “Maybe you’re not, Greenie,” Spider-Man said. “On the other hand, it’s not afraid of you either. And considering it can kill you while you can’t touch it, I think we’d better get out of here.”

  “Hulk can smash!”

  “Not here, friend,” the Web-slinger said.

  The street to their right exploded.

  “But I know where we can go where you can smash to your little green heart’s content.”

  The Hulk’s angry scowl turned into a savage smile.

  “Okay, bug-eyes,” the man-brute said. “Hulk will follow you.”

  Twenty-Three

  The Incredible Hulk took to the sky.

  His leap carried him and a slightly nervous Spider-Man over the dingy wooden-frame storefronts to a residential street several blocks over. The maser beam tracked its prey from its perch 23,000 miles up in space. With uncanny mechanical accuracy, the maser aboard SpySat traced an exact line behind the flying Hulk, its deadly beam piercing pencil-thin holes through rooftops and streets.

  Thoomp!

  The Hulk landed and turned. He roared in anger when he saw the lethal light still behind him and closing fast. In quick succession, the maser beam sliced through the awning over a porch, the stairs of the same house, the front lawn, the sidewalk and a car.

  Fahwooomsshh!

  The ruby red-hot beam ignited the volatile fuel in the car’s tank. The automobile burst into a flaming ball of heat and sound and Spider-Man ducked behind the Hulk’s thick, broad back for protection from the shower of shattered glass and flaming metal shards that followed.

  The green Goliath swept Spider-Man into his arms and took to the air, the maser beam pursuing them relentlessly over the streets of Niagara Falls.

  As they descended to the streets, Spider-Man spotted an elderly man shuffling obliviously from a luncheonette, zipping along at a surprising clip with his white walking stick tapping the ground before him.

  Oh-oh! Hulk’s going to put down next to that old man . . .

  The sidewalk beneath the Hulk’s feet exploded as he was landing. The man-monster hit the smoldering asphalt at an awkward angle and lost his balance. As he fell, he threw Spider-Man clear, just as the ground next to the Hulk vaporized in an eruption of dust.

  Snarling, the jade-hued giant pounded both of his massive fists into the sidewalk, splitting the concrete for fifteen feet in either direction.

  But the maser beam was following Spider-Man as he rolled across the street, heading uncontrollably, thanks to the Hulk’s careless throw, toward the old man. “Get out of the way!” the Wall-crawler screamed. The old man kept walking straight into the hail of deadly fire.

  Damn! He must be deaf as well as blind!

  Still rolling, Spidey twisted into a somersault while simultaneously firing a strand of webbing at a nearby lamp post. He pulled himself from the ground and swung in a high arc, the ruby-red beams only inches behind him. He swept past the old man and scooped him gently from the ground. Spidey swung back and deposited the struggling old man in a recessed doorway.

  “Sorry about the rough treatment, old timer,” he apologized even though he was fairly certain he could not be heard. “But the alternatives would’ve been a whole heck of a lot worse!”

  Spider-Man jumped to the ground and took off on a run toward his giant green companion. The Hulk, unable to unleash his anger on the streamers of light stalking him from the heavens, was venting his awesome rage on the streets of Niagara Falls. His powerful hands tore up ragged hunks of concrete and sent them hurtling through the air.

  This is getting totally out of hand. So far we’ve been lucky and nobody’s been killed . . . yet! But that old man back there proves that luck can’t hold up much longer!

  The Hulk hefted a man-sized hunk of concrete over his head as a makeshift shield, but the powerful maser shattered it to rubble.

  “Hulkie baby,” the Web-slinger shouted as he leaped onto the big green man’s shoulder. “It’s time we cut the clowning around and smashed this thing once and for all!”

  “Hulk will go now,” the man-monster agreed reluctantly. “But there better be something for Hulk to smash . . . soon!”

  “Fear not, jolly green giant. I’ve got a rocket-launch site in mind you’re gonna just love!”

  Pendergast bent anxiously over Prof. Warner’s shoulder, his cold gray eyes searching the complex control console before the bearded scientist. His lean, handsome face was taut in the dim green light of the screen and beads of perspiration dotted his forehead.

  “What’s happening, Professor?” he demanded tensely.

  Warner shrugged, his eyes scanning the series of green letters that crawled rapidly across his screen. “I—I’m not entirely certain.”

  “Has the maser beam gotten them yet or not?”

  “It’s . . . no. No, the beam is still on automatic search and fire.” Warner shook his head. “It’s remarkable, but somehow they’re avoiding the maser.”

  Pendergast straightened slowly. “I know you don’t approve of this, Prof. Warner, but I warn you, if you’re deliberately screwing this up and letting those meddlers escape, I’ll . . .”

  “No!” Warner insisted. “We never anticipated using the maser on such small, fast-moving targets. You realize that Spider-Man is an exceptionally agile man. With his remarkable reflexes, he could conceivably avoid the beam for as long as his stamina holds out. And as for the Hulk—well, frankly, I’m not even certain how effective, if at all, it will be against his supertough skin.”

