by Len Wein
Stepping through the leaves and out of the artificial swamp environment into the heart of the Collector’s starship. Banner gazed around, amazed. Everywhere he turned, he beheld the fantastic. To the left stood the treasures of a pharaoh, displayed within a large glass case as if in a museum, though each piece of metal was oddly untouched by age. To Banner’s right, a spear with a single spot of blood on its point rested on a velvet table. Before him spread exhibit after exhibit, treasures from every possible time, every possible world, the stuff of myth and legend, each and every item in perfect condition, and each and every item beyond the ability of any mortal mind to fully comprehend.
“It’s absolutely incredible! This entire complex is one vast museum, an archeologist’s paradise. There’s Neanderthal man living side by side with aliens, and more everywhere I turn!
“But who can all this possibly belong to? What race of beings could possess the power to gather all this together? And why in heaven’s name would they want the Hulk as one of their exhibits?” The questions raced through Banner’s mind as he rushed through the halls of the museum ship, searching for something—anything—he could truly understand.
Past the mythical Hydra, looming large in its cage, past creatures from beyond the farthest stars, Banner ran on. Then stopped as if he had been clubbed.
“My God! It looks like I’m not the only human being in this madhouse! That girl in the Arabian Nights exhibit is moving—she’s alive!” Banner moved closer, somehow sensing that he could pass through the invisible boundaries that held the exhibits now that he was no longer bound by the strange shackle. But as he entered the colorful simulation of ancient Araby, the girl turned with a start.
“Whoever you are, go away! I have no more stories to tell! Leave me alone!” she screamed, tossing her polished mirror at Banner, as if it were an ax.
“Hey, take it easy, will you, lady?” Banner said, ducking the flying object. “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m as much a prisoner here as you are! I’m only trying to figure out what’s going on around here.”
“Oh, praise be to Allah,” the young woman said, moving closer to Banner so he could appreciate her beauty—and her desperate sorrow.
“You don’t know how I’ve longed for this—longed for someone to talk to besides that accursed Collector. I’m so very tired of the endless stories he commands me to tell. Please, good sir, you must get me out of here,” she pleaded.
“The lady’s right, mister. Yuh just gotta help us,” shouted Corporal Jamie Dawson, formerly of the Confederate Army, from his Gettysburg exhibit.
“Please, human, we’d sooner die than remain in this hellish captivity,” added M’blyx’ll, once first among equals of the planet Gr’ll’mry.
“We beg you, sir. Pray aid us in escaping,” beseeched Quantus, the ancient Roman Centurian.
“From time untold, the Collector has held us here, Earthling. We can stand it no longer. Either release us—or show us the mercy of slaying us,” added yet another alien creature, whose name would be wholly unpronounceable by human tongue.
“Nobody is going to die if I can help it,” replied Banner. “There has to be a control room of some sort around here to power the force fields which keep you contained, and I’m going to find it.”
“If you wish, Doctor Banner, I would be more than happy to show you the way,” said the Collector, as he stepped out from behind a tall display case that held the cup from which Socrates had drunk his hemlock.
“Although I am well acquainted with your emerald alter ego, Doctor Banner, I’m afraid you and I have never been formally introduced. I am called the Collector, my friend, and we two have much to talk about.”
From the Arabian Nights exhibit, there came a solitary wail of despair, and then there was silence. Smiling, the Collector put a paternal arm around Banner’s bare shoulders and led him away, describing in exquisite detail the many treasures that they passed.
“You seem awfuly sure of yourself, Collector, taking one of your so-called exhibits on a grand tour of your private little playground,” Banner said sarcastically. “Aren’t you afraid I might use what you’re telling me to aid in my escape?”
“Hardly, Doctor,” the Collector replied, snapping his fingers. Instantly, a bronze giant appeared before them, arriving in a blinding flash of light.
“Permit me to introduce Akbar, once the personal bodyguard of the illustrious Kublai Khan, and now my personal manservant. I have little to fear with Akbar around,” the Collector said, his smile growing broader.
