Since his explosive debut in May 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s gamma-irradiated Jade Giant has been one of their most recognisable and successful characters thanks, in large part, to the Incredible Hulk television show (1977 to 1982) catapulting the Hulk into a mainstream, pop culture icon. The Hulk has been no slouch in the comics either, being a founding member of the Avengers and undergoing numerous changes that have made him one of their most versatile and enduring characters.
Published: 22 December 1992 / 26 January 1993
Writer: Peter David
Artists: George Pérez
The Background:
The Incredible Hulk (and his human alter ego, Doctor Robert Bruce Banner) was another creation of Marvel legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Inspired by the story of a hysterical mother showcasing superhuman strength to rescue her endangered child and classic movie monsters like Frankenstein’s Monster and Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, the Hulk functioned as an allegory for the foils of war and was initially depicted as a stone-grey figure who emerged at night. Although his first series was cancelled after a year and a half in, the character returned to prominence following expansions of his lore and character and the popularity of the Incredible Hulk TV series. Nowadays, the Hulk is a staple of Marvel Comics, with an extensive gallery of villains who have tested him both physically and mentally, but one of his greatest tests came when writer Peter David and artist George Pérez had the Green Goliath encounter a possible future version of himself, the malevolent Maestro. Possessing the same insurmountable strength as the Hulk and bolstered by his calculating intellect, the Maestro is often regarded as one of the Hulk’s most dangerous and formidable villains. His debut story is so well regarded that the character has cropped up in additional tales to flesh out his backstory and regularly appears in the Hulk’s cartoon and videogame adaptations, so great is the threat of this devious alternative Hulk.
The Review:
Our story begins in a dystopian wasteland about one hundred years into the future; the overgrown, dishevelled ruins of New York City house the remnants of society in overcrowded, war-torn streets. Tensions are high and a “Big Brother” monitoring system is in place, courtesy of the mysterious Maestro, who dwells within an emerald palace high above the ruins. Amidst the bustling, anxious crowd, we’re introduced to Janis Jones and her cohorts in the rebellion against the Maestro, one that’s vastly outnumbered and against the odds. This is immediately demonstrated not just in their paranoia about their plans being overheard by the Maestro’s “Gravity Police” but the violent introduction of his cybernetic law enforcers, who immediately execute one of their number and demand their immediate surrender. Although Janis begs them to fall back and get to safety, her fellow insurgents choose to fight, leaving the elderly Pizfiz with a bloody stump for a leg and Janis and Skooter desperately trying to escape their pursuers. Luckily for them, a building collapses and covers their escape and, from the rubble, emerges none other than the Incredible Hulk. Now, this is the so-called “Professor Hulk”, a stable merging of Banner and the Hulk’s psyches who operated during the nineties. This Hulk wears clothes and is capable of intelligent speech, while also still exhibiting his trademark superhuman strength and dexterity, though not quite to the same degree as his usual savage self. This means he waxes lyrical while thrashing the Gravity Police but briefly struggles against their massive, mechanical “Dog O’ War”. However, he’s still the Hulk so naturally he rips the robot dog’s head off and sends the cops packing as a message to the Maestro.
Naturally, the Hulk attracts a fair amount of attention as he walks the streets; the people view him with a mixture of fear and respect, which he finds strangely alluring. He’s soon accosted by Janis and taken to the literal underground, where the rebellion hides deep beneath the wreckage of the city streets. Janis gives her people a quick history lesson on the Hulk, going over his classic origin courtesy of “sliding”, a visual representation of actual eyewitnesses to the Hulk’s history. It seems Janis recruited him to help them out and the Hulk went along because his old friend, Rick Jones, vouched for her and out of curiosity regarding the Maestro’s true identity. Janis takes the Hulk to an aged and decrepit Rick, who sits in Professor Charles Xavier’s hoverchair amidst a trophy room of those who have fallen in the years since, hero and villain alike. Word of the Hulk’s appearance quickly reaches Thomas Raymond, minister to the Maestro, who interrupts his leader’s orgy to bring him news of this temporal impossibility, giving us our first look at the Maestro as an older, more grizzled version of the Hulk who sports a lion’s mane of grey hair and beard. Favouring a regal cape and an intimidating helmet, the Maestro callously interrogates Pizfiz. When Pizfiz tries to goad the Maestro into losing his temper and killing him, the dictator allows the influence of the Minister and his cooler temperament to keep him in check and forcibly extracts the information he requires. Pizfix got Doctor Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom’s time machine up and running and sent himself and Janis to the past to recruit the young Rick and the Hulk in helping them out. When Pizfiz is left a broken, lifeless husk from the stress of the procedure, the Maestro splatters him for his insolence and prepares to lead a strike team to hunt down his younger counterpart.
