Random Happenstance

We saw his later fight with "She-Thing" some time back, but today we get to the second round of this particular slugfest: from 1988, Incredible Hulk #350, "Before the Fall" Written by Peter David, pencils by Jeff Purves, inks by Terry Austin.

I may have to trundle out to my garage to look for the first part of this one, "Pride Goeth..." from Fantastic Four #320, although I don't think most of Englehart's run held up that well. And the splash page catches you up just fine, anyway: Doctor Doom (or "Doctor Doom," 90% sure he was a Doombot!) has talked the grey Hulk into a fight with the new and improved spiky Thing. Smaller and not-as-strong as the classic "Hulk smash" version, the grey Fixit gets crushed by the stronger-than-usual Thing; but the fight is interrupted by the appearance of said classic Hulk! Old speech patterns and all! While they scuffle, Doom picks Fixit up, who perhaps for the first time, feels "puny."

The green Hulk was from Eternals #14, of all places; a robot rebuilt and repurposed by Doom. And the robot wasn't tagged in to help out Fixit, but to rectify the mistake of working with him in the first place: Doom was pretty sure Ben was gonna beat the Hulk robot as bad as he beat Fixit, and he was going to call it a day. Fixit claims he's not out yet, though. Meanwhile, Ben has realized, the "Hulk" wasn't getting angrier and stronger; it was a fake. Fixit watches Ben take the robot apart, and realizes his advantage: he knew his opponent. With the sun now down, Fixit was tougher; but also lighter and faster: he lets himself be seen, so Ben will chase him into Central Park. Fixit uses hit-and-run tactics, forcing Ben to run around--and badmouth Nightcrawler? Aw, what'd he do to you?

After forty-five minutes of chasing what he assumed was a robot, Ben is getting exhausted, but takes a running start at him...and misses, landing in the lake! He thinks he's got enough air to last him, until Fixit "heimlich's" the air out of him, nearly drowning him. Barely getting to shore, Ben asks how he got there so fast, and Fixit finally speaks to him: "I jumped." Realization dawns as Ben recognizes the voice, that he thought was dead and gone! 

 Doom is impressed with Fixit's win, or at least pretends to be; and assumes he can count on his support when the time comes to retake Latveria. Which might've been the plan, but FF writer Steve Englehart ended up burning that plot in a dream sequence in FF #330! Still, Doom doesn't offer Fixit a ride back to Vegas, so he's going to have to jump--except, he happens to pass the site of Avengers Mansion, which was more-or-less demolished at the time. Oh, well, not his problem--except, the Beast is there, called in on a major emergency that's called in the reserves. Worse for Fixit, the Beast realizes who he is, and quickly blackmails him into helping out: to be continued in Avengers Annual #17! Pretty good planning there.