“No, Doctor, fear is not my problem,” the ageless enigma said, his smile suddenly vanishing. “What bothers me is loneliness. For time beyond measure, I have traveled the universe, gathering my exhibits, carefully cataloging them, doing what must be done—but always doing it alone!
“And that, Doctor Banner, is where you come in. For you, too, are alone in a sense, forever cursed to become the monstrous Hulk, a creature whose meager intelligence must revile a man of your own great intellect.
“Well, I can rid you of the monster who dwells within you, Doctor—permanently!”
“What are you saying, Collector?” Banner replied in astonishment. “It’s impossible! I know. I’ve tried.”
“Perhaps, Banner, but you are not the Collector. You do not possess the fabled Elixir of Life,” the ageless one said, drawing a filigreed flask from the folds of his cloak. “Drink of this, and you will never become that hideous man-brute again.”
“I sense strings attached to this, Collector. What’s the catch?”
“All I want of you, my good Doctor, is the one thing my boundless collection has never been able to give me—company. Someone to talk to. Someone to help me pass the endless years. In return, I offer you a cure for your affliction, and a chance to join me in exploring the secrets of the universe.” The Collector held the fragile flask out to Banner, and his unsettling smile returned.
For a moment, Banner stood there, stunned by the Collector’s offer. It was as if an angel had reached down and offered to grant his every wish, not only would he finally be free from the curse of the Hulk, but he would be able to devote a lifetime—no, many lifetimes—to studying those mysteries that have baffled men of science since the beginning of recorded time.
“You want an answer, Collector? All right, I’ll give you one,” Banner said, looking his host straight in the eye for the first time. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
The emotional flow of the moment spread through the awesome museum ship, until it finally found focus in an environment that simulated swamphood. For some time, the exhibit’s two nigh-mindless occupants had stood stoop shouldered, unmoving, until the Man-Thing’s unique empathic nature was suddenly assaulted by the sheer ferocity of Bruce Banner’s distant outburst. And the murk-dweller shambled forth, drawn to the seething emotions as a moth is drawn to flame.
At first, the electronic stasis shackle around his ankle was carried along by the meandering Man-Thing, until the miry once-man reached the perimeters of the force field. There, the gleaming shackle stopped, as it was designed to do. Its mossy captive, however, did not. As the Man-Thing pressed relentlessly forward, the shackle was pulled clean through its awful leg, falling to the ground with a soft thud.
Almost as if comprehending what its dull eyes had seen, the golem wrenched its own shackle through its claylike leg, and tossed it aside. Then the two misshapen monsters lumbered out of their confinement, and through the endless halls of the ship, shuffling ever so slowly past the bewildered gaze of creatures even more incredible than they.
And for the first time in memory—although these monsters had no memory—they moved with a sense of purpose.
The Collector breathed in slowly, relishing the tasteless, computer-controlled air for the first time in all too many centuries. He studied the somber young scientist standing before him for what seemed like many minutes before he could find his voice to speak.
“You cannot know how pleased I am that you have acce
pted my offer, Doctor,” the Collector said, struggling desperately to control his eager emotions. “I’ve journeyed back and forth across the infinite, trying to find someone who would—”
A sharp, piercing squeal interrupted the Collector in mid-sentence. His hopeful eyes narrowed to suspicious slits as he glared at a crimson light blinking on a broad control panel.
“Eh? The cell signal! One of the exhibits has escaped!”
Banner turned toward the panel in confusion. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you understand, Banner?” the Collector shouted, unable to contain his rising furor. “One of the exhibits has escaped! It has to be found—returned to its cell!”
“Exhibits?” Banner rolled the word around in his mind. “My God, that’s really all those people are to you, isn’t it? Nothing but lousy exhibits!
“I must have been out of my mind to agree to your offer,” Banner snarled, as the bronze giant Akbar moved toward him. “Our deal is off, Collector, and neither your promised salvation nor your muscle-bound bodyguard can stop me from making amends for what I almost did!”