  The slender man clenched his fists at his sides. “I do not like this, Professor,” he said sharply. “I do not like this at all! If Spider-Man and the Hulk are not disposed of immediately, the future of this entire project is in serious jeopardy.”

  “I know . . .” Prof. Warner started.

  He stopped suddenly, his words lost under the thundering shudder that ran through the entire building. He looked up at Pendergast, his eyes shiny with fear. “An explosion,” the professor whispered hoarsely.

  Pendergast reached across the startled scientist and stabbed a finger at a button on the console. “Sounds like it came from the hangar.”

  The large view screen on the wall lit up, showing the men and women in the control room a high-angle view of the massive hangar beyond the room.

  What they saw made them stop their work, staring in awe at the screen.

  The steel doors in the ceiling were hanging from their hydraulic hinges, smashed open as if by a great explosion. But, when Pendergast zoomed the camera in for a shot of th
e two figures standing in the center of the hangar floor, he knew that explosives and bombs were the last things in the world he would have to worry about.

  Especially now that Spider-Man and the Hulk were there!

  Pendergast swore loudly and slammed his fist on the console.

  “What should we do, Mr. Pendergast?” Warner’s voice was quivering, a pathetic whine in the stunned silence of the control room.

  “Turn off the maser,” he shouted. “We don’t want to blast ourselves! Then seal off the hangar. Get every available man in there and stop them, do you hear?

  “Here we are, Hulkie,” Spider-Man said, his arms spread wide to take in the entire hangar.

  The big green man looked down at the strangely garbed man at his side.

  “I said it’s all yours, big fella. Start smashing away.”

  “Hulk can smash . . . all this, bug-eyes?” the emerald colossus asked uncertainly.

  “Yep,” Spidey nodded.

  The Hulk’s laugh rumbled deep in his broad chest as he ambled happily over to the closest wall. Feet planted wide, he regarded the thick concrete with pleasure.

  The Hulk sent a massive green fist crashing through the wall and ripped loose huge chunks of concrete and steel reinforcement rods as he withdrew his hand. Holding the twisted debris out in his hand for Spidey’s inspection, he said, “Like this?”

  Spider-Man nodded his approval. “That’s the ticket, cutie. Now let’s see if you can break the Olympic record for building demolition, okay?”

  Grinning happily, the Hulk dropped what was in his hand and turned back to his wall.

  Who would’ve thought it? Old green eyes is nothing but a big, dumb, albeit incredibly strong kid at heart! Even though he’s in the process of tearing down a forty-foot-high concrete bunker, he acts more like a little boy with a brand-new toy than a monster.

  A steel door at the far end of the hangar rolled open and twenty men, some in the gray guards’ uniforms, others in bright-orange jump suits, rushed out. They swarmed toward the Web-slinger, several of them armed.

  Ah, it would seem the time has come for me to do my thing!

  Twenty-Four

  Spider-man’s gloved hands closed around the pistol in the guard’s hand as his other hand shot out to deliver a stinging blow to the man’s chin. The guard tumbled backward, and, before the Web-slinger could see where he landed, two more men were on him.

  He rammed his elbow into the first man’s throat and ducked easily beneath the other’s fist. Spidey gathered the front of the man’s jump suit in his fist and yanked the wide-eyed technician toward him while bringing his knee up into the man’s stomach. The orange-suited man gasped, a sound that turned to a scream when the Web-slinger lifted him off the floor.

  Spidey tossed the man through the air and sent him sprawling into a group of three others. The Wall-crawler spun around as he felt a punch glance off his shoulder. Fun is fun, but I can’t waste time fighting the hired help. That satellite and the death ray are being controlled from somewhere in here, I’m sure of it! And that’s what I’ve got to find!

  Three men rushed at Spider-Man at once. He waited until their hands were about to close on him before crouching and leaping straight up into the air. He somersaulted over their heads and landed behind his attackers.

  Spidey’s hand chopped down on a neck, then swung back and backhanded another across the small of his back. He planted his foot firmly against the third man’s rump and shoved him forward.

  Then, without pausing for breath, he fired his webbing at the ruined ceiling and pulled himself quickly out of his attacker’s reach. He swung himself forward, high over their heads, zig-zagging madly along to avoid the bullets that now whistled past him.

  Meanwhile, the Hulk was tearing a large wedge of concrete from the wall. He spun with it in his massive hands and tossed the half ton of steel and concrete at the guards like a great discus.

  “Heads up!” one man screamed and they scattered as the giant slab flew toward them.

  “Ha!” the Hulk rumbled. “Look at puny men running from Hulk. They try to stop Hulk, but Hulk will show them because Hulk is stronger than any man!

  “Hulk is the strongest one there is!”

  Nobody bothered to dispute the man-monster’s claim.

  The guards and technicians stalked the growling green Goliath with caution, shuffling toward him with guns and clubs held at the ready. Snarling his contempt, the Hulk pounded one foot on the floor. The ground shook as if caught in the grip of an earthquake, throwing the guards off their feet.

