Imagine an episode of the TV show, that ended with smoldering wreckage and zero survivors.

Funny, I would've been reading the book regularly; but I have no recollection of this issue, nor do I remember what happened to a character returning here: well, I guess that's why I have this thing, isn't it? To remind me to piece it together later. From 1996, Incredible Hulk #443, "Then and Now" Written by Peter David, pencils by Angel Medina, inks by Robin Riggs.

Rick Jones's granddaughter Janis from the future of um, Future Imperfect returns to the present, in Alaska, and starts tracking the Hulk. She was followed by a bounty hunter, Quarry; but the fight is momentarily delayed by a forest fire; set by a troubled young woman, Robbie. When she gets to a trapper's lodge, with her dad and fiancé, Robbie tries to shift the blame to Janis; who pretty quickly realizes the fiancé wasn't just quick with his fists with her. Quarry arrives and murders all of the trappers, with a little gun called a devastator. He takes a shot that Janis dodges, and the Hulk gets it directly in the face: Quarry had never seen anything survive a shot from that, but all it did was make the Hulk a little more irritated.

Quarry isn't particularly worried, since he had all the high-end gear, like some kind of sticky-flame; and the Hulk was dumb, right? Well, he was smart enough to grab the devastator when he was in close. (That's the trouble with a wee, Noisy Cricket-type gun: too easy to lose track of!) Hulk shoots Quarry a few times with it, ignoring his pleas for mercy: Quarry had thought he was a hard man, but getting repeatedly shot with his own gun changed his mind. Hulk then smashes the weapon, and starts to head out. Janis asks him for help, but he refuses, yet still lets her come with him as he leaps away. I thought Quarry maybe survived and appeared again, but I might just be confusing him with some of the other jerks the Hulk fought in David's run, like Trauma or Madman, that maybe didn't quite get to the same level of recurring baddie like the Abomination.

While Robbie had lost her abuser, she mourned her dad, and forgave him for not knowing she was being abused. She burns down the lodge and the bodies, waiting with a fire extinquisher until morning, then "...she turned and went into the woods. And was never again seen by the eyes of man." That...that's not a happy ending. Robbie didn't appear the previous issue, so this issue was all we see of her, and I'm wondering how much of her setting fires was a cry for help, and how much was a murder attempt, to get away from her abuser. But she seemed a little too into the fire, and too quick to make excuses and point fingers...Anyway, next month was part of the Onslaught crossover, of all things: I thought this was post-Heroes Reborn at first glance; since the cover said the Hulk was back, but just from a couple issues off; so I'm not sure why the Hulk was kinda surly here, or how long Janis's plotline went.