“Akbar,” the Collector shouted, eyes blazing now with fury, “stop that young fool—and do it swiftly!”
Sinews bunched, his right hand gripping a razor-sharp silver scimitar, the Collector’s massive manservant leaped across the chamber, his yellowing teeth clenched in grim commitment.
Banner barely avoided the scimitar’s first swing and dove toward the computer console lining one wall. But, with stunning swiftness Akbar’s powerful arm lashed out, sending the frail physicist sprawling back over a bank of machinery, his pulse racing, his blood pounding in his ears.
“Excellent. Akbar,” the Collector said, pleased with his servant’s work. “Now come. We must recapture the escaped exhibits.”
But Akbar’s rage had yet to be sated. “No, Master,” he growled as he charged forward, sword arm raised in fusty anticipation. “The little one dared to attack you. For that, he must die!”
Akbar’s sword slashed downward, the silver elinting dully in the artificial light. In a moment, the little one would be split asunder, the bronze giant assured himself. Had not countless others, after all, stained his magnificent blade with their blood?
Suddenly, for no explicable reason—at least as far as Akbar was concerned—his slashing sword stopped in midswing. It took a moment for the dim-witted giant executioner to realize that a massive jade-hued fist held his brawny wrist in a grip of iron.
Akbar’s dull eyes grew wide in astonishment. He had expected to find the frail Doctor Banner cowering in fear behind the computer console. Instead, a monstrous green behemoth rose from behind the machinery, emerald eyes ablaze.
In utter confusion, Akbar turned toward his master who was already reaching for the filigreed flask he had placed on a nearby table. “Master,” Akbar stammered uncertainly, with more than a trace of fear coloring his words, “the little one is gone . . . and there is a monster in his place.”
The green Goliath did not wait for Akbar to finish his explanation. He merely lashed out with a massive emerald fist that caught the bronze barbarian on the point of his jaw, sending him hurtling into the opposite wall, where he slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Then the man-brute turned toward the astonished Collector.
“You! Hulk remembers you, prune face. You are Hulk’s enemy!” the green Goliath growled. The Collector backed away slowly, half in fear, half in awe of this monstrous creature who had defeated his mighty manservant. Mere weeks before, Akbar had bested Krogg, the champion of the planet Orion, and Krogg was reputed to be the mightiest warrior in all the known galaxies. What, then, did that make the Hulk?
“You don’t understand, my friend. I’m not your enemy. I swear I’m not!” the Collector pleaded. “Look at me. Hulk! Hear what I have to say! Do you see this vial in my hand?”
Silently, the Hulk nodded, and a faint smile crossed the Collector’s ancient face. The emerald giant was listening to him. There was still hope. “Just drink of this elixir, my friend,” the Collector said, handing the small flask to the man-brute. “It is the Elixir of Life, and it will change you back to Bruce Banner—permanently!”
It felt as if eternities had passed before the Hulk finally understood the meaning of the Collector’s desperate words. “Stuff in bottle will turn Hulk into puny Banner, the one Hulk hates most in all the world?” the monster said slowly, obviously forcing himself to think. “Why would Hulk want to be puny Banner? Why would Hulk want to be anyone but Hulk?”
For a moment, the jade-hued giant stared at the tiny bottle in his hand, and the glowing crimson fluid within. Then very slowly, very deliberately, his hand became a fist, crushing the fragile flask to slivers. “Hulk hates Banner,” the man-monster snarled. “When Hulk finds Banner, Hulk will crush him—like this!
“But in the meantime, prune face,” the Hulk said, almost grinning as he looked up at the Collector once more, “Hulk will crush you!”
Powerful green hands suddenly lashed out, but all they grabbed was a mist that swirled and shifted and oozed through his fingers before melting into nothingness. The man-brute looked around, bewildered.