  The green behemoth leaped easily over the fallen men and landed beside the metal covering over the launch well. He crouched and dug his hands under the inch-thick steel and tugged. The metal groaned mournfully as it was peeled back like the lid of a sardine can. Then, swinging around his thick torso, the Hulk tore the thirty-foot-wide cover from the floor.

  The Hulk dug his fingers into the steel and charged at the wall with the cover held before him like a battering ram.

  The thick wall crumbled like papier-mâché under the assault, giving way to a smaller chamber alongside the hangar. The Hulk tossed aside the buckled steel cover and attacked the remainder of the wall with his bare hands. Chunks of concrete flew through the air.

  Pa-ting! Pa-ting!

  Heavy-caliber bullets flattened harmlessly against the man-monster’s broad back. With a hunk of the wall clutched in his hands, the Hulk whirled, snarling. Three men stood a dozen feet from him, firing point-blank.

  The Hulk threw the piece of wall at them. The armed men scattered as the block shattered on the ground where they had stood a moment before.

  “Puny men better leave Hulk alone,” he raged. “Or Hulk will smash men like Hulk smashes building!”

  As if to punctuate his bellowed threat, the Hulk pounded his hands into the floor, ripping up a length of flooring material and whipping it through the air like a carpet. Those unfortunate enough to be standing on that particular piece of the floor found themselves likewise whipped into the air, flying with limbs flapping like rag dolls.

  The man-monster stood motionless in the center of the room for several seconds with his dull, brutish eyes flicking across the room searching for his next target. Once located, he loped over to it and happily continued his mindless rampage of destruction.

  Dr. Daniel Irvine mopped at his glistening forehead with a moist handkerchief as he watched the view screen on the wall of the control room. Indeed, everyone not engaged in vital operations of the orbiting SpySat were staring in disbelief at what they saw.

  The Hulk had jumped down into the exposed launch well and was busily demolishing it. Every bit of equipment he could wrap his great, green hands around was torn from the bottom of the thirty-foot pit. Steel and cement pads, massive exhaust funnels, fuel and telemetry lines, steel braces, all went flying out of the well. The debris spun through the air before crashing and clanging back to the floor.

  “God help us,” Dr. Irvine whispered in a mixture of fear and awe.

  Pendergast glanced sharply at the scientist. “Can’t you do something, Irvine?”

  “Me?” Irvine’s answer was punctuated with a shrill giggle. “Whatever in the hell do you think I can do about the monster?”

  “You did it once before, Doctor!”

  “Yes, and I could do it again—provided you deliver him unconscious to the isolation chamber so I can implant another control device in his ear!” The scientist was verging on hysteria as he watched the giant man-monster destroy everything he had worked to help create. He twisted the soaking handkerchief in his trembling hands. “Spider-Man knocked the damned thing out!”

  Prof. Warner sat with his eyes glued to the view screen while he listened passively to the frantic reports coming in over his earphones. The complex was falling apart around them. The guard force had fled when the Hulk had begun tossing the wreckage about the hangar. But the bearded scientist was strangely calm despite all that was happening. He knew this
endeavor was finished, shattered to a smoldering pile of rubble by a giant green monster and his bizarrely garbed companion, yet this fact did not bother him. Warner knew it should. After all, three years of his life were invested in the microwave transceiver and SpySat’s delivery system.

  But it just didn’t matter anymore. Not SpySat, not the microwave device, not Pendergast and his omnipresent-yet-unseen investors.

  Not anything. It was merely a matter of time.

  “Professor!” Pendergast barked. “There must be something you can do?”

  “I’m an old man,” Abraham Warner sighed. “I can’t go out there and fight the thing with my bare hands.”

  “Damn it,” Pendergast screamed, his cool, professional façade beginning to crumble as rapidly as the walls outside the control room were crumbling under the Hulk’s fists.

  “What kind of bumbling morons am I dealing with? How can you both just stand there and let those . . . those freaks destroy everything we’ve worked for?”

  “What do you expect us to do, Pendergast?” Dr. Irvine snapped. “You and your people planned and built this installation, not us! If there are no provisions to handle trouble like this, we aren’t the ones to blame. Not us.”

  Pendergast rested his clenched fists on top of Prof. Warner’s console, squeezing shut his eyes against the painful glare from the view screen. “All right,” he said slowly through tightly clenched teeth. “This is no time to get at each other’s throats and panic. We must remain calm. Think this problem out logically.”

  Dr. Irvine shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his lab coat, bitterly regarding the giant green monster on the screen.

  “Fine, Mr. Pendergast. You try logic on . . . that!”

  The Hulk clambered out of the launch well, a twenty-foot length of the mangled launch tower trailing from his hand. Pleased with the havoc he had wreaked, the jade giant dropped the twisted steel tower back into the pit. There was still much to be done.

  “Bug-eyes said Hulk should smash it all,” he grumbled solemnly.

  The green giant leaped up toward the partially ruined steel ceiling and grabbed hold of the twisted, metal launch door. He tore it loose from its partially severed hinges and followed it down to the floor forty feet below.