Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Your Race Must Die!


Can YOU


Name This Marvel Villain??



From a very old form of life on Earth stalks the Inheritor, who emerges from a wrecked space ship to find himself bereft of memory, except for a vague sense of entitlement:



Granted, the Inheritor certainly doesn't look like anything that originated on Earth--but as his memories return, so, too, will we gain an understanding of his origin. For now, it looks like Earth has plenty to fear from him in his present form:




From that gruesome scene, the Inheritor trudges along until he hits his next target--a truck carrying radioactive material, headed for Hulkbuster Base. And the Inheritor discovers that the radiation released from the damaged containers begins to revive both his strength (like he needed more strength?) and his memories:




Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of the radiation present to grant him more than a dim sense of how his species dates back to prehistoric times. And so he makes a full attack against Hulkbuster Base in order to access more plentiful supplies. You'd think a combat force armed with weaponry and tanks would be enough to take this monster down--but we of course know the Inheritor isn't the only monster that Ross's unit has had trouble dealing with:



Speaking of which, the Inheritor is heading directly to the lab where Bruce Banner is currently working on a radiation-based solution to cure himself of his transformations to the Hulk. Suffice to say that the Inheritor has other plans for the machinery:





With the increased radiation exposure, the Inheritor's full memories return to him--and we learn that his present form is a result of the High Evolutionary's experiments in genetic evolution. But, as was the case with the Man-Beast, the Evolutionary's work would sometimes result in the occasional "oops":





Naturally, the intrusion of the Inheritor is enough to trigger Banner's change to the Hulk, and the two powerful beings engage in a brutal battle. Eventually, the Inheritor realizes that he must absorb more radiation to not only overcome the Hulk, but to ensure that he is no longer in danger of regression. And that leads him to another bank of machinery, and a fatal mistake:




For the equipment that he's made use of was the same equipment Banner had been experimenting with, designed to drain radiation.

But, what exactly did the Evolutionary experiment on to create the Inheritor, a species which claimed the Earth as its own and regarded man as its mortal enemy? When the Hulk angrily arrives in the chamber to conclude their battle, we finally learn the answer:




Heh heh--you have to admit the Inheritor made for the perfect bookend to our last mystery villain, eh?

2 comments:

  1. I first saw this tale in a black & white reprint mag called The Mighty World of Marvel (still got it.) The great Trimpe/Severin art had me hooked.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Same here on the Trimpe/Severin team, Kid. It was just a feast for the eyes.

    ReplyDelete