“I doubt you’ll be in any condition to crush so much as a flea, my monstrous friend. The Collector is not without power of his own.”
The man-brute spun on his heel, to find his silver-haired foe standing behind him. “Huh? How did prune face get behind Hulk? You were in Hulk’s hands!”
The Collector merely broadened his grin. “The question is not how I escaped you, my friend, but how you will escape me!”
Snarling in bestial fury, the man-brute tried to lunge at his tormentor, but found he could not. Shimmering lights danced like twinkling stars before his hooded eyes.
The Collector gestured flamboyantly as he watched the helpless behemoth pound his prison of lights to no avail. “You’re trapped in the most powerful force field at my disposal, Hulk,” the ageless figure explained, “so if you’re inclined to smash something, try smashing that!”
The emerald creature growled in rage and defiance. “Bah! Hulk will smash puny lights, prune face, and then Hulk will smash you!”
But the Collector was already gone, his cape swirling behind him as he vanished down one of the museum ship’s infinite corridors. The Hulk would be safely contained in his force-field cell, the ageless one knew. The behemoth could continue to pound the swirling energies to his heart’s content, but it would not really matter. Not in the long run. The Hulk was his prize now, another item to be added to his collection, just another exhibit in his private museum.
No, the Collector’s thoughts were not on the Hulk or his boundless rage. He was more concerned now with his other exhibits. One of them had somehow been set free. One of them was out roaming his corridors.
The museum ship’s mutely lit corridors seemed to stretch on forever. They circled giant amber cages in which creatures who were part bird, part man, and mostly some beast unknown, sat hunched over some tainted specimen of alien meat, feasting hungrily. They wound past glass-enclosed living dioramas, where survivors of long-extinct civilizations forever wondered what fate had befallen their ancient ancestors.
Most of the creatures sitting slumped within their cages said nothing. The precious spark which had once given them thought had been long since extinguished.
But there were others, creatures from different times and planets who had only recently been added to the Collector’s trove of treasures. And they were not content to sit placidly and while away their lives as the captive pets of an inhuman master. No, they were merely waiting for the right moment.
Their moment.
Unaware of the fascinating array of diverse life forms which stared at him, pleaded with him, begged him to help them, he shambled slowly through the endless corridors. He was oblivious to everything, save for the churning emotions which led him ever onward.
He was the Man-Thing, and he had long ago becom
e far more thing than man. But somewhere deep within his primitive consciousness, he felt the presence of another, lumbering mutely beside him. A kindred spirit, another hapless creature trapped within a misshapen, inhuman form.
Together, silently, the Man-Thing and the golem trudged through the Collector’s museum of nightmares.
“So! I should have realized it would be you who escaped.”
The Collector glared at the two monstrous creatures standing mutely before him, a trail of viscous slime behind them betraying the path they had taken. Deliberately, the ageless figure raised one powerful, gloved hand and the force-field lights winked off in several cages. Muscular gladiators from a dozen different worlds instantly leaped from their raised environmental platforms, landing nimbly on the corridor’s polished floor.
“Take them, my obedient ones,” shouted the Collector, as he gestured toward the Man-Thing and the golem. “Subdue them however you must.”
The first gladiator lunged forward, a golden trident clutched tightly in his hand. “It will take but a moment, Master,” the gladiator boasted. “Nothing that lives can stand against the trident of Tiberius!”
The black-maned warrior plunged his gleaming weapon squarely into the golem’s vast chest, then gaped in shock and horror as the claylike creature reached down with one moist hand and pulled it free, obviously unharmed by the deadly assault.
Before the stunned gladiator could recover his senses, the golem swung its heavy hand, and smashed him into unconsciousness.
Tiberius’ scream of pain assailed the Man-Thing mercilessly. His sensitive empathic nature made him reel with the overwhelming pressure of the emotions which swept over him. Thus, he did not even feel it when another gladiator, this time a nine-foot-tall giant from a star system several thousand parsecs from Earth, leaped to join the fray.
