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scans_dailyNikoleta Harrow's story largely was Marvel Knights: Hulk.
(That wasn't a bad thing; the Hulk's suited to playing a reactive role.)
The four-issue Joe Keatinge/Piotr Kowalski mini opened with Bruce Banner face down in the Seine. A lady pulled him out and took him home to her uncle's spare apartment. The next day, she took him to a bar for a drink.
There, two men on his trail confronted him. Amnesiac, he fled; determined, they followed.
On their boss's orders, they injected themselves with a green serum that transformed them into towering Hulks. They pursued Banner through the streets and the Metro, catching his subway car and hurling it into the Louvre.
Then they exploded.
Bruce, the only survivor, was taken into the police's custody.
Then he was explosively abducted by Nikoleta Harrow, who took him off to her base in Pripyat and tried to make him turn into the Hulk she needed.
(You might recognize Kowalski's art from his and Joe Casey's Sex.)
The serum took effect; Bruce hallucinated his origin, and the Hulk telling him that he had to change.
" Hulk "
" will "
He raged indiscriminately, knocking aside both AIM and Harrow's forces, and then subsided.
" Smash. "
Issue #2 ended on that note.
Issue #3 opened on one just like it, then flashed back to Nikoleta's past.
(That's almost certainly Jonas Harrow.)
(This beat Original Sin to " remember Doctor Midas? " by about half a year.)
The story then jumped forward to Nikoleta's present.
She killed Mantlo and watched her Hulk break the rest of her machines.
She had all she needed, and set out to do all she wanted with it.
Several weeks passed before she was challenged.
Bruce awoke from the hallucinatory life he'd been living and de-Hulked, remembering everything.
As Nikoleta tried to land the craft his transformation'd been turbulent to, he recognized their destination, the " .. birthplace of the one last thing [she needed]..
" The Gamma Bomb. "
#3 ended with their descent.
#4 began after they landed. Bruce thought about the Hulk's wrath, remembered how he'd lost his memory after Harrow'd taken him off to her satellite base to get the stuff of Hulks from him and he'd escaped through the atmosphere, and realized that she'd let herself be followed in her journey by AIM.
Harrow smiled and set off the gamma bomb already stowed away in her vessel.
Bruce transformed.
" You're just as I always dreamed you'd be. "
Harrow injected herself with her Hulk serum.
" What will they think of me? "
She transformed and fought both Bruce and AIM.
(Even as a Hulk, she has that hair.)
(Nothing quite so convenient for Hulks as the tearing of fabric.)
(Presumably, this somehow flushed all the giant out of Bruce's Hulk form.)
(Keatinge's said that that's indeed Shamrock; he thought the hairdresser thing "betrayed her character".)
The story of Nikoleta Harrow ended there, recontextualized as part of a game between two of the most powerful men in the world.
(Oh yes, pagecount- 4 of 20 from #2, 3 of 20 from #3, and 6 of 20 from #4.)
(That wasn't a bad thing; the Hulk's suited to playing a reactive role.)
The four-issue Joe Keatinge/Piotr Kowalski mini opened with Bruce Banner face down in the Seine. A lady pulled him out and took him home to her uncle's spare apartment. The next day, she took him to a bar for a drink.
There, two men on his trail confronted him. Amnesiac, he fled; determined, they followed.
On their boss's orders, they injected themselves with a green serum that transformed them into towering Hulks. They pursued Banner through the streets and the Metro, catching his subway car and hurling it into the Louvre.
Then they exploded.
Bruce, the only survivor, was taken into the police's custody.
Then he was explosively abducted by Nikoleta Harrow, who took him off to her base in Pripyat and tried to make him turn into the Hulk she needed.
(You might recognize Kowalski's art from his and Joe Casey's Sex.)
The serum took effect; Bruce hallucinated his origin, and the Hulk telling him that he had to change.
" Hulk "
" will "
He raged indiscriminately, knocking aside both AIM and Harrow's forces, and then subsided.
" Smash. "
Issue #2 ended on that note.
Issue #3 opened on one just like it, then flashed back to Nikoleta's past.
(That's almost certainly Jonas Harrow.)
(This beat Original Sin to " remember Doctor Midas? " by about half a year.)
The story then jumped forward to Nikoleta's present.
She killed Mantlo and watched her Hulk break the rest of her machines.
She had all she needed, and set out to do all she wanted with it.
Several weeks passed before she was challenged.
Bruce awoke from the hallucinatory life he'd been living and de-Hulked, remembering everything.
As Nikoleta tried to land the craft his transformation'd been turbulent to, he recognized their destination, the " .. birthplace of the one last thing [she needed]..
" The Gamma Bomb. "
#3 ended with their descent.
#4 began after they landed. Bruce thought about the Hulk's wrath, remembered how he'd lost his memory after Harrow'd taken him off to her satellite base to get the stuff of Hulks from him and he'd escaped through the atmosphere, and realized that she'd let herself be followed in her journey by AIM.
Harrow smiled and set off the gamma bomb already stowed away in her vessel.
Bruce transformed.
" You're just as I always dreamed you'd be. "
Harrow injected herself with her Hulk serum.
" What will they think of me? "
She transformed and fought both Bruce and AIM.
(Even as a Hulk, she has that hair.)
(Nothing quite so convenient for Hulks as the tearing of fabric.)
(Presumably, this somehow flushed all the giant out of Bruce's Hulk form.)
(Keatinge's said that that's indeed Shamrock; he thought the hairdresser thing "betrayed her character".)
The story of Nikoleta Harrow ended there, recontextualized as part of a game between two of the most powerful men in the world.
(Oh yes, pagecount- 4 of 20 from #2, 3 of 20 from #3, and 6 of 20 from #4.)
no subject
Date: 2015-05-16 04:45 pm (UTC)I like to imagine that there's a Latverian craftsman somewhere, who spends all his time obsessively creating and updating chess pieces to represent anyone whom Doom might conceivably include in the next one of these matches. And then half the time Doom destroys them all in a sweeping gesture of victory at the end, and the guy's like "Do you know how long I spent on Nick Fury's stubble?" But not aloud, because, y'know, Doctor Doom.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-16 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-16 05:03 pm (UTC)I mean, causing a Hulk rampage and an attack by a giant A.I.M. army just so you can move a little wooden piece on a board is pretty hardcore villainy.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-16 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-16 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-18 11:48 am (UTC)