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Exiles Vol 1 79

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...the only thing that could ever stop the Hulk... is the Hulk.

—Rick Jones

Appearing in ""World Tour: Future Imperfect" (Part I of II)"

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Synopsis for ""World Tour: Future Imperfect" (Part I of II)"

Peter Parker (Earth-9200) from Exiles Vol 1 79 001

Rick Jones explains the backstory of Earth-9200 to Proteus. He was in the Negaverse when most of his friends died and, with Captain Marvel's last breath, she clicked her Nega-Bands and brought Rick back to Earth. When he arrived, the nuclear war had just finished, and all of the heroes were dead, save one. The extra radiation fed the last hero, and turned him mad, until he became the intolerable tyrant, the Maestro.

Power Princess' first arrival at the Crystal Palace is an eventful one, as she attempts to take command, instructing the Timebreakers to reduce the light to tolerable human spectrum, and ignoring Heather's request to surgically implant some steel in her cerebellum. Blink agrees with her, saying that their plans so far have led to people getting killed and Proteus escaping time after time.

Heather explains the situation on Earth-9200, and Power Princess formulates a plan.

Proteus and Rick Jones arrive at Rick's collection room, and Proteus notes some familiar pieces before Rick comes to the reason they came there. It seems that Forge built a Maestro-killing gun before he was arrested, and it's up to Proteus to use it on the Maestro to put everyone out of their misery.

Proteus makes his way to the Maestro, surprised when he doesn't have to fight anyone along the way. The Maestro explains that he was told Proteus was coming, and the Exiles reveal themselves behind the Maestro. Proteus wastes no time, and begins shooting with Forge's gun, hitting the Maestro before having it blinked away by Blink.

Proteus slaps his hands together, creating a huge sonic boom that knocks the Exiles away, and giving him time to jump on top of the Maestro, ready to swap bodies with him. Poison and intense pain make him jump right back into his previous Hulk body, where he discovers that what he thought was the Maestro was Morph posing as him. Spidey blinds him with webbing, and he starts bringing down the place around them. Power Princess decides to end the fight, and takes one of Longshot's throwing knives, commenting that she can throw it hard enough to penetrate the Hulk's skin. She does, and there's a moment of joy until they all realize that she pierced the Maestro's skin by mistake, turning him into an enraged beast!

Solicit Synopsis

The new team is now complete, just in time to be pulled apart. The Exiles find themselves on a world under the rule of the Incredible Hulk! He’s already killed all the heroes of his world, so what’s to stop him from doing the same to the Exiles?!

Notes

  • In this issue, Morph morphs into a highly-decorated army general, a giant alarm for a head, Hulk's head, the Maestro's assistant, and the Maestro.
  • When it was written in 2006, this visit to the "Future Imperfect " timeline was consistent with what little had been revealed about the Maestro's history in the original mini-series. However, that stopped being the case when, beginning in 2020, Peter David wrote three Maestro limited series which revealed the long-awaited origin of the Maestro and how he rose to power, and some of these new facts were no longer consistent with what had been presented in the Exiles two-parter. The most significant revelation was that the Maestro who built the city of Dystopia was actually the Hercules from Earth-9200 and that the Hulk, after being in suspended animation in Los Angeles for decades, didn't reach Dystopia, kill Hercules and become the new Maestro until after Rick Jones was a balding older man confined to a wheelchair.[1]
    • Based on these massive differences, the best explanation would seem to be that the "Future Imperfect" world seen in this issue and the next cannot actually be Earth-9200, and therefore must be some as-yet-unnumbered timeline. However, that's for the staff of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe to decide.
  • Aside from that major chronology problem, another difference is that this Rick claims that his wife Marlo was killed by the nukes while the second story in Maestro #3 revealed that she had survived the war but was killed later by a scavenger while helping Rick retrieve Wolverine's skeleton for his collection.
  • A third difference is that, while this Rick claims that he was bonded to a white-haired female Captain Marvel (presumably Phyla-Vell) at the time of the nuclear war and that she was the third Captain Marvel to whom he had been bonded, none of the David-written stories have Old Rick Jones mentioning any "Captain Marvel" except for Captain Mar-Vell.
    • This Rick also mentions that he used to spend time in the "Negaverse" while the 616 Rick used to spend time in the Negative Zone.
  • Forge's Anti-Maestro Gun was stated to have been specifically designed by Forge to kill the Maestro but the Gravity Cops had nabbed him before he had a chance to use it. This matches with its appearance in Hulk: Future Imperfect #2 where the Maestro stated that Forge had designed it for the express purpose of killing him but Forge had never had the chance to aim it.
    • It will be revealed in Maestro #5 that the gun that Forge had built to kill the Hulk had been in Rick's lair until one of his people, Dakord, had taken it to try to kill the pre-Maestro Hulk but it had then fallen into the Hulk's hands.
    • The Earth-616 version of the Anti-Hulk Gun first appeared in Incredible Hulk #455.
  • As revealed in Maestro #2, Dystopia was constructed in the area that was formerly New York City. However, at the time this comic was published, that fact wouldn't be established for another 14 years.

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