The frail Rick reveals that, in the end, humanity was their own undoing; two massive nuclear wars ravaged the world, killing the world’s heroes and villains, not to mention countless innocents, with only their costumes and ashes left as a memorial in Rick’s collection. Not so for the Maestro, who only increased in power from the radioactive fallout, built a dystopian society for his own amusement, and was driven completely insane. Much like Darkseid, the destitute peons of the city cheer the Maestro’s name and try to win his favour, only to be brushed aside and kicked out of the way like flies. The Maestro also has no time or worry for any defences the resistance may have set up and simply burrows his way down to their hideout using sheer brute strength, caring little when his men are dissolved by acid and gas or sliced to ribbons by lasers. The Maestro simply walks through these traps to come face to face, and blow for blow, with his counterpart. Their fight quickly explodes to the streets above, where the Maestro tests the Hulk’s resolve by calling him ”Puny Banner” and threatens to tear an innocent girl to pieces if he doesn’t surrender. The Hulk calls his bluff, reasoning that the Maestro must truly fear him to resort to such a tactic, but is unable to keep himself from leaping to the woman’s aid, much to the Maestro’s delight and disgust. Though the two are somewhat evenly matched, the Maestro takes the upper hand throughout the fight; he also constantly goads the Hulk, reasoning that he (as in the Maestro) can out-think and out-match him at every turn through the gift of hindsight as well as his awesome power and devious intellect. The plan works; when the Hulk charges in, the Maestro easily dodges and counters him to prove his intellectual superiority. Although the Hulk briefly turns the tide by fighting dirty with a nut shot, a haymaker sends the Maestro into a nearby building crushing and threatening innocent lives. The Hulk’s desperate need to save those lives allows the Maestro to get the jump on him and subdue him by breaking his neck. While Janis and the other lament the damage done to the Hulk, the Green Goliath wakes in the Maestro’s throne room, strapped into a massive neck brace and attended to by one of the Maestro’s “favourites”, who identifies herself as “Betty” and, apparently, rapes or at least physically interferes with him against his will, much to the Maestro’s pleasure.
Powerless and paralysed, the Hulk is forced to endure the Maestro’s scathing rhetoric; the Maestro even offers the Hulk the opportunity to put himself out of his misery, confident that his existence is assured since he has no memory of these events. The two get into a metaphysical debate about time travel theory but, in the end, the Hulk can’t bring himself to end his life since the risk that the Maestro is telling the truth about branching timelines being true is too great and would simply result in the Maestro’s continued existence. Resigned to being held prisoner while his wounds heal, the Hulk is forced out to the wastelands, where the elderly Boz and other would-be farmers desperately try to cultivate the irradiated and war-torn soil. Due to the scarce resources in the city, and the physical imperfections of these outsiders, they’re dependent on the Maestro’s limited generosity. He allows them to live, even furnishes them with supplies and has been trying to introduce nutrients into the soil, and all he asks in return is to take their most beautiful and worthwhile women for his own sordid amusement. The Maestro tries to win the Hulk over to his way of thinking, dressing him in fine robes and expositing the benefits of the less spirited slave girls in his palace, but the Hulk remains unimpressed. The Maestro sees his indignation and rejects it; to him, humans are the true monsters, for they destroyed themselves before any supervillain could. He sees himself as benefitting from the strange fate placed upon him since he was fortunate to have avoided being at ground zero and therefore reaped the rewards of the nuclear fallout while the world died around him. He offers the Hulk the chance to stay and rule at his side, promising that the future that lies ahead of him is full of the same hatred ad betrayal he’s always known, and the Hulk feigns temptation, and the extent of his injuries, in order to lead Janis and her allies into the palace.
Pointed in the right direction by the Minister, the Hulk attempts to confront the Maestro directly and is blasted full force by a cannon specially created by Forge to kill the Green Goliath. Congratulating himself for being one step ahead of his counterpart, and his enemies, once more, the Maestro sets his forces against the resistance and a big ol’ shootout ensues. Angered at his soldiers’ inability to wipe the resistance out, and the disappearance of the wounded Hulk, the Maestro callously snaps the Minister’s neck and storms off in search of his younger self as his palace becomes a chaotic warzone. The Maestro follows the Hulk’s blood trail, and the familiar sound of Rick’s harmonica, to the trophy room; there, he chastises himself for allowing sentiment to stay his hand and delivers a mighty blow to his old friend. Though the frail Rick attempts to shield himself with the iconic shield of Captain Steve Rogers/Captain America, the force of the punch sends him flying across the room, where he’s impaled on the Adamantium claws of James “Logan” Howlett/Wolverine’s skeleton, much to the Maestro’s sneering amusement. In anger, the Hulk launches a surprise attack and attempts to cut the Maestro in half with Cap’s shield. When the Maestro attempts to counterattack with Thor Odinson’s magic hammer, he’s incensed to find he still cannot enough to lift it and briefly takes a beating after being blinded by the ashes of his former lover, Doctor Betty Ross. Once again, though, the injured Hulk finds himself overpowered and pummelled by the insane dictator’s onslaught; however, in the end, the Hulk is able to outsmart his devious doppelganger by luring him into Dr. Doom’s time machine. The Hulk activates the device, sending the Maestro to the one place he can be destroyed, ground zero of the very Gamma explosion that birthed the Hulk in the first place! In the aftermath, Boz’s daughter is returned to him and the people begin to pick their lives up in the Maestro’s absence. In a poignant farewell to his old friend, the Hulk launches Rick’s ashes, attached to Cap’s shield, into the horizon for one last adventure.
The Summary:
If you’ve ever read any story dealing with a dystopian future, particularly in Marvel Comics, then much of Future Imperfect will be visually familiar to you. The depiction of a war-ravaged, overgrown city full of strangely dressed survivors, cobbled together technology, and an oppressive, survival-of-the-fittest mentality is nothing new but this story does put a bit of a unique spin on things by focusing on the Hulk. As is often the case with stories that take place far in the future, the people of Future Imperfect use a lot of weird terminology in place of modern slang, curses, and even simple words like “see” to give it that bizarre edge, but this isn’t a future where advanced technology is readily commonplace. Thanks to humanity waging two devastating wars, these people are lucky to even be alive, much less spared the ravages of radiation poisoning and mutation, and it’s only through the paper thin grace of the tyrannical Maestro that they’re even able to eek out the harsh living they’re forced to endure. What’s left of the world’s heroes and Marvel’s iconic characters is stored in Rick’s trophy room; tattered costumes, forgotten weapons, and the ashes and memories of heroes and villains alike adorn the walls and are a stark reminder that, for all their battles, the superhuman community was unable to save humanity from itself in the end. This, as much as anything else, is a crucial aspect of the Maestro’s rise to power; as he so eloquently exposits to the Hulk, the people who hated, feared, and fought him were undone by their own monstrous nature and the “monster” they rallied against became a saviour and survivor in the aftermath.
At least, that’s how he sees himself. A combination of radiation, power, and presumably survivor’s guilt have driven the future Hulk completely mad. Selfish and tyrannical, he cares only for his own self gratification and sees himself as a tough but fair ruler to his people, who he demands sing his praises but cares little if they’re trampled underfoot. This is perfectly juxtaposed by the Hulk; younger, leaner, far less jaded (no pun intended), the Hulk retains his moral compass and respect for life, setting him at ideological odds with the Maestro in a way that wouldn’t be as possible or versatile with his more savage counterpart. It also helps that Professor Hulk is clearly much weaker than usual, especially against the Maestro; the added radiation and one hundred years of living give the Maestro the edge in terms of sheer power, ferocity, and cunning that even Professor Hulk struggles against. Rather than thinking with his fists or relying on his usual strategies, the Hulk is forced to endure being the Maestro’s captive to wait for an opening to strike more effectively, which allows us a deeper glimpse into the workings of the Maestro’s world and the depths of his insanity. I think it’s telling that the Maestro is so loquacious in his demeanour; he truly sees himself as the hero of his world, as the apex predator, and as deserving of everything his built and amassed after being hounded all his life and left the sole survivor following the devastating nuclear attacks.
Thus, the Maestro and the Hulk clash with morals as much as their fists, and both are intriguing. It’s not often that you see the Hulk, even Professor Hulk, manhandled and brutalised as badly as he is here; he’s constantly being swatted away, overpowered, and injured, bleeding in the finale and left half-paralysed after having his neck broken! In the rare instances when the Hulk is able to fight back, he’s always on the back foot within a few panels and, in the end, is forced to outwit the Maestro rather than out-fight him since he’s clearly outmatched. The supporting characters were okay; they fulfilled their purpose as resistance fighters who recruited the Hulk out of desperation, but it does make you wonder why Janis wouldn’t just stay in the past when she travelled back rather than risk her life saving a world that’s already gone to hell. The story even lampshades the suggestion that they go back and get more reinforcements; like, yeah, they could have tried to recruit more heroes while back in the past, and honestly the whole story of how the Hulk even got there is barely touched upon. Ultimately, they’re a means to an end; Janis needs to exist so the story can happen, but she’s not as interesting to me as the elderly Rick and his roomful of Easter Eggs, which served as a great backdrop for the finale. Ultimately, I can see why the story and the Maestro are so fondly regarded; it definitely could’ve benefited from being longer, perhaps five twenty page issues, to help things breathe a bit. Yet, the visual of the Maestro, his wild hair and his gruff, conniving demeanour, is certainly striking. The idea of the Hulk becoming intelligent and cruel enough to rule over the last vestiges of humanity is a powerful one since his rage at being ostracised is fully justified and he represents a nigh-unstoppable foe, and those elements were conveyed very well even in these two, all-too-brief issues.
My Rating:
Great Stuff
Are you a fan of Future Imperfect? What did you think to the Maestro and his depiction as a tyrannical, malicious future version of the Hulk? Were you a fan of Professor Hulk, and would you have liked to see the more savage Hulk take his place in this story? Which of the Easter Eggs in Rick’s trophy room was your favourite? Which dystopian future of Marvel Comics is your favourite and do you have a favourite alternative version of the Hulk? How are you celebrating the Hulk’s debut this month? Whatever your thoughts on Future Imperfect, go ahead and share them below or leave a comment on my social media and be sure to check out my other Hulk content.
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